6/11/2009
Our photoblog, In Sight, and the rest of the staff blogs moved over to a new system last week. The photoblog will no longer be updated here.
Please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds: http://blog.ctnews.com/insight/
Thanks,
CP
6/3/09
Nick Casinelli, owner of Connecticut Cigar Company, enjoys one of his specialties in the cigar lounge on Bank Street in downtown Stamford.
Brian Defreese joins other members in the Connecticut Cigar Company lounge as they enjoy an evening of cigars, drinks and conversation.
Kathleen O’Rourke/The Advocate
As I leaned against the bar in the Connecticut Cigar Company, a dimly lit room with a group of cigar smokin’ men and Norah Jones playing in the background, I couldn’t help but text my colleague CP and tell him “I love my job”. This place has mood and it’s not surprising that women have discovered it as well. It seemed that differences in class, economic background and political ideologies were checked at the door. It’s all about good cigars, your drink of choice and pure camaraderie.
SEEN: A 55 Merc coupe. Dropped and chopped.
5/31/2009
Nice.
–CP
READ: Devon Lash’s story on the Wright Tech car show, and local reaction to Gov. Rell’s proposal to close the school.
Chris Preovolos/Stamford Advocate
ABOVE: The Board Lords at Meera in Stamford.
MEERA: TASTE OF INDIA, 227 SUMMER ST., STAMFORD
The warm air of late spring, thick with cigarette smoke, wafted in and mingled with the residual aroma of curry at the Indian restaurant, Meera Friday night. But the heavy guitar riffs of the skate rock band, the Board Lords, could be heard from across the street. And down the block.
As we – a trio of Advocate staffers – exited the freshly-minted Barcelona Wine and Tapas Bar looking for a quick nightcap, it became readily apparent that we needed to figure out what, exactly, was going on inside the small Indian restaurant.
At the makeshift bar, owner Bharat Patel was serving up $5 bottles of Corona, Heineken and Kingfisher, an Indian lager beer, while the Port Chester-based band cranked out one original song after another, punctuated with the occasional Clash, Specials or Dead Kennedys classic.
“It’s really loud, isn’t it?” said Patel, shortly after a brief conference with a couple city fire marshals, “I like them, but it’s really loud.” Patel then proceeded to tell me that his favorite band is Deep Purple, pioneers of heavy metal.
But the show continued and between songs, lead singer Steve “MC-Rice” Moy told the crowd that two fire marshals “just came in and said you guys are all right. Compared to Hula Hanks, you are all right.”
Around one o’clock the crowd began to thin out and with the band’s set over, only the sound of a piped-in Bollywood soundtrack remained.
–CP
ABOVE: Patsy Fabricatore, 85, looks at family photos on the refrigerator in the home that he and his sweetheart, Rose Arena, 74, share. The two met late in life after both being widowed and have been together for 14 years.
5/28/2009
On Tuesday, staff reporter Devon Lash and I ventured out to Virgil Street on the west side of Stamford, for the Advocate feature “The Dart”. We knocked on doors, peeked in the window of a church and checked out the bocce courts at a little Italian social club. All the time not knowing that our story was right inside the kitchen door of 46 Virgil St. There we met Patsy and Rose, two people who have been lucky enough to get a second chance at love. Look for their story on Monday.
Kathleen O’Rourke/The Advocate