A Winsted resident who hosts one of the most recognized radio shows in the region will be honored next month by the Connecticut Main Street Center (CMSC) during the organization’s annual Main Street Awards Gala Monday, June 6, at the Warner Theatre’s Nancy Marine Studio Theatre in Torrington.John Dankosky, news director at WNPR and host of the network’s live call-in show, “Where We Live,” will accept a Connecticut Light and Power (CL&P) Award for Outstanding Contributions to Main Street Revitalization on behalf of the network and his popular radio show, which explores timely events and issues in communities throughout the state.Already a winner of numerous journalism and broadcasting awards, Dankosky said this week that this particular award is special for him. “When people who don’t have to give you an award just give you something out of the blue and clearly understand what you’re trying to do, that makes you feel good,” he said. “We’ve been focusing on a lot of the same issues that Main Street organizations have been focusing on for years.”Dankosky, 41, moved to Winsted 12 years ago with his wife, Jennifer, and has watched with interest as the town’s Main Street has evolved. A public Main Street Enhancement Project completed its first phase in the early 2000s, and Winsted became an official Main Street community under the guidance of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Locally, the Friends of Main Street organization maintains Winsted’s membership with the CMSC.“In one of our early shows we did a walk-and-talk down Main Street in Winsted, but we’ve been to Norwich and a number of other Main Street communities,” Dankosky said. “Community revitalization is a big topic for us. We really want to focus on communities that are trying to revive themselves in some way.”Some Main Street projects seem to catch on faster than others, but Dankosky said it is the shared enthusiasm among all of the people involved that he sees as inspiring and newsworthy. “One of the real positive things about Main Street projects is you have built-in activists who can talk about their work toward revitalization. It may not be entirely successful right away, but they all seem to point in a positive direction.”Dankosky was a resident of Hartford and prior to that, Pittsburgh, before settling in the Laurel City. “We were living in the West End of Hartford and we wanted to buy a house,” he recalled. “We knew about Winsted because we had been coming out to the Gilson Theater, this place where we could have food, drink beers and watch a movie. We started coming out on Saturdays and Sundays because we liked the place a lot.”The Dankoskys settled on a Hillside Avenue home and have been happy residents ever since. “We love living here,” he said. “It’s a nice part of the world. We hike on weekends and travel to Great Barrington and the Berkshires all the time. We’re thrilled to be close to so much interesting stuff.”A broadcaster and journalist for the past two-plus decades, Dankosky is also a jazz aficionado and drummer. He regularly engages in a bit of historic preservation of his own by interviewing noted jazz musicians. One of his favorite memories is an onstage interview with Dave Brubeck at the Litchfield Jazz Festival in 1998 (www.cpbn.org/program/where-we-live/episode/dave-brubeck-and-paquito-driv...). During state and federal elections, Dankosky organizes up-to-the-minute coverage of the polls on Connecticut Public Radio and each day manages some of the most information-filled news broadcasting in the world. Each day, he finds the time to deliver a live, hour-long broadcast of “Where We Live,” which in the past week has covered health care reform, reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden, a discussion of Afghanistan and Pakistan with Congressman Chris Murphy, a small business breakfast in Bridgeport and what it means to have good friends in your life.The CMSC’s annual awards ceremony will take place Monday, June 6, 5 p.m., at the Nancy Marine Studio Theatre, 69 Main St., Torrington. A Welcome to Main Street reception will be followed by the presentation of awards. For more information, visit www.ctmainstreet.org.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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