In late May, stone carver Adam Paul Heller of Norfolk, Conn., received an unexpected phone call from the chief architect responsible for the New York State Capitol building. Would he be interested in joining a project underway at the capitol? It was extremely short notice, she admitted, but he would be contributing to a historic installation.
A statue honoring the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was to be added to the Great Western Staircase of the capitol building, a magnificent 19th-century stone structure filled with ornate carvings, including 77 notable figures from early New York State history. The Ginsburg statue would be the first — and only the seventh likeness of a woman — to be added since 1898.
Heller did not hesitate. “She’s [Justice Ginsburg] such a figure of our time and a bridge ‘of the people’,” says Heller. “I just have so much respect for her. And for the sculpture to be placed in such an epic location… I was very honored to participate.”
Meredith Bergmann, the sculptor who created the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park in new York City, had already been working on the Ginsburg piece for two years. Heller would carve the inscription.
As Heller describes it, the process of arriving at the lettering design for the four words, “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” was anything but simple.
“I had only seven weeks to design, set samples and complete the project,” he explains. “That is an unusually short period for this work.”
He immediately traveled to Albany, N.Y., for a site visit. The edifice had been built to impress, but perhaps only a stone carver could fully appreciate the immensity of the accomplishment and work involved.
“The craftsmanship in this building is incredible,” marveled Heller. “The building was created over a 30-year period. Imagine hundreds of craftsmen all working on this building, making perfect seams, perfectly level staircases. There are details in the work that you can’t believe.”
In his Norfolk studio, a peaceful haven behind his family’s farmhouse on the edge of a wood, Heller unrolled several scrolls of brown paper upon which variations of the justice’s name can be seen. He pointed out the evolution of the design.
“We tried several letter styles, several sizes.” He eventually decided on a 1-3/4-inch letter height of sans serif letters (a style without extra strokes at the ends of the letters), as “the serif doesn’t read as well in the available light. We could make the sans serif bolder.”
The prominent site on the staircase wall selected for the sculpture is lit primarily by an overhead skylight. So, much of the decision, said Heller, was “basically about light.”
While this may be his first capitol commission, Heller is well-equipped to approach historic lettering. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in studio arts at the University of Vermont, Heller spent three years at the John Stevens Shop (est. 1705) in Newport, R.I., practicing the art of hand-brushed letters, calligraphy and hand carved stone. After relocating to Norfolk in 2014 with his wife and two children, Heller established his stone carving studio, receiving commissions for lettering and custom stone carving projects from across the United States and Europe and working with many notable artists, including neo-conceptual artist Jenny Holzer.
The brown craft paper revealed more of Heller’s process. He began by laying out faint guidelines and then draws each letter by hand in graphite. These were then filled in with paint using a narrow sable brush. Once fully satisfied, he moved on to a practice piece of stone. The staircase material, he noted, is Scottish sandstone, basically brownstone that “is very consistent and carves excellently.”
After just a few short weeks (“pretty much lightning speed”), Heller was ready to set the inscription on the staircase wall. Carving took seven days over two long weekends.
Once the sculpture was installed along the wall between the second and third floors, Heller took over the scaffold. “I had a little place up there with a floor of boards across the poles and draped to try to create a studio environment inside—also so I didn’t have to look 45 feet down.”
Carefully, methodically, the three lines were laid out upon the sandstone. The center line was identified, and the line heights established. Heller then made a fine trace of the letters from the final layout and transferred them onto the stone’s surface. These were then brushed by hand in a white water-soluble paint for greater visibility.
Heller described the cuts: “I used two chisels; one is slightly rougher, and one is extra sharp for a crisp finish. You need this because it is a sandstone, and it can grind down a chisel.”
Each cut is roughly a quarter inch deep. He begins with the bottom-right letter, Heller explained, “so that I don’t accidentally rub out anything to the right since my right forearm rests on the stone to give stability.”
With every tap of his mallet, a single thin line joined the next until a letter, and then a word, was revealed.
With the official unveiling of the sculpture on Aug. 21, the artistry of the Norfolk stone carver and the powerful legacy of the Supreme Court justice from Brooklyn were forever tied within the stones of an historic landmark.
Article courtesy of Norfolk Now (nornow.org).
State Sen. Stephen Harding
NEW MILFORD — State Sen. and Minority Leader Stephen Harding announced Jan. 20 the launch of his re-election campaign for the state’s 30th Senate District.
Harding was first elected to the State Senate in November 2022. He previously served in the House beginning in 2015. He is an attorney from New Milford.
In his campaign announcement, he said, “There is still important work to do to make Connecticut more affordable, government more accountable, and create economic opportunity. I’m running for reelection to continue standing up for our communities, listening to residents, and delivering real results.”
As of late January, no publicly listed challenger has filed to run against him.
The 30th District includes Bethlehem, Brookfield, Cornwall, Falls Village, Goshen, Kent, Litchfield, Morris, New Fairfield, New Milford, North Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, Sherman, Warren, Washington, Winchester and part of Torrington.
MILLERTON — James (Jimmy) Cookingham, 51, a lifelong local resident, passed away on Jan. 19, 2026.
James was born on April 17, 1972 in Sharon, the son of Robert Cookingham and the late Joanne Cookingham.
He attended Webutuck Central School.
Jimmy was an avid farmer since a very young age at Daisey Hill and eventually had joint ownership of Daisey Hill Farm in Millerton with his wife Jessica.
He took great pride in growing pumpkins and sweet corn.
He was very outdoorsy and besides farming, loved to ride four wheelers, fish, and deer hunt. He also loved to make a roaring bonfire.
He was a farmer, friend, husband, father, son and brother. He will be missed by many.
He is survived by his father, Robert Cookingham, wife Jessica (Ball) Cookingham, daughters, Hailey Cookingham-Loiodice (Matt), Taylor Ellis-Tanner (Jimmy) and sister Brenda Valyou, as well as many cousins, nieces and nephews.
He is predeceased by his mother, Joanne (Palmer) Cookingham.
His daughter, Hailey, will always keep his legacy alive by their father-daughter antics, such as their handshake, nicknames and making “quacking noises” at each other.
Services/Memorials will be held at a later date.
The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements.
Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.