Route 7 bridge in Falls Village will be closed this weekend for work

The bridge on Route 7 across the Housatonic River, which links Falls Village and Salisbury, will be closed from  Friday, June 12, at 8 p.m. until  Monday, June 15, at 6 a.m. The bridge is near the turnoff for Housatonic Valley Regional High School and is also at an entrance to the Appalachian Trail.

The temporary closure will allow for delivery and erection of structural steel girders, according to the state Department of Transportation. When the project began, the state had announced that the bridge would have to be closed for at least one weekend.

Motorists should expect delays.

During the weekend closure, traffic will be sent along alternate roadways. Northbound traffic will be detoured along Route 112 (west, 4.5 miles) to Route 41 (north, 1.7 miles) to Route 44 (east, 8.5 miles) to Route 126.  At the intersection of routes 44 and 126 (just past Dutcher’s Bridge in Salisbury), traffic for Falls Village should proceed along Route 126 (south, 4.1 miles) back to Route 7 in Falls Village.

Traffic continuing north on Route 7 should proceed along Route 44 (east, 2.0 miles) and pick up Route 7 in North Canaan.

The transportation department estimates the temporary detour will increase the trip length by 7.4 miles for northbound traffic destined for North Canaan and by 12.3 miles for northbound bound traffic destined for Falls Village.

Traffic heading south from Falls Village will be detoured along Route 126 (north, 4.1 miles) to Route 44 (west, 8.5 miles) to Route 41 (south, 1.7 miles) to Route 112 (west, 4.5 miles) back to Route 7 near the race track at Lime Rock Park.

Southbound traffic destined for points south of the Housatonic River on Route 7 will be detoured from North Canaan along Route 44 (west, 10.5 miles) to Route 41 (south, 1.7 miles) to Route 112 (west, 4.5 miles) and back to Route 7 near Lime Rock Park.

The DOT estimates the temporary detour will increase the trip length by 12.3 miles for southbound traffic destined for Falls Village and by 7.4 miles for southbound traffic in North Canaan destined for Route 112.

The bridge will remain closed to pedestrians during the temporary detour. Appalachian Trail hikers will be detoured west along Route 112 and north along Dugway Road to reconnect to the trail at Falls Mountain Road on the west side of the Housatonic River. There are orange signs indicating the changes in path. A single white rectangle means walk straight ahead. If there are two rectangles, they indicate a turn, in the direction of the top rectangle.

People attending the season opener at Music Mountain Sunday, June 14, and coming from the south can either take Route 4 east from Cornwall Bridge to Goshen and then head north on Route 63 to Music Mountain Road, or take Route 128 east in West Cornwall to Route 63. For more information, go online to musicmountain.org.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less