Willimantic, Now and Then:
Public transportation has always been a lot of fun for me. I think it’s the PUBLIC part that amuses me. I almost always feel better when I’m around people.
That was my experience last week when I got on the Storrs–Willimantic bus to go to the museum. A pleasant trip to the museum turned into an adventure.
Sarah and I recently returned to Willimantic after living for almost a decade on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. For me, every day in Manhattan was an adventure, filled with a thousand big and little encounters with people. In all their chaotic majesty, people tripped, stumbled, charged or danced gracefully through our lives, from that first step onto the sidewalk in the morning, to the weary slog up the stairs at night. Whew!
So when we decided to go and see the Benton museum’s Kathe Kollwitz show the other day, it was nice to find the bus schedule fit into our day perfectly.
Sarah and I have always used public transportation: the WRTD buses around here, AMTRAK, Bonanza Bus, Metro North. Any time we find ourselves in a strange city, we figure out how to ride the buses, and we feel at home. We once planned a whole day in Boston, just because it would involved three different forms of public transportation: Bonanza to Providence, AMTRAK to South Station, and the MBTA around the city!
We have built our life so we can leave our car in the driveway for weeks on end, which feels pretty good right now, watching the gas prices change daily. I think of it as a survival skill for this modern world. I also find it has changed my perspective, moving mostly at a walking pace, from home to our shop, to run errands.
As a case in point, our trip to the museum started with a walk across the footbridge into Downtown Willimantic. The river was a rushing torrent from the heavy rains, and it was a thrill to stand high above, while the river raged below. That is something I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate from the window of a car.
And that was before we even got on the bus at Valley and Bank streets. It arrived on time, and we paid for the ride ($1.30 for one person, from Willimantic to Storrs) with our 10-ride ticket. These tickets are available from the WRTD offices at 968 Main Street, Willimantic. The 10-ride Ticket costs $10, and you can get a monthly pass for $40. Schedules and fares are posted at the web site for the Windham Region Transit District.
By Mark Svetz
In New York, we spent many hours enjoying the quiet recesses of various museums. Which was a delight, without a doubt, but as in Willimantic, the bus ride home was as much a thrill for me. I loved to take the M15 bus home from the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian way downtown. This trip took us through the amazingly crowded streets of the Lower East Side, including East Broadway, with its incredible array of street merchants, truck drivers, fish mongers and tourists.
The trip to Storrs was comparatively uneventful, I suppose, but it seemed full of excitement to me. I don’t get to the East Brook Mall very often, and it’s nice to ride along the brook with the added height of the bus. I love seeing the people who use the bus for grocery shopping, something we might all be figuring out how to do soon! It’s not always easy, but it comforts me to know others manage to avoid a car in this way.
It is always wonderful to arrive in Storrs without even having to think about where to park! It is a great walk from Rt. 195 to the Benton Museum, through the rare parts of campus that haven’t changed that much since I was a student there!
The Benton Museum has changed. There is now a really nice coffee shop at the entrance to the museum at what used to be the rear of the building. The Kathe Kollwitz exhibit is up through May 6. It includes 30 prints and photographs from the museum’s collection. I was hoping to see more of her drawings, but the current exhibit puts a powerful human face on the horrors of the war.
We had a cup of coffee and headed back for the bus. There was a woman at the bus stop I hadn’t seen in many years. Sarah and I used to play with her kids when we all lived on Spring Street in Willimantic. Her kids now have children of their own. We got a chance to catch up on the ride back to Willimantic.
We got off the bus in Downtown Willimantic and walked about a block to the Wrench in The Works library and meeting place, where we did, in fact, meet with some friends. We talked over coffee, then Sarah and I walked home.
All in an afternoon, and all because we chose to be “on the bus”!
Mark Svetz and Sarah Winter own Clothworks, a shop on Church Street in Downtown Willimantic, where they make and sell clothing and bags. They can walk to one of several WRTD bus stops in less than five minutes!
There were six or eight people on the bus when we boarded. It was enough to give me that “fly-on-the-wall” feeling of being invisible in a crowd. It’s a feeling I always get on buses and subways. I miss it since leaving the city, and it feels nice to get a little flashback whenever I board the bus. This, I think, is the adventure part. The part when I get to recharge my flagging batteries with some collective energy.
Magic Bus
WILLIMANTIC –May, 2007
