Kites, Grills & Memorial Day At Lighthouse

As they maneuvered a green kite on the windy beach, Enoch Singh Briscoe and Athena Landreneau, two five-year-old pals from Worthington Hooker School, both said their favorite activity together is just ​“being best friends.”

Nearby, Angelique Torres was looking a little sad because her dad was taking a long time to return with the chorizo, her favorite meat, to place on the already smoky, aromatic family grill.

That was the news from the perspective down in little-kid-world that unfolded on a crisp, bright Memorial Day at Lighthouse Point Park.

By noon about a hundred cars had already rolled in, said Park Manager James Wright, to in effect inaugurate the 100th season in the park hard by Morris Creek and Long Island Sound in the East Shore.

By the time July 4 arrives, the park, which has parking for 400 vehicles, will likely have to close at capacity on that day, perhaps as early as 11 a.m., said Wright, who is an 11-year Parks Department veteran. 

Yet this Memorial Day there was still plenty of room in the 82-acre site with its historic lighthouse, antique carousel pavilion, grassy knolls, and broad beach within the breakwaters of the Sound.

Last year’s rules and fees for entry still pertain, unchanged, said Wright, as he and his colleagues asked drivers rolling up to the entry kiosks to display car registration.

If you’re registered in New Haven, you enter free; if you’re a non-city but still Connecticut resident, the fee is $25; and if you’re out of state, it costs you thirty bucks. If you stay a full day, from 7:00 a.m. to when the park closes at 8:00 p.m., that’s a pretty good deal.

Those fees, said Wright, are relatively inexpensive for a large park that offers grilling, kid play areas, and swimming. The price of admission is one of the primary reasons, he pointed out, many cars arrive from New Jersey, Massachusetts, and other out-of-state locations.

Yousef Vahid and his family were one such cohort, having driven down from Amherst, Mass., both to visit a friend nearby and now also the park.

Vahid cited the ​“lovely beach,” the large open-ness of the location ​“ideal for relaxing, and the fishing” as his reasons for bringing the family.

He had been to Lighthouse Point Park several times before but was surprised to hear from a reporter that it was going to cost him $30 to park. His previous visits must have been, he concluded, not in the summer season, and there was no evidence that he was going to turn the car around.

Keli Juarez, in the car just ahead of the Massachusetts family, was arriving from Meriden. Unlike Vahid, this was a first-time visit and she had looked up the park on Google and liked what she saw, piled in, and now arrived, ​“an easy trip.”

“Do you like this better than Hubbard Park?” Wright said, referring to the major park in Meriden, as he leaned into the car and returned Huarez’s credit card.

“Something different for the kids,” she said, as her nine-year-old and the one-and-a-half-year-old seemed to be stirring in the back seat.

It was cold enough this day such that the Huarez kids would not find one of the park’s most popular features functioning. The splendid water features — its fountains, showers, and sprays — were all still turned off due to the weather.

Not a problem as the main kid interest seemed to have shifted to the long articulated pirate ship and rope bridge play areas, complete with a large hammock swing where kids were lining up in groups to take their turns and pile in.

By now Niki Singh had taken up the challenge of trying to fly her son’s kite, as he was off at the pirate ship with Athena. And all of this – her own spiritually restoring pleasure of being on the wide beach while not having to worry about her child’s whereabouts or safety – contributed to her being nearly an evangelist for Lighthouse Point Park.

“The children’s area, recently renovated, for us it’s a big selling point,” she said. ​“The place is clean, and safe, and,” she added another point that draws her: ​“There are lots of people of color.”

The family lives on Livingston Street, she said, and also frequents East Rock Park. There, she said, there’s a predominant impression, at least to Singh, of Yale families, and here a more diverse reflection of the city, which is of importance.

For us, she reported, it’s a four-season park, and there are always people here, even in the snow. Before they leave this day Singh said she’ll probably make up some games or challenges with Enoch, a very friendly neuro-diverse kid – who can collect the most pink shells or dark stones. And then they’ll take them back home

“For urban kids it’s really important to have a beach. Kids need more than sand.” And the wide expanse of water that goes along with it.

The kids can play on the pirate ship or run around and you don’t have to be looking for them all the time, she emphasized. ​“I can see that he’s safe.”

And in the meantime Singh can find, as she appeared to be doing as she worked on untying the kite’s string, ​“that it’s nourishing to your mind” to be here as well.

The park offered another feeling to Athena’s dad, Mark Landrenau, to whom Athena led this reporter amid the playing kids and by the pirate ship.

He was sitting with his visiting brother beside a spacious camp tent the family had set up early in the morning and in which Landrenau’s wife and other daughter were sleeping or playing or both.

A Yale neurologist, who had worked until recently in the quite un-relaxing, un-chill atmosphere of the intensive care unit, the park was not only chill central for Landrenau, it was, in a way, reminding him of home.

“The vibe here is ​‘barbecue central,’” he said motioning to the smoking grills all about the green expanse of the park. ​“I’m from Louisiana. Cajun traditions. We do crawfish boils, and always are bringing people together around food. I feel really at home here.”