Is Litchfield lapsing to its old Gentlemen's Agreement?


is the season to be jolly — and to wonder what’s going on in the minds of 70 upstanding residents of Litchfield, who have hired a Danbury lawyer to fight a proposal by an orthodox Jewish congregation to mount a synagogue in an old house on West Street.

Time was when activating its long-standing "Gentlemen’s Agreement" Litchfield managed to prevent then Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis from buying a home there.

Now, along comes the Chabad Lubavich group that wants to put on an addition to a Victorian house, one building away from the town’s Methodist church.

The opponents complain it would change the historic character of the historic town. An earlier complaint, based on the same reason, was also made against the erection of a tower on the roof of the synagogue. The tower would bear a large Hebrew letter and a clock.

Well, while I don’t live in Litchfield, I park my car in Litchfield, across the street from my Goshen home, so I reckon that gives me the wherewithal to stick my nose into this argument just once. Besides, I have a 567 phone exchange, shop in Litchfield’s "historic" Stop & Shop supermarket and dine in its restaurants.


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As for the alleged "historic character" of the town, where were the 70 aggrieved residents when the "historic" Ford dealership was sold to a Greek family who have been operating a popular Italian restaurant on the spot for several decades?

And then there’s the so-called "Litchfield Green" — which is not a green at all, compared to "The Green" which dominates the borough — and boasts a "historic" Chinese restaurant, a "historic" Mexican restaurant and a "historic" Dunkin’ Donuts.

Fact is, when locals are asked directions to one of the many enterprises in the so-called "Litchfield Green," to avoid a long conversation that usually ends up in confusion, they developed the habit of saying, "It’s in the Dunkin’ Donuts Plaza."

Across the street from the Mexican eatery, when we first set up housekeeping in the Litchfield Hills, there was an open field that was flooded in winter by the parks department and was a fun place for young ice skaters. Now an "historic" big box drugstore has taken up that space, albeit, architecturally it does have a clapboarded front so it’s not horribly offensive.

But close by, on the other side of Litchfield’s fire bucket brigade (just kidding firefighters, my grandson has just joined your ranks), another gas station-cum-snack-bar shop has opened recently. It sells petrol under the aegis of Irving, an extremely large Canadian chain, and is operated, probably under franchise, by an Indian (from India, not the Wild West).

The last time any American Indians were of any account in the region was when Litchfield was first settled and one of its residents ventured a little too far west and was killed by unfriendly Indians. His name was Harris and he gave Harris Plains, down the road opposite the big, sprawling, "historic" Litchfield Inn, its name.


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I like the Irving gas station because you still can set the nozzle and stand back while it automatically does the pumping for you. When you become an octogenarian, even holding a gas pump is a chore.

But I do have a major beef with Irving. Like most gas stations today it has a roof over the pumps so the patrons don’t stand in the rain whilst filling up their tanks, and at the same time keeps water from tripping into the tank. But until the other night I had not seen the Irving station roof lit up.

Gadzooks, as I was driving eastward on 202 toward The Green (the real Green, not the Dunkin’ Donuts non-green), I thought I had driven into Times Square. I put it to you and I leave it to you: there are too many, too bright lights in that roof and by golly, and by gosh, if that doesn’t diminish the "historic character" of Litchfield, then I’m a Mad Hatter.


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Now I suppose you could quibble that the synagogue will be located in the Borough and maybe "Dunkin’ Donuts Plaza" and the gas station are in downtown Litchfield but not in the "Borough" but, by me, that’s just a quibble.

And as for North and South streets, they are historic, but as many visitors may think, less than a handful are authentic Colonials. Some are in Colonial style, but they are part of a potpourri of Neo-Colonial, Greek Revival, Federal, Victorian, et al.

To bring this to a tortuous end, if New York City had hewed only to its old, original "historic" buildings, there would be no skyscrapers, and no brownstones, and....you get my drift. Time to think what I am going to order for dinner tonight in the "historic" Greek-owned, Bantam Pizza eatery.

 

Free-lance writer Barnett Laschever of Goshen lives in an 1810 Garrison Colonial and he clams up if you ask him what kind of siding he put on the house 43 years ago.

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