A warm, persistent wind frothed up whitecaps on Long Island Sound one hot summer afternoon. It wasn’t a great day for a swim, but it was a great day for a walk along the beach, and there’s no better place for a local beach stroll than West Haven, where a paved pathway, running from Morse Park at one end to Bradley Point Park at the other, travels about 1.7 miles of the city’s sandy coastline.
Walk out to the end of one of several piers and watch for big ships on the horizon. Park your lawn chair in the shade of a locust tree and read a book. Wander and read the memorials at Bradley Point Park’s Veterans Walk of Honor. Amble out on the point itself and climb down the boulders to the tide pools or sit on one of the many benches and watch egrets bathe among the sea grass. Take the kids to one of the playgrounds, or tell them about the grand amusement park that once presided here. Watch the old-timers play bocce (sorry, West Haven residents only). Rent a paddle board, kayak or bike from Savin Rock Surf Shop. Shoot photos in a seaside gazebo lush with trumpet vines. Scarf down some traditional beach fare at local institutions Stowe’s, Turk’s or Jimmies. All three date to the first half of the 20th century, though the latter two have received mixed reviews lately. (A few blocks east of Stowe’s, Riva, a new-fangled hospitality complex with an outdoor tiki bar and stage, should deliver a jolt when it opens later this summer.)
On a weekday afternoon, there was plenty of space to enjoy it all without the crush of crowds. A lone parasailor struggled to rig his craft on the beach while, a short distance away, a bare-chested little boy chased the seagulls, arms waving, path looping. Farther up the boardwalk, several women walked alone or in pairs. Just off the coast, waves splashed against the shoals. Even at high tide, the ragged black tops of old wooden pilings were keeping their heads above water.
I paused at a massive, overgrown rock formation where a plaque reads, “On July 5, 1779 during the American Revolution Brigadier General Garth, with his First Division landed with 1,000 British soldiers and marched up Savin Avenue to the Green.” The town’s major road today, Campbell Avenue, is named for one of those soldiers, Adjutant William Campbell, who spared the life of a local clergyman and “is believed,” as a result of that act, “to be the only foreign soldier buried on American soil with honors.” Meanwhile, the sentry with a spyglass who appears on the city’s seal represents a real militiaman, Thomas Painter, who watched for British ships from atop this formation.
West Haven’s waterfront is actually a three and a half-mile stretch of different but connected public beaches, including Dawson, Seabluff, Bradley Point, Oak Street, Altschuler and Morse. Past Morse Park to the east, a sandy 60-acre spit of beach and marshland directly across the harbor from Fort Nathan Hale is home to the beautiful Sandy Point Bird Sanctuary, but I didn’t venture that far. The walk out and back from my parking spot at Bradley Point (you can also try your luck parking away from the beach) was far enough, and a storm was brewing.
I would have liked to have stayed much longer. Instead, from the far end of the boardwalk, I raced the storm. The outline of clouds directly above nearly mirrored the shape of the shoreline, with curtains of gray shifting to the north. Thunder boomed like artillery through the moist air, a reminder of scarier days on this coast that has seen its share.
Written and photographed by Kathy Leonard Czepiel. This updated story was originally published on September 7, 2018.
