Correction: the Millerton News Street Fair was a collaborative effort between the Millerton News, the Millerton Business Alliance and the North East Community Center.
MILLERTON — Locals and visitors packed into downtown Millerton Saturday, June 28, for the first ever Millerton Street Fair hosted by the Millerton News, the Millerton Business Alliance and the North East Community Center. Representatives from local nonprofits, businesses along Main Street, Bee Bee the Clown and face painters from Webutuck High School drew in crowds all afternoon.
Festivities officially opened at 10 a.m., and a steady stream of visitors soon followed. Volunteer firefighters hosted a bouncy castle, a duck pool, a “put out the fire” ring toss game, and the “touch a truck” event at the fire department’s garage.
Bee Bee the Clown offered everyone attending the Millerton Street Fair balloon figures, jokes and musical sleight-of-hand. “I can make 50 types of balloon animals without thinking and probably around 100 if I concentrate,” the most complex being a rabbit in a top hat made from balloons, Bee Bee said. The clown, who also bills herself as Jackie the Magician, merged her two disciplines of clowning and magic to entertain visitors for the length of the fair.Bee Bee’s commitment to her craft appears beyond her performance, as reflected in her brightly-colored outfit and carefully-applied makeup. “The control exercised over the line work detail” of her eye makeup and the proper choice of footwear — no smaller than the size-16 shoes Bee Bee wore — are two of the aspects of clown dress which Bee Bee noted as being most important to her costume.Photo by Charlie GreenbergThe NorthEast-Millerton Library joined in the fun, hosting a book sale inside and a cookie bake-off on the front lawn.
Live music on the lawn of the Millerton Methodist Church supplied good vibes to those within earshot. The John Stey Band started the morning with classic country, western and bluegrass tunes. The afternoon wrapped up with a few hours of Afro-Cuban jazz from the Berkshire Resilience Brass Band.
Townscape and the North East Community Center joined in participating as non-profit organizations in the Millerton News Street Fair, coinciding with the regular weekly Millerton Farmers’ Market that attracts more than a dozen vendors to sell fresh produce, baked goods and more.
Eloise Gerstle, 2 and a half, posed with her balloon animal and her mother, Aimee Couture, both of Sharon, enjoying the fun of the Millerton News Street Fair on Saturday, June 28.Photo by Leila Hawken
Lisa Cope, Village of Millerton Town Clerk, was there to hand out “Save the Date” cards for next year’s 175th Anniversary of Millerton.
“I know it’s early,” she said. “but it’s coming.”
Amanda Coppola, the Webutuck Elementary School principal, was on hand to discuss after school programs, and mentioned a new pre-K program for three-year-olds that is the first in Dutchess County.
And Century Boulevard was packed with cars. License plates from across the Northeast could be spotted lining the wide street, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and even Pennsylvania.
Reporting and photography from Leila Hawken, Charlie Greenberg, Nathan Miller and John Coston contributed to this article.
Photo by Charlie Greenberg~
Members of the Resilience Brass Band, from left to right, Shamu Sadeh, Lev Sadeh, Dathalinn O’Dea, Charlie Keil, Sam Earnshaw and Ken Liegner, graced the latter half of the Millerton Street Fair with “Afro-Cuban music of the diaspora” and a healthy amount of whistling.
On one floor of her barn are yoga mats and the steady rhythm of breath. On the other are computer screens, market charts and conversations about retirement plans and portfolio diversification. For Reisfeld, founder of Berkshire Wealth Group in Great Barrington, these are two sides of a single practice.
“At the end of the day, you’re just dealing with people,” she said. “Whether we’re talking about financial stability or mental stability, it’s kind of all the same thing.”
Reisfeld has spent nearly 30 years in finance, building a client-centered advisory practice that eventually led her to go independent. But her relationship with money began long before her career.
When her mother became ill during Reisfeld’s childhood, finances tightened. It wasn’t poverty, she said, but it was constrained enough to teach her how money — or its lack — can dictate the terms of one’s life. That lesson took on a deeper meaning as she watched her mother remain in a difficult marriage without full financial independence. “Money represented autonomy,” she said. “Freedom.”
In college, Reisfeld initially majored in physics, drawn to systems and structure. But an economics class shifted her direction. Markets, she realized, were systems too — not only mathematical, but deeply human.
After graduating, she landed an internship with a financial adviser and gradually discovered a profession that combined curiosity, problem-solving and relationship-building.
“The more I learned, the more I kind of wanted to get involved,” she said.
Over time, she realized she wasn’t interested in chasing predictions; she was interested in guiding people through uncertainty.
Over nearly three decades, she has watched the industry evolve. It has moved, she believes, from selling products to offering advice — a shift toward aligning compensation with clients’ best interests.
She’s candid about the stereotypes that cling to finance: that it’s driven by greed and full of money-hungry people. Those people exist, she said, but they aren’t the majority.
“It’s kind of like the few bad apples ruining it for everyone.”
At its best, she believes, the work is quieter and more meaningful than its reputation suggests.
Kathy Reisfeld practicing yoga.Elena Spellman
Yoga entered her life in 2001, when she was living in New York City and training as a marathon runner.
“I was, like, very anti-yoga,” she admitted with a laugh.
But once she tried it, something shifted. A workshop with Nancy Gilgoff, the first American woman to travel to India to study Ashtanga yoga, “blew my mind open,” she said, revealing yoga as something far larger than poses or stretching.
What began as a physical complement to her running became a doorway into something deeper.
“Ashtanga means eight limbs,” Reisfeld explained. “The physical practice is just the entry point.”
The overlap she sees between yoga and investing is patience. Both practices demand discipline through fluctuation — the ups and downs, the good days and bad days, and the willingness to keep showing up.
In yoga philosophy, she points to the stilling of the mind. In investing, that becomes tuning out the noise — the headlines that spike fear or euphoria, the endless predictions that feel authoritative and rarely land cleanly.
After almost three decades in a traditionally male-dominated industry, Reisfeld has learned to move comfortably in rooms where she was often one of the few women present.
Asked what it was like starting out as a woman in finance, she smiled.
“The lines for the restroom were shorter.”
The humor reflects her temperament. She began her career at 21, and mentorship was not always easy to find. But finance, like yoga, rewards consistency. Ultimately, she built her business through steady growth.
For Reisfeld, yoga is fundamentally about integration. Money is no exception. It shapes how we live, the choices we make and the freedoms we have. Ignoring it doesn’t make it disappear. It only makes it harder.
Now rooted in the Berkshires, advising clients and teaching yoga classes from the same barn, Reisfeld’s work feels less like two careers and more like one philosophy.
When asked what she hopes people feel after spending time with her — whether reviewing a portfolio or finishing a yoga session — her answer is immediate.
“More confident,” she said. “Less stressed. More optimistic about their future.”
For more information or to book an appointment, visit berkshirewealthgroup.com
Kathy Reisfeld, Branch Owner
250 Maple Ave, Great Barrington, MA 01230
845-263-3996
Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC.
Berkshire Wealth Group is not a registered broker/dealer and is independent of Raymond James Financial Services, Inc.
Investment advisory services offered through Raymond James Financial Services Advisors, Inc.
Elena Spellman is a Client Service Associate at Berkshire Wealth Group
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
Playwright Cinzi Lavin, left, poses with Kathleen Kelly, director of ‘A Goodnight Kiss.’
When Lavin inquired about staging the production there, “they were very excited about it,” she said.
The performance, to take place April 1, is being sponsored by the Connecticut League of Women Voters. Organizers said the Capitol setting offers a fitting backdrop for a story rooted in American history and civic life.
“A Goodnight Kiss” is a dramatic reading drawn from letters exchanged between Sgt. Maj. Frederick Lucas (David Macharelli) and Sarah Jane “Jennie” Wadhams (Olivia Wadsworth). Fred wrote from battlefields, while Jennie wrote from the peaceful confines of Goshen. Together, their letters trace a gradually deepening romance and how the couple overcame objections by Jennie’s father, John Marsh Wadhams, and finally married in 1867.
“I just found it adorable that (Jennie’s father) was going to make sure she got the right kind of husband, which is why Fred had such a hard time,” Kelly said.
BroadwayWorld reviewer Sean Fallon called the play “the most romantic love story I have ever seen acted out on stage.”
The letters were first brought to light in the 2002 book “Fred and Jennie: A Civil War Love Story” by the late Ernest B. Barker, a Goshen resident and descendant of both the Lucas and Wadhams families. The Barker family discovered Fred’s letters in the Wadhams homestead and Jennie’s letters in a house once owned by a Lucas family member. The correspondence is now housed at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History in Hartford.
Capitol atriumSubmitted by Kathleen Kelly
Kelly said presenting the story through letters poses a challenge because the actors rarely interact onstage. During rehearsals, she had the performers face one another while reading their letters aloud. “It was just like magic happened,” she said.
Lavin said the play “tells the story of what truly makes America great, what made America great then, and what still makes it great, which is devotion to duty, service to others, integrity and treasuring freedom.”
David Macharelli, who portrays Fred, said, “Charting (Fred’s) course from enthusiastic young recruit gushing with admiration for the new technology of 19th-century warfare to a man crashing into the reality of war is a reminder that even the noblest of causes demand sacrifice, and that sacrifice is often borne by innocents.”
Olivia Wadsworth said of portraying Jennie, “It’s actually a little dizzying to think about. Two people, more than a hundred years ago, sent private letters to one another, and now their love story is being shared in a performance at the state Capitol.”
The performance will take place April 1 at 2 p.m. in Room 310 of the Capitol at 210 Capitol Ave., Hartford. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration at https://bit.ly/4usa9b7. Arrangements for guests with special requirements may be made by emailing Lisa Del Sesto at admin@lwvct.org or calling 203-288-7996. Parking on Capitol grounds is limited, but additional parking is available nearby at the Legislative Office Building, 300 Capitol Ave.
Yonah Sadeh, Falls Village filmmaker and curator of David M. Hunt Library’s new VideoWall.
After the screening of the two films, “Mail Myself to You” and “Circle, Circle Square,” Pranger and Sadeh will discuss filmmaking and answer questions.
Of Pranger, Sadeh said, “She has a strong visual voice as a director, and both of these films are great examples of a blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking.”
Imogen Pranger, first filmmaker of the new VideoWall.Provided
Pranger described her approach to filmmaking. “I have always approached the visual arts from an interdisciplinary, multimedia perspective.” This approach was a reason why animation was particularly appealing to Pranger as she began exploring the possibilities of filmmaking.
“I particularly fell in love with the tactility of hand-drawn and painted animation and the ways in which it can be used in tandem with analog 16-millimeter film. Stop-motion animation holds the unique power to bring inanimate objects to life, something that became crucial to my practice of archival documentary filmmaking. I appreciate the sense of play that is encouraged in the medium of animation and find great joy in exploring new avenues and possibilities within the medium,” she continued.
At the core of Pranger’s films, she hopes to capture the joy and intimacy of human connection that blossoms through engagement with material and creative process.
After the opening event, the films will remain available to view at any time on the VideoWall screen in the library stacks. “The screen will always be on and ready for anyone to use,” Sadeh said. The installations will last three to four months.
Sadeh added, “Each installation will begin with a public screening at the library, followed by a talkback with the filmmaker.”
Filmmakers can contact Sadeh at huntartwall@gmail.com for information about submitting films for consideration. Visit huntlibrary.org/art-wall for a schedule of ArtWall and VideoWall events, which are free and open to the public.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
