Westport Parks and Rec. Celebrates First Outdoor Movie at Compo in Two Years with “Luca” on the Lawn
The Westport Parks & Recreation Department celebrated a full lawn this evening as they showed the movie Luca under the stars. The free outdoor movie is the first since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and will take place again on August 25th, according to their social media accounts. Photo by Westport Parks & Rec.
Breaking Through
Orange beams from the setting sun found a small space in the clouds just big enough to allow their bright light to shower South Beach in their glow as dozens sat down for their evening barbecues. WestportLocal.com photo
Good Day for a Good Humor
A vintage Good Humor ice cream truck remained along Soundview Drive as passersby young and younger stopped to peruse the classic collection of frozen treats. The Good Humor company began to deliver ice cream in converted Model T Fords in the late 1920s, according to the Company, and continued to innovate up until they began to use the Ford F-100 series trucks that we can still see today - most popular due to their being sold-off in the 1970s. The Good Humor Man, and in this case: woman - rang their bells on many of the Westport community’s hottest days along the waterfront for decades. Today was no exception. WestportLocal.com photo
High 90s: High Occupancy at Compo Beach
With temperatures stretching towards one hundred degrees, Compo Beach was packed as hundreds took their chances at sweltering in the sun before jumping into the Sound to cool off. A typical day for Westport as the usual hot sand and sharp rock dancing could be noticed up and down the shoreline as beachgoers through their hands up to the heat and Summer continues for the community. WestportLocal.com photo
Wanna Have Fun? Cyndi Lauper Coming to Levitt Pavilion September 30th
From the Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts:
THE LEVITT PAVILION GALA IS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE LEAD SPONSORSHIP OF THE CLAUDIA AND ARTHUR COHEN FOUNDATION
Cyndi Lauper is a groundbreaking Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist with global record sales in excess of 50 million. Her iconic voice, influential punk glamour, and infectious live shows have catapulted her to stardom. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist with her first album, She's So Unusual, and became the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album. Since then, Lauper has released ten additional studio albums, yielding timeless classics like “Time After Time” and “True Colors,” and the anthemic “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” She’s been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, seven American Video Awards, and 18 MTV Awards. In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first solo woman to win Best Original Score (music and lyrics) for Kinky Boots. She contributed a Tony-nominated song to the score of the Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants and is currently writing the score for the Broadway adaptation of the 1988 feature film Working Girl.
A pillar of female success, Lauper was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, released a New York Times best-selling memoir, and continues to collect impressive accolades across the music industry and beyond. In 2018, Lauper designed and launched a sold-out Home Decor Collection with Grandin Road and added a guest starring role on CBS’ hit TV show Magnum PI to her acting resume. In 2018, she received the “Icon Award” from Billboard at its 13th annual Women In Music event and brought down the house with a rousing tribute to Cher at Kennedy Center Honors.
In January of 2022, Cyndi Lauper‘s smash debut 1983 girl-power anthem, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” joined the YouTube one billion views club. And in May, Sony Music Entertainment officially went into production for a Cyndi Lauper documentary titled “Let The Canary Sing,” a feature-length film that promises to explore the singer’s 30-plus year career. The film, which is being made in partnership with Lauper herself, will be directed by award-winning documentarian Alison Ellwood, who most recently directed the Emmy-nominated two-part documentary, “Laurel Canyon.”
In addition, Lauper is tireless in her advocacy work. She has been an activist since day one, always fighting for the underdog - especially women, people living with HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ people. Her commitment runs so deep that she started her own charity, the True Colors United in 2008 to bring an end to homelessness amongst LGBTQ youth, who make up to 40% of the youth homelessness population. Over the past 10 years, the True Colors United has had an indelible impact on ending youth homelessness in America. From playing a lead role in securing $167.5 million in new annual federal funding from Congress to invest in 46 communities across the country, which Cyndi powerfully testified in support of in the U.S. Senate, to training close to 2,000 homeless youth service providers for free over the past year to inclusively work with LGBTQ youth, Cyndi and the True Colors United are fundamentally changing how the country is working to prevent and end youth homelessness for the 4.2 million youth who experience it each year.
Member pre-sale active now.
On sale to public on Saturday, July 23 at 9AM (ET)
Note: “Gala + Concert Tickets” and Sponsor Packages Include Access to the Pre-Concert Gala Cocktail Party at Don Memo and Walrus Alley.
The 2022 Gala Cocktail Party is graciously sponsored by Roz & Bud Siegel.
Bridge Street Bridge: Another Day, Another Opening
Marcelino Martinez, a member of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, stands on the edge of the William F. Cribari Memorial Bridge that carries Bridge Street over the Saugatuck River as it swings back into place this afternoon along the river’s west bank. Martinez remarked that the bridge operated perfectly, pointing out that the opening and closing was silent with an updated motor in place that allows the bridge to swing the 90 degrees with ease. Martinez and his two colleagues are specially trained to operate the unique bridge on behalf of the DoT, including how to twist the 138 year old bridge open manually should the motor fail - just as it was done over one century ago. Today’s opening, and subsequent closure of Bridge Street, lasted about five minutes. WestportLocal.com photo
Click to enlarge photos. All photos by WestportLocal.comLucky Duck: Westporter Wins 2022 Great Duck Race, $5,000 Prize, with Duck #410
Janet Mittleman, a Westporter for 32 years, was this year’s Lucky Duck as her rubber ducky won the Westport Rotary’s Great Duck Race today on Jesup Green. Mittleman and her five year old grandson James Gladstein were all smiles as they came to claim their prize from First Selectwoman Jen Tooker and members of the Westport Rotary clubs after their duck, #410, made its way the fastest down the manmade river - with water supplied by Westport firefighters. Thousands of ducks took the plunge today from the bucket of an AJ Penna frontloader, with every duck randomly assigned a number that corresponded to a donor’s ticket. All money collected from the duck race goes back into the community as the funding supports numerous non-profit organizations and local events through the Westport Rotaries. WestportLocal.com photo
Runners (floaters?) up for this year’s race included:
Nick Battaglino
Anna Brady
Rob Graham
Alexnder Strompen
Tracey Cauley
Wen Hsu
Rady Johnson
Jason Wolgast
Silvia Durno
Passing the Football against Pastel Skies
Wednesday night’s warm skies allowed for some extra time to pass the football as Compo Beach slowly wound down for the evening. WestportLocal.com photo
Quiet Morning for Compo Lifeguards
Compo Beach Lifeguards had a quiet morning as hundreds of empty chairs lined the shoreline and nobody headed into the surf. The lifeguarding team will remain on their chairs tonight until 6:00 PM as part of their regular Summer hours. WestportLocal.com photo
Ghost Beach: Hundreds of Chairs with Nobody to Fill Them ahead of Fireworks
Hundreds of community members headed to Compo Beach this morning - some before sunrise - to stake their claim on the sand ahead of Westport’s fireworks spectacular. The beach appears busier than ever for a Thursday morning, but was silent as the chairs waited idly by for their families to return. A Westport tradition every year: the sight was one for sore eyes after two years without the Independence Day celebration. WestportLocal.com photo
“Yes, even the wall.”