‘On four or five hooks’
Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe at their wedding, in 1956
Roxbury, Conn., in 1905.
“How few the days are that hold the mind in place, like a tapestry hung on four or five hooks. Especially the day you stop becoming; the day you merely are.’’
— Playwright Arthur Miller, in After the Fall, inspired by his failed marriage to Marilyn Monroe. He lived much of his adult life in Roxbury, Conn., amidst the many other literary and visual artists who called the town, in the Litchfield Hills, their home.
Country and city
Postcard circa 1905
“I have lived more than half my life in the Connecticut countryside, all the time expecting to get some play or book finished so I can spend more time in the city, where everything is happening.’’
Arthur Miller, playwright (1915-2005), playwright, including Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible. He was a longtime resident of Roxbury, Conn. The town has attracted a number of famous people as residents, including actors Dustin Hoffman and Richard Widmark, novelist William Styron and artist Alexander Calder. Roxbury is no longer in the country, but rather part of Greater New York City exurbia.
Roxbury, in the southern Litchfield Hills, in a modest way used to be a mining town. A silver mine was opened here and was later found to contain spathic iron, very useful in steel making, and a small smelting furnace was built. The granite found in many of Roxbury’s Mine Hill quarries provided building material for such world wonders as the Brooklyn Bridge and Grand Central Terminal, in New York City.
'Police beat my mother'
“When I looked out the window, I saw my mother in an angry confrontation with the police. One of the officers lifted his billy club and hit her in the face with it. He busted her eye and she staggered back…I was deeply upset by what I had witnessed. I mean, I was only ten and I had just seen the police beat my mother in the face.’’
Robert Barisford Brown, aka Bobby Brown (born Feb. 5, 1969), singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer and actor. He grew up in Boston’s predominately African-American Roxbury neighborhood.
Mosque in Roxbury
Community garden in Roxbury
— Photo by Wilber Reyes01
Where fence meets wall
Photo by Thomas Hook
Here are two kinds of barriers found all over rural New England, in this case in Roxbury, Conn., home of many celebrities over the years, perhaps most famously the playwright Arthur Miller and his (briefly) wife Marilyn Monroe.