Some Norwalk photos #2

NORWALK, Conn. — Today we bring you photos taken Tuesday in South Norwalk, showing the state of the Ryan Park construction and the progress made in building Soundview Landing phase II, the development replacing Washington Village.

Above is a view of a recently installed Ryan Park playground, with SoNo 19 Day in the background. The former is a Spinnaker development referred to as Maritime Village when it was going through the Zoning approval process in 2014. 

The Norwalk Housing Authority’s effort to replace its 136 public housing units at Washington Village was supported by a $30 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Choice Neighborhoods Initiative grant, awarded in 2014. The resultant  Soundview Landing is a mixed income apartment complex, with one-third market rate housing, one-third affordable and one-third public housing. Phase I opened last year.

NancyOnNorwalk spoke Tuesday with a man and his mother; he said he grew up in Washington Village and his mother had spent her entire life in the neighborhood.

Now she lives in Soundview Landing. “I’m living with it,” she said, unenthusiastically, acknowledging that the new apartment is bigger and has new appliances. It would have taken $5,000 to get into an apartment elsewhere.

She said she’d been born in 1967 and remembered when the neighborhood roads were made of dirt. Her son admired the new Ryan Park basketball courts and said he’d “love” to play on them. It’s great for the new generation, he remarked.