St. Roch preserves church history, beauty
The Rev. Nicholas Calabro loves to watch people as they visit his church for the first time and notice 10 large beautifully stained glass windows through which light permeates St. Roch Church.
The Rev. Nicholas Calabro loves to watch people as they visit his church for the first time and notice 10 large beautifully stained glass windows through which light permeates St. Roch Church.
"It is a striking thing to see all the colors and the hues," said Calabro. "It's quite an art."
However, more than six decades of wear and tear have left the once pristine windows worn, faded and in need of extensive repair, Calabro said.
Now the church at 10 St. Roch Ave. is investing in much-needed restoration, hoping to protect the beauty and history of the stained glass windows that have been watching over the church since 1942.
William Murray is the man in charge of the painstaking process of removing the stained glass from the windows and making it look like new again. He began in September 2007 and has completed four of the 10 windows thus far. He is hoping to finish by early 2010.
Murray has been working with stained glass for more than 20 years, initially starting as an apprentice and now running his own studio in Alford, Mass.
"These are beautiful objects that I love to restore and preserve for the future," said Murray. "I love that they change all the time. It has a character all its own that depends on the day and the conditions." ....
Town girl's death deemed suicide
Town girl's death deemed suicide
The death last summer of a 14-year-old Chickahominy girl was due to suicide caused by acute salicylate intoxication, the Office of the Medical Examiner in Westchester has ruled.
Funnies taught as art
When coming up with good comic-strip ideas, Greenwich cartoonist Phil Lohmeyer says the best place to start is at the end.
"That's the most important part, because it's where you deliver your punch line," he told North Mianus School students in one of the final classes this past week. "You might have a funny premise, but it won't matter if you don't bring it home at the end."
That's one of the many lessons Lohmeyer, 28, left his students with last week, as he taught the last classes of the fall semester in his after-school cartooning course, offered at Cos Cob, North Mianus and North Street schools and International School at Dundee.
To cap those fall courses, the Greenwich native has published "Greenwich Cartooning Chronicles," the program's first-ever compilation of the more than 30 students' artwork of classic characters like Garfield, Scooby-Doo, Charlie Brown and Snoopy.
Copies of the "Chronicle" circulated through the town's elementary schools last week, part of Lohmeyer's effort to drum up interest in the program and give his students' work wider exposure, he said.
A former public school student, Lohmeyer worked as an art teacher at Eastern Middle School before leaving in 2005 to found a Cos Cob event-planning company, Golden Ticket Events, where he now works as a graphic designer.
The idea to teach a cartooning class, he said, came to him a couple years ago while doing ink work for the syndicated comic strip Beetle Bailey....
Towns hoping new year brings funds
Cities and towns are spending the days before Christmas compiling lists of infrastructure projects and checking them twice in the hopes that Congress will increase aid in the New Year.
Cities and towns are spending the days before Christmas compiling lists of infrastructure projects and checking them twice in the hopes that Congress will increase aid in the New Year.
Residents of Connecticut and other states in our region can breathe a healthy sigh of relief - at least healthier than it might have been. The reason is that time has run out on a Bush administration effort to change Clean Air Act rules and make them more permissive.
Under proposed rules that were pushed for years by the administration - and fought from the outset by our state - older coal-fired power plants would have been able to make substantial improvements and upgrades without installing the pollution-control equipment now required.
But fortunately, officials at the federal Department of Environmental Protection reported they could not have the rules finalized before President Bush leaves office in January, a task that was complicated by a federal court decision rejecting a related measure.
Why stopping that change was so important requires some history.
When the Clean Air Act was being refined in the 1970s, old plants were granted exceptions because it was assumed they would be phased out in a relatively short time and replaced with more-efficient and cleaner facilities. But generating companies found it profitable to continue operating them, and did so, continuing to produce substantial pollution.
Some of the companies also wanted to improve or expand them, but didn't want to incur the expense of limiting pollution output. The act specified that only routine maintenance could be performed without triggering the requirement for anti-pollution measures. ..... BLAH .... BLAH ..... BLAH ..... BLAH ..... BLAH ...... BLAH ...... BLAH ...... BLAH ......
To the editor:
I publicly ask the members of the Board of Education considering budget cuts to keep the magnet program at Hamilton Avenue School intact. implore the members to keep the activities - skating, swimming, Spanish and Suzuki - for all grades - not just older kids.
To those who might say the kids can learn this stuff after school and on weekends, that they don't need it during the school day, I say that is incorrect
Many of the kids at Hamilton Avenue can't go ice-skating and swimming after school. Their parents work and the kids are in child care.
Many Ham Ave. kids can't study Suzuki violin with a private tutor or at the Greenwich Suzuki School on Saturdays. Their parents can't afford it.
Hamilton Avenue was made a magnet school to attract a diverse population and help balance the student body. If the magnet school options are taken away, many of us who were attracted to the Renaissance programs will leave. If that student body is no longer balanced, Ham Ave. will no longer qualify for special treatment or the status it receives as a magnet school.
Children's learning experience is undoubtedly enhanced by the Renaissance offerings. Anyone who says proficiency, skills or standardized test scores have decreased should know that this is certainly due to the upheaval and deflated morale of life in the cramped modulars, not because of the extra opportunities offered.
If the students ever get into the new building, there will be a gym. But there is no ice-skating rink, no swimming pool. Those skating and swimming options must continue.
In the new building, there will be beautiful rooms where the kids can learn violin, cello and viola and can receive Spanish instruction - beginning in kindergarten.
These students have waited for years for the total positive experience of Hamilton Avenue School. I ask the board to please keep all the important programs they were promised, beginning with pre-school and kindergarten, so the students will have the same opportunities and potential for greatness as children in other schools.
Allison Radzin
Greenwich
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