The Good Old Days in Darien / Ed Chrostowski

Among many complaints against the Connecticut Turnpike route through town almost 60 years ago, perhaps the loudest were directed at plans to plunk two fuel and food stops within Darien and now, in 2010, those station plazas are in the news again.

The new highway destroyed the old center of Noroton Heights, displacing more than 100 residents and businesses, and the town grudgingly acknowledged the inevitability of the turnpike path, but local reaction against the stations was persistent until it finally gained at least a compromise.

Initially, the state proposed putting the service areas opposite each other, one for northbound traffic and the other for southbound, along Hollow Tree Ridge Road. Each would have been about 20 acres obliterating residential neighborhoods in the Walmsley-Miles Road area. The whole town screamed long and loud and 350 people attended a public hearing to protest.

The state relented, but just a bit. Plans shifted the stations to an area along Old Kings Highway North, approximately in back of what is now the Goodwives Shopping Center. Neighbors there also were adamantly opposed and, as the location became a hot political issue, State Rep. Gennaro W. Frate suggested moving both to Norwalk or Stamford, charging that the "burden" shouldn't be "dumped" on a small town wedged between two cities that would be served by most of the traffic.

Planners countered that idea with a claim that neither city had any suitable areas along the new road large enough for the rest areas, but the new governor, Abe Ribicoff, did order the Highway Department to reconsider the proposal to put both stations in Darien.

Finally, "Chick" Kerrigan, then first selectman, suggested a compromise that was ultimately accepted.

The northbound station was placed near what was then a large sand and gravel pit and is now the pond in a nature area, Selleck's Woods, at the end of Fairmead Road. The other was placed near a similar pit at the Stamford town line.

That was far from the end of complaints, however. Residents objected to the noise made by huge trailer trucks that pulled into the areas for overnight rest stops, their engines running to maintain heat for dozing drivers or refrigeration for perishable cargoes. Conditions at the southbound stations were exacerbated a few years later when the State added an emissions testing station at the rear of the property and many drivers accessed it through Brookside Lane, a narrow residential street.

Other activities were alleged also and as recently as 2008 state police were investigating allegations that drug deals were going down in the parking area and "ladies of the evening" were plying their trade among truckers sleeping in their cabs. There were no reports of arrests.

Now a company is planning a $178 million upgrade of 23 stations on the Merritt Parkway and Connecticut Turnpike as Dunkin' Donuts and Subway prepare to the take over the franchise. Demolition and rebuilding of the Darien stations are included in the plans, which will be outlined at a public hearing at 8:15 a.m. Thursday, February 25, at Transit offices, 125 Wilson Ave., Norwalk.

Work in Darien, slated to begin in October of this year, will include additional fuel pumps and larger parking areas, while preserving the Selleck and Dunlap nature areas.

Back in the 1950s, the quarrel over the turnpike stations and then the stories about what was allegedly going on there after they were built provided plenty of material for Darien policemen to gossip about as they relaxed in the tiny headquarters area they called a squad room. But, in reality, most of the talk was about the foibles, fact and fiction, of other officers.

They never stopped kidding Hugh McManus, Sr., for example, about building a boat as a winter-time project in his cellar of his home and then not being able to get it out through the door in the spring.. He neither denied nor confirmed that, but anybody who knew him was sure he was too sharp to make that mistake.

The talent Officer Dance (called either Bill of Jim because his full name was William James Dance) had for sarcasm launched another oft-told tale. One evening, so the story goes, Dance was on traffic duty at the corner of West Avenue and the Post Road as the commuter train pulled in. A woman in Cadillac stopped for a red light and remained there as the signal went through its cycles -- green, yellow, red -- a couple of times. Finally, as horn-blowing traffic backed up, the perplexed Dance ambled over to her car and asked, "What's the matter lady? Don't we have any colors you like?"

While the truth of that tale always remained in doubt, there was no question about the valor of Walter Ponichtera on the night of the 1955 flood. As the water in the gully under the railroad bridge in the center of town began to rise, a car stalled there and the driver was stricken by what appeared to be a heart attack. "Wally," a big burly guy built like an all-pro tackle, waded in, got the man out of the car and carried him to dry land at George Bencher's gas station at the corner of Mechanic Street where an ambulance was waiting. "And Wally wasn't even breathing hard," admiring officers remarked when they told the story.

Sgt. George Evans also provided fodder for squad room chatter. Tall and lanky, he looked scholarly in his over-sized eyeglasses, but sometimes he was so excitable that he would stutter. One afternoon, Evans was watching a ball game on the television set a Stamford jeweler named Sosnowitz had donated for the squad room, when suddenly there was "snow" on the screen and static on the audio. Exasperated, Evans unleashed a string of expletives and blamed the generous jeweler. Curiously, as tense as he was, Evans had the steadiest hand and the keenest eye on the pistol firing range and regularly won marksmanship contests.

Amid the sports debates, the political conjectures and the good-natured banter, there also were lots of laughs about some of the unusual vocations of local residents, as well as much admiration for the way they parlayed those ideas into handsome paychecks.

There was, for example, Clarence Harbison, who was billed as the first known "dog psychologist" in the world. As a sort of "Fido's Freud," Harbison appeared many times on radio and television talk shows, was featured in newspaper and magazine articles and was pictured on Quaker Oats cereal boxes.

Most of the cops insisted that he didn't say anything they hadn't already learned while training their own family pets home, but they envied the way he was able to capitalize on his fleeting fame. The guys had a good time with that one.

Mixed with little if any shop talk, that's the kind of squad room conversation that kept us talking 60 years ago.

Ed Chrostowski was editor of The Darien Review during the '50s. He can be reached at skicrow@att.net.