Don’t Ruin Sandy Hook’s

Village Character

To the Editor:

Sandy Hook is a small village. In years past it was an area of interrelated families, small, close-knit neighborhoods, and small businesses. Through the years these have included Bassett’s liquor store, Warner’s general store, a bakery, a First National grocery, a shoe maker, “Helen’s” variety, a 5 & 10, a drugstore, a bar, a hotel, the Sandy Hook diner, a dry cleaners, a blacksmith shop, a service station and garage, and others.

The old have been replaced many times, but the original flavor has remained constant...a small country village.

Now comes a proposal to change the entire face of Sandy Hook forever. It has been proposed, by a Sandy Hook business owner, that the lovely old home at the corner of Riverside, Church Hill, and Washington Aveune be demolished. In its place would rise a stark, modern, totally out of character edifice, erected for a branch of the Newtown Savings Bank. And other equally modern buildings would also be constructed on the site.

Talk about a sore thumb! It just doesn’t fit. The most modern building in Sandy Hook is the firehouse on Riverside Road, and the next newest would be the liquor store-hair salon-deli complex and that is over 50 years old, and is conforming in style.

If a branch bank is truly needed in the center of Sandy Hook, why not do what was done on Main Street? The old house next to the bank was torn down, and then rebuilt to accommodate banking facilities while the outside looks like the original. The same could be done here.

For years the business owners in Sandy Hook have renovated buildings to suit their needs but have kept them looking the same. Growth is fine but the essential character of the village shouldn’t be changed by sticking a huge modern building right in the middle. The people on Main Street are very particular about how “the street” looks...I think it’s time that we who live in Sandy Hook should be just as fussy, and keep our little village looking like what it has always been...a little country village.

Betty Guarino

167 Walnut Tree Hill Road, Sandy Hook                     June 16, 2010