
Photo by Danny Fields
Duncan Hannah was cool his whole life, which is pretty impressive considering most people aren’t even cool for a year. He also stayed cool while living in Connecticut, which is a bit like breathing on the moon.
I first met Hannah on a snowy morning in 2018, during a bitterly long New England winter that would last through May. I was at his home in West Cornwall, a short walk from the covered bridge, to interview him on the release of “20th Century Boy,” a published collection of the personal diaries he kept from 1970 through 1981.
In old photos next to Debbie Harry and Andy Warhol, Hannah appears as the portrait of effortless youth; smooth chest, bedroom eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lip. When not painting, he lived it up among the luminaries of New York’s grimiest decade, bumping shoulders in the dirty downtown bathrooms of Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, The Mudd Club. “A great cross-section of lunatics and rock stars,” Hannah told me.
At 65, layered in a pink button-down, olive sweater vest, and corduroy suit, he had settled into the out-of-time style of the old prep establishment, just the kind he had bucked against. There was a playful wit to this later life style (perfectly captured in a 2019 Esquire Magazine spread) a puckish nod to an Anglo-mania academia dress code that doesn’t exist anymore — least of all in today’s prep school teachers.
We sat in striped club chairs against walls lined with hardbacks, Saki and The Secret History, Tom Wolfe and Tom Swift. Hannah showed me a fan letter he had received from a girl at Phillips Exeter Academy. She had read his diary excerpts printed in The Paris Review that autumn.
The entries start in 1970 when 17-year-old Hannah was a real life angel-faced Holden Caulfield, flung out of his private boys’ academy and into the hallways of a Minnesota public school. He grows out his hair and distributes his own dirty 'zine, records all he takes in: the concerts, the albums, the film — The Stooges, David Bowie, “Chloe in The Afternoon.” He gets into Bard and discovers de Kooning, gets hit on by Allen Ginsberg, loses 20 pounds and fakes a lurid gay life to dodge the draft, struggles with his art professor’s criticism, meets many girls, and has sex the way no one born after the mid-80s has sex anymore, which is to say, thoughtfully. "We get horizontal, a nudging cunnilingus, she tastes like the sea," he wrote in 1973.
“I was thinking, it’s so funny, " Hannah told me as we talked about the fan/love letter, "she knows better, but she thinks she’s writing to the 20-year-old kid.”
What’s so obvious to me now is exactly why the girl at Exeter was swept away by the diaries, that voyeuristic view into the inner life of the ghost of a boy long gone. No 21st Century boy could write the way Hannah did, because no one has a private life anymore. Our diaries exist online, soullessly and self-consciously curated, eager to be discovered by an audience as we posture and pretend. If you don't take photo of yourself reading Keats, did it happen? But in sharing so much, we have lost the personal connection to ourselves. The dangerous thrill the girl experienced was reading secret, literary, lively written by a boy her age, lustfully connected his life, to himself, to his inner world of screw-ups, eroticism, beat poetry, and artistic discovery, none of it ever meant to be shared.
“Duncan Hannah finds himself in the very modern predicament of painting pictures that seem infuriatingly attractive. He has been called “the Barry Manilow of the New Wave” and the prophet of “the Age of Valium,” Glenn O’Brien wrote in the Summer 1984 issue of ArtForum. “He makes beautiful paintings that, like beautiful boys and girls, look like they should be popular. If he’s the prophet of anything it’s that living and painting well is revenge enough.”
His titillating oil paintings were as sincere as his diaries, Hopper minus event a hint of loneliness, a subdued pastel playground of coy pleasure, gamine elegance, and an endless array of perfect breasts — the dreamworld of a dreamboat.
Hannah died this year of a heart attack at 69. When I heard, I opened my copy of “20th Century Boy” and found a piece of hotel stationery he had slipped in, telling me to go read Tim Dlugos.
Dlugos was an openly gay young poet in the 1970s New York scene who continued to write as he died of AIDS complications at the end of the 1980s. In his most famous work “G-9,” named after his hospital room, Dlugos writes, “Duncan Hannah visits, and we talk of out-of-body experiences. His was amazing.” He recalls Duncan’s drunk nightmare in his dormitory at Bard, waking to find an imagined naked boy sleeping on the floor. “He struggled out of bed, walked over to the youth, and touched his shoulder. The boy turned; it was Duncan himself.”
“Collected Works by the Late Duncan Hannah” is now on view at The Cornwall Library in Cornwall, Conn., through Nov. 27.
Photo by Danny Fields
Photo by Danny Fields
Photo by Danny Fields
Cornwall Consolidated School seventh graders Skylar Brown, Izabella Coppola, Halley Villa, Willow Berry, Claire Barbosa, Willa Lesch, Vivianne DiRocco and Franco Aburto presented a group research project on the life of Naomi Freeman Wednesday, April 23. In attendance were U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., John Mills, president of Alex Breanne Corporation, Cornwall First Selectman Gordon Ridgway, Cornwall Selectman Jennifer Markow and CCS social studies teacher Will Vincent.
CORNWALL — “In Cornwall you have made the decision that everyone here matters and everyone’s story is important,” said U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Waterbury, to the seventh grade class at Cornwall Consolidated School April 23.
Hayes was in attendance to celebrate history on Wednesday as the CCS students presented their group research project on the life of Naomi Cain Freeman, the first Black female landowner in Cornwall.
To memorialize Freeman, the seventh graders petitioned the town selectmen to rename Great Hollow Road where the Freemans once lived. New street signs for Naomi Freeman Historic Road were created with some help from the town highway department.
“No one in this community, or the state for that matter, will ever forget that this happened here,” said Hayes.
Cornwall Highway Department helped the students create new signs to install on Great Hollow Road.Photo by Riley Klein
Per Cornwall Historical Society records, Freeman’s story began in 1794 when she was born in Vermont. John Sedgwick and his wife Abigail, of Cornwall, adopted her in 1801: an act that protected her from slavery, which was still legal in Connecticut at the time.
Sedgwick included Naomi in his will and she received a dowry after his death in 1820.
Naomi later married Obadiah “Obed” Freeman, a man who had been enslaved in Cornwall. She purchased an acre in Cornwall, becoming the town’s first African American woman to own land, and the two settled on Great Hollow Road in 1828.
Nearly 200 years later, the street itself bears her name.
“We are really proud of the work we’ve done and that Naomi Freeman will continue to be an impactful presence in our town,” said CCS student Vivianne DiRocco.
DiRocco and her classmates Skylar Brown, Izabella Coppola, Halley Villa, Willa Lesch, Willow Berry, and Claire Barbosa discovered Freeman’s story earlier this year while conducting research into important women in Cornwall’s history. The full project will be presented at Troutbeck Symposium May 1.
“One of the archaeologists who excavated the Freemans’ home told us about a gap in Connecticut’s history concerning the everyday life for free African Americans. We hope that we filled that gap a little bit,” said Lesch.
There are no known photographs or portraits of Freeman. The students utilized artificial intelligence to create images of what she might have looked like during her life in Cornwall.
The students created artwork to show what Naomi Freeman, her husband Obed and daughter Sarah might have looked like living in Cornwall.Photo by Riley Klein
“What an incredible example of what happens when young people are given the tools, the encouragement and the space to lead,” said CCS Principal Leanne Maguire. “Thank you for showing us what is possible when curiosity meets courage.”
John Mills, president of the Alex Breanne Corporation in West Hartford, was consulted by the students to help unearth census data and track down living descendants of Freeman. His company researches formerly enslaved people and brings their stories to light.
Mills said he was surprised to see the extensive research that was conducted by the students by the time he was contacted. His company sometimes helps render images for individuals lost to history, but the students had even taken that on themselves.
“I’m incredibly impressed with what you’ve done here,” said Mills to the students. “Now you’re a part of the celebration and civic engagement.”
Town of Salisbury
Board of Finance
Notice of Public Hearing Hybrid Meeting
Wednesday,
April 30th, 2025
7:30pm
A public hearing called by the Board of Finance will be held in-person and via Zoom at 7:30pm on Wednesday, April 30th, 2025 at Salisbury Town Hall, 27 Main Street, Salisbury, CT 06068 with the following agenda:
1. To receive public comment on the proposed Board of Education budget as presented.
2. To receive public comment on the proposed Board of Selectmen, town government budget as presented.
Note: Copies of the proposed budgets are available at Town Hall.
Board of Finance Meeting Immediately following the Public Hearing
1. Final Budget Review; Discussion and possible vote to present the Board of Education and Board of Selectmen, Town Government Budget to the Annual Town Budget meeting, which will take place on Wednesday, May 14th, 2025 at 7:30pm
Please Note: The Annual Town Budget Meeting date has been changed to Wednesday, May 14th, 2025 at 7:30pm.
Topic: Public Hearing on Budgets immediately followed by Board of Finance
Time: Apr 30, 2025 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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04-24-25
Legal Notice
The Planning & Zoning Commission of the Town of Salisbury will hold a Public Hearing on Special Permit Application #2025-0280 by owner Richard Cantele for Structures Located less than Fifty (50) feet from a Waterbody or Watercourse at 204 Between the Lakes Road, Salisbury, Map 58, Lot 03 per Section 404 of the Salisbury Zoning Regulations. The hearing will be held on Monday, May 5, 2025 at 6:45 PM. There is no physical location for this meeting. This meeting will be held virtually via Zoom where interested persons can listen to & speak on the matter. The application, agenda and meeting instructions will be listed at www.salisburyct.us/agendas/. Written comments may be submitted to the Land Use Office, Salisbury Town Hall, 27 Main Street, P.O. Box 548, Salisbury, CT or via email to landuse@salisburyct.us. Paper copies may be reviewed Monday through Thursday between the hours of 8:00 AM and 3:30 PM.
Salisbury Planning & Zoning Commission
Martin Whalen, Secretary
04-24-25
05-01-25
Notice of Decision
Town of Salisbury
Inland Wetlands & Watercourses Commission
Notice is hereby given that the following action was taken by the Inland Wetlands & Watercourses Commission of the Town of Salisbury, Connecticut on April 14, 2025:
Approved - Application 2025-IW-050 by Engineer Pat Hackett to install a new septic system. The property is shown on Salisbury Assessor’s map 59 as lot 09 and is known as 36 South Shore Road, Salisbury. The owner of the property is Noelle G Becker, Trustee.
Any aggrieved person may appeal this decision to the Connecticut Superior Court in accordance with the provisions of Connecticut General Statutes §22a-43(a) & §8-8.
04-24-25
TAX COLLECTOR TOWN OF
SALISBURY CT
LEGAL NOTICE
Pursuant to Sec. 12-145 of the Connecticut State Statutes, the taxpayers of the Town of Salisbury are hereby notified that the fourth installment on the Grand List of October 1, 2023 is due and payable on April l, 2025. Payments must be received or postmarked by May 1, 2025. If said Real Estate and Personal Property taxes are not paid on or before May 1, 2025, interest at the rate of one and one half percent (18% per year) will be added for each month or a fraction thereof which elapses from the time when such tax becomes due and payable until the same is paid. Minimum interest charge is $2.00.
Pursuant to Section 12-173 of the Connecticut State Statutes, unpaid Real Estate tax on the Grand List of October 1, 2023 will be LIENED on JUNE 6, 2025. Payment must be received by 12:00 p.m. on June 6, 2025 to avoid a Lien. Tax Office is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 9am- 4pm. Closed 12:30pm- 1 :30 pm.
Taxes can be paid by mail addressed to: Tax Collector, P.O. Box 338, 27 Main Street, Salisbury, CT 06068, There is a drop box in the vestibule of the Town Hall which is available 9am-4pm, Monday-Friday as well as a 24-hour drop slot at the rear of the building adjacent to the parking area. The Town is urging taxpayers to mail checks or use the option of paying by credit card or E-Check. Please see the Town website salisburyct.us for additional information. Dated at Town of Salisbury, CT this 15TH day of March 2025.
Jean F. Bell, CCMC
Tax Collector
Salisbury CT 06068
03-20-25
04-03-25
04-24-25
Experienced horse equestrian: to train three-year-old white Persian Mare for trail riding. 860-67-0499.
Help wanted: Small Angus Farm seeks reliable help for cattle and horses. Duties include feeding, fence repair, machine repair. Will train the right person. 860-671-0499.
The Town of Cornwall has several job openings for the Town Beach: Beach Director, Water Safety Instructor, and Certified Lifeguards. For more details and to apply, contact First Selectman’s office 860-672-4959.
Hector Pacay Service: House Remodeling, Landscaping, Lawn mowing, Garden mulch, Painting, Gutters, Pruning, Stump Grinding, Chipping, Tree work, Brush removal, Fence, Patio, Carpenter/decks, Masonry. Spring and Fall Cleanup. Commercial & Residential. Fully insured. 845-636-3212.
Hay For Sale: Round Bales. First Cutting covered hay, round bales. First cut hay covered with plastic. $25 for bale loaded. 860-671-0499.
PUBLISHER’S NOTICE: Equal Housing Opportunity. All real estate advertised in this newspaper is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1966 revised March 12, 1989 which makes it illegal to advertise any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color religion, sex, handicap or familial status or national origin or intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination. All residential property advertised in the State of Connecticut General Statutes 46a-64c which prohibit the making, printing or publishing or causing to be made, printed or published any notice, statement or advertisement with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, marital status, age, lawful source of income, familial status, physical or mental disability or an intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination.
3b/3b home in Sharon:fully furnished, lake access, 3.84 acres. $5000 per month. 860-309-4482.
MT RIGA Two Bedroom LAKEFRONT: Log cabin. Private beach, canoes and kayaks. $1350/Week. 585-355-5245.
Seasonal rental: Very private and comfortable 4B/3B home set back from the road. 6/15-9/15. sun rm/dr, upper and lower decks, ping pong and knock hockey, den, FP, W/D, fully equipped. 15K seas. 917-887-8885.
Sharon Rentals: 1b/1b home on a private lake. Avail 4/1/25. Yearly. $2750/Furnished, weekly house--keeping, garbage, water, ground maint. included. utilities addtl. 860-309-4482.