2010: A good year in Falls Village

FALLS VILLAGE — Tiny Falls Village experienced an economic boom in 2010. Well, maybe not a boom, but three new retail businesses started up.

The Crossroads Deli opened in May, with Mike and Nancy Hodgkins taking over the convenience store and filling station business (at the junction of routes 63 and 7) from Pat Fife. The deli quickly developed a steady morning business, with locals gathering for coffee and conversation, and tradesmen coming in for breakfast sandwiches.

Many of those workmen were busy at the Falls Village Inn. Colin Chambers of Greenwich bought the inn in April, and with Sue Sweatapple and a large supporting cast began the renovations. The inn’s taproom opened for drinks with a light menu of updated classics in December.

Across the street, Jacobs Garage is expanding, adding a new building with five bays.

And around the corner, Patricia Walsh opened her Country Store in the former town hall at 107 Main St. With the Falls Village Children’s Theater at 103 Main getting closer to completing its renovation, and Krazy for Kazu’s occupying the space at 100 Main that formerly housed the Sweet William’s kitchen, downtown Falls Village is experiencing a renaissance.

The town is facing some tough decisions entering the new year. The number of students at Housatonic Valley Regional High School who live in Falls Village has increased significantly, and the choices facing the town — how to come up with the $315,000-plus portion of the Region One School District assessment — are all unpleasant.

The Volunteer Fire Department  needs about $2.3 million to finish the new firehouse on Route 7 — adding another layer of financial headache for the selectmen and the Board of Finance.

And Falls Village and Salisbury are teaming up to repair the Iron (or Amesville or Water Street) bridge, which is under unfriendly scutiny from the state.

The town received the thanks of the family of Evan Hunter Gillette, a 40-year-old man who found the grave of an ancestor, Ebenezer Harris, in Root Cemetery on Canaan Mountain.

Gillette died in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001. A stone honoring him is in the Root Cemetery as well, and during the 2010 Memorial Day ceremonies a wreath honoring him was laid at the War Memorial.

The Great Mountain Forest, which straddles Falls Village and Norfolk, kept a higher profile than in recent years, sponsoring lectures and workshops.

And the D.M. Hunt Library was everywhere, with author appearances, fundraisers and book sales galore.

In the election, Falls Village and the 63rd District will continue to be represented in the state Legislature by Republican John Rigby,  who despite being in Afghanistan managed to defeat Democratic challenger William Riiska 4,242 to 4,207, in one of the state’s tightest contests.

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