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Hike Cranbury Park, March 23, 2023

March 8, 2023 /
Our next hike will be on Thursday, March 23 at 10:30 am at Cranbury Park in Norwalk. The park’s expansive 227 acres surround the historic Gallaher Mansion, a classic example of Tudor Revival style of architecture which is on the National Registry. Beyond the great lawn and mansion, Cranbury Park offers a series of meandering and wooded trails and a dog-friendly environment. This hike has a few moderately difficult sections but otherwise has trails that are generally flat and well maintained. The entrance to the park is at 300 Grumman Avenue.
If you have questions or would like additional information, please contact Robert Plunkett.

Hike: Stamford waterfront, Feb. 23, 2023

February 9, 2023 /

 URBAN HIKE

   STAMFORD CT

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

      10:30 AM

We will meet at 10:30 in the parking lot for Harbor Point on the northwest corner of Washington and Atlantic Streets in Stamford.

(See directions below) The lot is quite large and free. 

Our urban tour will take us along the West Branch of the Rippowam River past the many new apartment and office buildings looking across the river mouth at the Crab Shell and Prime Restaurants on the opposite shore. We will continue into Kosciusko Park and walk the perimeter of the park past Shippan on the opposite shore. Leaving the park we will again pass through more of the new construction and have lunch in one of the restaurants there. Our total hike will be about 2.5 miles which should take us a little less than 90 minutes.

 

DIRECTIONS-Since the parking lot does not have an address, the route to follow is to take I-95 south to Exit 7. Turn left onto Canal Street and then right onto Dock at the first light. Follow Dock to Atlantic and turn left. Straight ahead on Atlantic to Washington. Turn right on Washington then a quick left into the lot.

Guests and dogs on a leash are welcome!

 

Dave McCollum and  Bob Plunkett

 

Recap:

The temperature was 38 degrees and a light mist was falling at 10:30 in the morning but 22 hardy DMAers and guests gathered in the Harbor Point parking lot for a hour and a half walking tour of the new South End. The area bounded by the east and west branches of the Rippowam River (“South End”) in Stamford has been redeveloped over the past several years into an impressive complex of apartments, restaurants, other retail and offices. We toured much of that new area and hiked around Kosciusko Park for a total of 2.2 miles in a little under 1.5 hours. 

We paused to pose for Marilyn Parker to take the group photo but otherwise kept walking, talking and looking at the scenery. 

Sixteen hikers stayed on for a burger lunch at Bareburger Restaurant which set up a long table for us. A delightful way to spend a late February morning!

Dave McCollum

Bob Plunkett

Book Club: Picasso’s War, by Hugh Eakin, April 12,2023

February 8, 2023 /

On April 12, we will turn to the world of international art. In January  1939, Pablo Picasso was renowned in Europe but disdained by many  in the United States. One year later, Americans across the country  were clamoring to see his art. How did the controversial leader of the Paris avant-garde break through to the heart of American culture?

The answer begins a generation earlier, when a renegade Irish  American lawyer named John Quinn set out to build the greatest  collection of Picassos in existence. His dream of a museum to house them died with him, until it was rediscovered by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., a cultural visionary who, at the age of 27, became the director of New York’s new Museum of Modern Art.

Barr and Quinn’s shared goal would be thwarted in the years to come—by popular hostility, by  the Depression, by Parisian intrigues, and by Picasso himself. It would take Hitler’s campaign  against Jews and modern art, and Barr’s fraught alliance with Paul Rosenberg, Picasso’s  persecuted art dealer, to get Picasso’s most important paintings out of Europe. Mounted in the  shadow of war, the groundbreaking exhibition Picasso: Forty Years of His Art would launch  Picasso in America, define MoMA as we know it, and shift the focus of the art world from Paris  to New York.

Picasso’s War is the never-before-told story about how a single exhibition, a decade in the  making, irrevocably changed American taste, and in doing so saved dozens of the twentieth  century’s most enduring artworks from the Nazis. Through a deft combination of new  scholarship and vivid storytelling, Hugh Eakin shows how two men and their obsession with  Picasso changed the art world forever.

Book Club: The Path Between the Seas – The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870 – 1914, by David McCullough, March 8, 2023

February 8, 2023 /

On March 8 at 1:30. we will discuss a first-rate drama of mobilization and  diplomacy “not unlike that of war.” When fifteen years of struggle  by Suez veteran Ferdinand de Lesseps to build a canal through the  Panamanian isthmus collapsed through tropical disease, logistical  barriers, and financial disgrace, two Americans managed literally  superlative accomplishments: moving billions of cubic yards of dirt, harnessing one of the world’s most savage rivers, developing an  unprecedented lock and electrical system, and, not least, defeating  the Anopheles mosquito. In an open, vigorous style, author David  McCullough contrasts the manic-depressive attitudes of French and  American populations and leaders toward the canal with the cool  perseverance of his two heroes: the engineer John Stevens, a  former common laborer who took charge of the collapsing canal  project and realized that the problem was not digging but  transportation; and Dr. William Gorges, who conquered malaria and yellow fever in a region  where hospital rooms used to literally shake from patients’ chills.

Ironically, it was the often jingoistic “Manifest Destiny” rhetoric and the medical experience of  the brutal Spanish-American War that provided Congressional backing and scientific leads for  the Panama task. A further twist was the origin of the Panamanian republic which permitted  the canal to go through: French adventurer Phillippe Bunau-Varilla executed a coup against  Colombia in 1903 for “the greater glory of France,” then, according to McCullough, promptly  put the new nation and its treasury under the wardship of the U.S. State Department and the  House of Morgan, respectively. Meanwhile, viewing the French example, Congress so feared possible graft in Panama that it threw horrific red tape around the canal project. But Stevens  was able to recruit the greatest engineering minds of the period – and the book is able to  recapture their breakthroughs.

March 29, 2023 — Phillip Dodd, author, “An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in NYC”

January 25, 2023 /

Author and architect Phillip James Dodd takes a close look at some of the finest examples of architecture in New York City – exploring four of the buildings featured in his book An American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City. While showing public exteriors, the lecture will also focus on the lavish interiors that are associated with the opulence of the Gilded Age—often providing a glimpse inside buildings not otherwise viewable to the public. Dodd recounts the fascinating stories of some of New York’s most famous and significant architectural landmarks, as well as those that commissioned and built them.

Copies of the book will be able for purchase at the event courtesy of Diane’s Books of Greenwich.

Phillip James Dodd is a native of Manchester, England. He attended the prestigious Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture in London, before moving to America in 1996, where he gained a Masters in Architecture from the University of Notre Dame. After training with some of the most recognized residential architectural firms in the United States, Phillip started his own design firm Phillip James Dodd: Bespoke Residential Design in nearby Greenwich. His designs can be found in Manhattan, Greenwich, Palm Beach, and as far away as Bangalore, India. He is a a Fellow Emeritus at the Institute of Classical Architecture (ICAA), a elected Fellow of the INTBAU College of Traditional Practitioners (an international body for practitioners in traditional architecture under the auspices of HRH Prince of Wales), and a commissioner on The Town of Greenwich Historic District Commission. Phillip is the recipient of the 2022 Elizabeth L. & John H. Schuyler Architectural Award, and has been named one of the Top 50 Coastal Architects in the Country.

Video Presentation 

March 22, 2023 — Dr. Alan Addley, “Public Schools in Darien”

January 25, 2023 /

Dr. Alan Addley, Superintendent of Schools in Darien, will provide a report on the state of the public school system in our Town and the most significant issues currently being addressed by the Darien Board of Education and its staff. Alan was appointed School Superintendent in July 2019. Immediately prior to that time, he served for 11 years as superintendent of schools in Granby, Connecticut.

Alan is a Governing Board member for the national superintendents’ association (AASA) and a past president of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS) and the Hartford Area Superintendents’ Association. Alan was the recipient of the 2017 UCONN NEAG School of Education Outstanding School Superintendent Award and was the 2019 CAPSS Connecticut Superintendent of the Year.

A native of Northern Ireland, Dr. Addley started his career as a mathematics teacher and professional soccer player. Alan has 37 years of administrative and teaching experience in private and public schools in the United States and Ireland. He earned his bachelor of science degree in education and mathematics from the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland; a master of science degree in instructional management and curriculum from Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, and his doctoral degree from the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.

Video Presentation 

March 15, 2023 — Mark Nunan, “Daniel Patrick Moynihan – Government in Thought and Action”

January 25, 2023 /

Mark Nunan, who has spoken to the DMA previously on Robert Moses, Fiorello La Guardia and Martin Van Buren, will discuss Daniel Patrick Moynihan as a practical theorist about the challenges of governing in the second half of the 20th Century,  and as a practicing governmental professional from the mid 1950’s up until the completion of his fourth term in the U.S. Senate in January 2001.

It is one thing for academics, prophets, and philosophers to clamor for ideal government or decry evil ones (Kings; Plato; Marx), and quite another for idealistic, pragmatic, ideological, adversarial, unrealistic, unruly, opportunistic, or corrupt politicians to legislate. Bismarck rightly compared this to sausage making, advising us not to look at the process if we want to enjoy the result.  Daniel Moynihan, in the Lion’s Den, might demur – after all, he wrote about it.

“Pat” Moynihan was a rarity: true scholar, passionate  politician, gifted writer. His trenchant wit and knack for capturing complex ideas in memorable aphorisms set him apart. This talent, combined with close study of actual data (which his Ph.D. in sociology  taught him to prize) helped him to pinpoint many anomalies of domestic and global politics, and compellingly convey the complex issues and dangers these raised.

His analyses and the solutions he proposed appeared to some “ahead of their time” and to others just too much. As a result, he was often “cancelled” by adversaries because of what he concluded the data revealed. But he persevered.

His life story is Dickensian at its nadir, which came early and fierce. And Dickensian in what followed, as he was blessed to find the resilience to recover from devastation, clamor for righteousness and succeed.

Mark will explore Moynihan’s impact by analyzing the principal themes of his thoughts on government and society, his practical bureaucratic and legislative battles and achievements, and key moments of his life and career. These range from teenage naval officer, to young aid to New York Governor Averell Harriman, to counselor to U.S. Presidents, to Harvard professor, to leading U.S. diplomat, to one of the most respected members of the U.S. Senate.

Not bad for a shoe-shine boy.

Mark Nunan holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and is a member of the DMA since 2018.

Video Presentation 

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