Greenwich’s unresolved debates over the Havemeyer Building, the Dorothy Hamill Rink, and the support of our dedicated teen center share a common flaw. The town’s challenge is not fiscal capacity but civic decisiveness. Greenwich has the resources to build public/private infrastructure that serves residents directly. What it lacks is the will to proceed with unity, speed and confidence.
The Havemeyer Building illustrates the problem in plain view. Donated for public use and located within Greenwich’s historic civic district, the building has remained largely an administrative holding space. Prior Sentinel editorials have questioned both the efficiency and the propriety of that use. Administrative offices can be placed elsewhere. A donated public building cannot easily be replaced. The longer Havemeyer remains underutilized, the clearer it becomes that delay is itself a decision.
Turning Havemeyer into a fully public space, with an emphasis on the arts, would be a corrective grounded in history and need. Arts organizations in Greenwich operate actively but diffusely. Sentinel coverage has documented demand for rehearsal space, performance venues, and exhibition areas that are accessible and central. Public arts infrastructure does not exist to generate revenue streams. It exists to generate civic habits: attendance, participation, shared experience. Aristotle observed that “the polis exists for the sake of living well.” Cultural institutions are among the ways a town defines what living well entails.
The unfinished business of the Dorothy Hamill Rink reflects the same hesitation. Ice time in Greenwich remains scarce, fragmented, and constrained by aging facilities. Sentinel reporting has noted repeated acknowledgments of need without corresponding execution. Youth hockey, figure skating, school teams, and recreational skaters all compete for limited access. A completed rink would operate daily, serve multiple generations, and justify its cost through use and sponsorship.
Teen space presents a quieter but no less serious omission. Greenwich lacks a comprehensive, purpose-built teen center. Previous Sentinel editorials have pointed out that adolescents are heavy users of public space when such space is designed with intention and supervision. In the absence of a dedicated center, teens are left to improvise. That improvisation is often criticized after the fact. Purpose-built space is preventative, not indulgent. Jane Jacobs wrote that “cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” Teenagers qualify.
These projects share another trait. None depends on corporate partnerships or profit models to justify existence. Their returns are social and cumulative. They strengthen routines rather than spectacles. They create places where residents encounter one another without transaction. Sentinel editorials have repeatedly argued that Greenwich’s strength lies in institutions that invite repeated use rather than occasional admiration.
The town’s reluctance is often framed as prudence. Prudence, however, is not inertia. Edmund Burke warned that “to innovate is not to reform.” He also warned that institutions decay when stewardship becomes timid. Greenwich’s public buildings and recreational facilities are not experimental ventures. They are familiar civic forms whose value is already established.
Greenwich prides itself on competence. Competence requires follow-through. Each year of delay narrows options, increases costs, and signals uncertainty. Meanwhile, residents continue to use libraries, parks, and schools at high rates, confirming what Sentinel reporting has long shown: when Greenwich builds for people, people respond.
The question is not whether Greenwich can afford public infrastructure. It is whether Greenwich intends to behave like a town confident enough to act on its own advantages.
