Woodbury

I couldn't do just the one post on Woodbury, because the town is absolutely full of the kind of stuff people from outside New England come to New England to stare at. And, apparently, the kind of stuff I stay in New England to stare at. (Pro tip: if you can't afford to go anywhere, it's best to live someplace pretty!)

Officially, Woodbury's thing is antiques. Not Putnam-style antiques, with huge multistory buildings containing wonderfully random bits and bobs and thingamajigs in a full range of prices, but, you know, antiques. (As my friends and I used to say growing up in Westport, make sure you get the sunscreen on the bottom of your nose, too.) There is a Connecticut Antiques Trail which consists entirely of Woodbury. Personally I think Putnam and Seymour and Collinsville should team up and arrange a protest to get in on that, but no one asks me about these things.

However, Woodbury also has much to offer people who are too broke to do anything but walk around. Yay for me!

Yes, that's another little (former) library in the first shot. The second building is really a pharmacy, not a leftover piece of a movie set. The third is yet another former library which was a school before that. The fourth is a municipal building called the Shove Building, which may or may not be fitting, I don't know anything about local Woodbury politics. And the last is, what else, a schoolhouse.

What *Is* That?! (Woodbury Edition)

Towering above Route 6 (Main Street) in Woodbury, almost out of sight at the top of a high rock face, is this 1838 Greek Revival building.

It is difficult to convey in pictures just how odd it is to see this thing for the first time. The building itself is not out of place in Woodbury, on a street where almost every other structure is historic, adorable, or both. And it's not at all unusual in any Connecticut town to find an impressive white edifice - usually that of a church - on the peak of a hill.

But this building is perched way up on this vertical slab of rock, at the summit of this tiny, rickety staircase, which appears to be held up by little sticks.

The stairs are not used anymore, and they're blocked off by a warning sign, so you can't climb them. Well, you could, but look at them. Would you want to?

The building is a Masonic Temple, and the story of how it got up there is really rather hilarious.

So now if you're on Route 6 and you see this thing and someone says, "What is that?!" you will know.