Southern hospitality and friendliness in the NORTH - 4/2/2014

Having grown up in Alabama, and lived in in Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, and California, who would have thought that the most "livable" and "friendliest" place we have have called home is Newtown...well actually Sandy Hook, CT...a small separate village and part of Newtown. We have been here for 10 years and love it! Small town living 75 minutes from Time Square; 2 1/2 hours from Boston; 45 minutes to White Plains; and 30 minutes to the Long Island Sound. And in just 10 minutes you can be in the mountains cruising the by-ways as they wind through other small New England villages, gorgeous streams, and countless lakes. A rural lifestyle with ALL the requirements of life within 15-20 minutes...including high-end grocery stores; many great ethnic restaurants; and Nordstrom! Yankee Craftsmanship must have been developed here...all our contractors and vendors are excellent from our home builder to the guys who work on our cars...all long-term locals. All the local merchants are "genuinely" nice and "do the right thing" as members of the community. Our only chain is a SubWay. Although we did not have kids in the (EXCELLENT) local schools we have been welcomed into the community and know EVERYBODY! Big smiles and warm handshakes are the norm. So..looking for a idealic village to raise a family within 90 minutes of NYC or 45 from White Plains?...you could not do better than Sandy Hook.

[Comment on this Posting]

Too Expensive - 2/2/2011

The Property Taxes go up every year, heating oil is through the roof. Home values are stagnant and all the towns are crying poverty.

[Comment on this Posting]

i goofed! - 1/3/2011

i submitted two reviews, thinking that the first one did not take. sorry!

[Comment on this Posting]

'nice', but dull.... - 1/1/2011

newtown is nice, but dull. i am disappointed moving here from very annoying westchester, ny. i came here thinking this would be a good, solid new england town, a nice place for families, and many of the people are just that. but the newer residents that came around the time i did, are trying to make it into a new westport, which quite honestly, will not come until they get the schools in shape. the high school is like a prison, and the academics are just ok. some have moved due to the lack in interest of making the schools better. the residents either agree with you or get very defensive if you have complaints about the schools. winters are terrible; summers are pretty but you are isolated, in the woods, no place to swim unless you want to swim in the lake with huge bacteria counts. so kids drive around and knock down mailboxes with baseball bats, and vandalize the graveyard at the local church. there is an empty feeling here that is impossible to fill.

[Comment on this Posting]

'nice', but dull.... - 1/1/2011

newtown is nice but dull. i moved here from westchester in 2006, cashed out and came to a place i thought would be nice place for my kids to grow up in, thinking it was an idyllic new england town. well, some disappointments; kids are so bored they hit mailboxes with baseball bats, over and over. my neighbor is ready to kick someone's behind! lots of drugs, heavy drugs i am still shocked over. sports has taken over as everyone's only interest, and parents are crazy to try for scholarships, beginning at young ages. i love the people who have been here a while; honest, down to earth, typical new englanders. but the people that came when i did either think they are the sh.t because they have more money than some people here, or they are running from something, feeling second rate to southern ct, or westchester. i'm very disappointed in the schools, which are just ok. the high school has a prison feeling to it. summers are pretty, but no swimming except the town pool that resembles 'caddyshack'. winters are terrible, everyone's depressed staring at sticks for half the year. even though i will lose my shirt on this house, we may go because if i have to spend one more boring year in this town, i will end up in the fairfield hills loony bin!

[Comment on this Posting]

Not much to do - 7/22/2009

There isn't much to do in Newtown. There is a very limited number of stores in the "downtown" area but most are services (i.e. hair salorns, real estate, etc.) Most stores are about 20+ minutes away in Danbury. As far as outdoor recreation there is a lot of parks and lakes which are very nice. As far as ethnic culture, there isn't much. The only place I can think of is a Mexican restaurant and a Chinese buffet, Newtown is 95%+ white so there isn't much diversity. There also isn't much to do for kids which can be very problematic.

[Comment on this Posting]

Born in 1959: Sandy Hook CT - 6/29/2009

Rather than my 'review'...I'm sharing my view. From 1959 through 1978, I lived in a little neighborhood we called, Lake Zoar. Riverside Dr...My home was right alongside the Housatonic River. I went to Sandy Hook Elementary School. I graduated Newtown High School, class of '77. My mom was a music teacher for 20 + years teaching K-6 at Sandy Hook Ele. and later, Hawley School. Times change, and it's been 32 years since I've seen my old stomping grounds. The wonderful, fantasmic place it was when I was young has changed with everything else that time changes. Many of my friends and acquaintanses still live there and are happy. I simply have a whimsical, nostalgia of how it 'used to be'. One place I miss to this day is Lorenzo's Pizza. It was the best back in the day and I'll bet it's the best even today!

[Comment on this Posting]

Quite Beautiful, but Isolated, no transportation, - 1/30/2009

Like many of the mid sized towns in CT, Newtown is facing its share of challenges. It got too built during the housing bubble to qualify as rural. It is too provincial and isolated to qualify as a real town. With two working parents required, the driving burdens imposed by children's activities added to the commuting requirements of working leave a family too exhausted to do much more than look out the window on the weekend. The nearest train stations are ten miles away in different directions. There is no bus transportation. There are no taxis. If you stubbornly insist on having only one car, and it is in the shop, you are trapped. Likewise, your teenagers. If they would like to take a trip to New Haven or New York on a Saturday and your car is in the shop, there is no way to do it. Trapped. This gets very old, very quickly. On the plus side, it is pretty. If you bring your own job and money, and are able and happy to pursue life intently within a narrow geography, Newtown is a very good place to be. It is not as expensive or built up as Westport or Stamford, and does not have Westport pretensions. On the negative side, housing is expensive by nationwide standards, including Boston and California, with few compensating benefits. By nationwide standards, the schools are mediocre. There is heroin traffic in the high school, with established supply lines to Bridgeport, which has proven stubbornly resistant to eradication. The peer group tolerates it. There is little private sector work closer than ninety minutes door to door. Thanks to burgeoning public sector payrolls, property taxes have doubled over the past five years. The public sector workers tend to be local wives, working in the area to free up Dad for the daily three hour trek to White Plains, Stamford or Hartford, or five hour trek to New York. In the certain event of a job loss, Mom's paycheck is not going to do it. It really does take two full time incomes to live here. The elephant on the table: if one person loses a job, how are you ever going to get out? Connecticut has had net out migration for the past ten years. There is little demand for the standard house at the New England price, not even considering the property tax burden. If you overcome an aversion to moving, in reality there is decreasing demand for the typical corporate staff type. The areas which may have had demand are increasingly distant. Companies who are still hiring in Boston, Austin, Atlanta or Silicon Valley have a surplus of local candidates who are -- frankly, in the context of moving in a larger world -- sharper. On the numbers, there is no need to import a CT staffer with corporate relocation. You are stuck. It can be done. I did my research, planned carefully for a long time, and left for an area with greater vitality and opportunity. My children left for college. We are content, in a warmer climate with greater prosperity and mobility. None of us has gone back to visit.

[Comment on this Posting]

Beautiful New England Town - 10/18/2008

I've lived here 13 years. If you love small New England towns, you'll love Newtown. We have a beautiful historic Main Street filled with some handsome vintage homes, our town hall, library and the General Store, which has great sandwiches, by the way. You can catch a movie for just $2 at our town hall move theater. While you're there, check out the murals in the stairwells of town hall, done by a local artist. There is a lot of history here. Our town historian, a retired college professor, often gives some fascinating lectures at the Meeting House. We have 2 beautiful parks in the center of town as well, The Pleasance (next to the police station), and Ram Pasture, with its pond and fountain. Newtown is famous for a few things, including its annual Labor Day parade, its annual book sale and its flagpole set in the heart of our historic district. We also have a fun antique auction house, foreign films shown regularly at the library, three book clubs, a lot of dedicated animal lovers who are now fundraising for a new animal shelter and Kevin's Community Center, which is a non-profit medical center for those lacking health insurance. There are a lot of caring people here. One exciting thing going on right now is the revitalization and reuse of the old Fairfield Hills Hospital, which was closed down in the 1980s and sold to Newtown by the state of Connecticut. The 180-acre property, which could pass for a college campus with its handsome old brick buildings, is being renovated to include a new indoor sports facility, ball fields, walking trails, a new town hall, a Danbury Hospital facility and, I believe, a restaurant. The Sandy Hook section of town has a charm all its own and is perched above the Pootatuck River, which you can check out up close via a small park. There are a few shops and stores to visit and a beautiful old stone church, St. John's. If, in Sandy Hook Center, you turn left on Glen Road, you'll be able to see some old red brick mill buildings, including one that now contains offices and is located in a very scenic spot by a small waterfall and the thunderous river. There's a small restaurant here, too, called The Fire House. Yes, this town has gotten to be an expensive place to live, both in terms of the real estate and the local property taxes. But the stores are no more crowded than any other town (I would say less). The traffic, like in many Fairfield County towns, is very busy during weekday rush hours and on Saturday mornings in the center of town.

[Comment on this Posting]

Cost of living - 9/20/2008

Cost of living is out of control compared the services you get here

[Comment on this Posting]

Living In Newtown Ct - 6/26/2007

Way over rated! Crowded stores, Traffic, Liberal Democratic Thinking. Can not wait to get out! Connecticut in general is terrible as well as Mass. And Ca.

[Comment on this Posting]

Last small town left in Fairfield County - 3/28/2007

This town has everything you could ask for. It is loaded with shops, LAND (60 sq miles) and a small town feel. It is expensive compared to other parts of the country, but it is one of a few towns left in Fairfield County where you can get a nice starter home under $400,000. New construction is 700s and up, but still nothing compared to Westport, Wilton, etc. The town is 10 minutes from Danbury, less than 30 to Shelton, Trumbull, Bridgeport, Fairfield, Waterbury, less than an hour to Stamford, Norwalk, New Haven, and finally 90 minutes to NYC. Needless to say, there are TONS of jobs in the area. In southern Newtown, the town has purchased Fairfield Hills (a former mental hospital) from the State of CT. It is turning the near 200 acre campus into a town megacenter including a dozen new/renovated municipal, town resident, & retail buildings as well as a host of baseball & soccer fields and tennis courts. The urban renewal of the town, its relatively low population (25,000), and the fact that the majority of single-family homes boast AT LEAST 1 acre of land made Newtown a great first home & first community for us.

[Comment on this Posting]

nice town, but so expensive - 4/20/2006

Although there is a lot to do within a close driving distance, there is no time to do it because you have to work so hard to afford your home. It is a nice town with alot of new growth, both residential and shopping, yet still has a small town feel. The schools are great and the people are friendly.

[Comment on this Posting]