Danbury’s Lake Waubeeka Has a Street Named After Carole King
We have a feature on the Ethan and Lou Show called: "The Place You Live" featuring Mike Allen. Mike is the former I-95 News Director and a skilled communicator. Every Tuesday morning he joins the Ethan and Lou Show to give us a deeper look into the Greater Danbury Area and parts of Putnam/Dutchess Counties in NY.
On Tuesday's show (3/2/21) Mike did a segment we called "Lake Waubeeka". In it, he examined the history of Danbury's hidden gem and we learned about it's connection to music superstar Carole King.
Allen told us that Lake Waubeeka was founded in the 1950's by a group of Jewish firefighters from NYC as an escape for them and their families. Mike Allen also told us how Carole King ended up with a road named after her there.
"So, you remember in segment one when we talked about how Lake Waubeeka was formed and you had the 100 Jewish Firefighters from New York City looking for a summer camp, you know an inexpensive summer camp for their kids? And, they decided to buy a parcel, build the camp and the wives said no make it a summer getaway, so, they did all of this.
Well, Sid Klein was a firefighter from Brooklyn, he's the guy that led the charge and at the end, they said we are going to name these streets after our kids. So he named his after his 12-year-old daughter Carol. So, there is Carol Street in Lake Waubeeka, it's one of the longer roads in there.
Well, here is the story behind Carol Street - Carol was 12, she used to come up and party and play, all of that during the summers. By the time she got to be 20, she was quite a musician, her mom realized that she was a talent pianist and got her lessons and.. and that she was one of those rare humans that had perfect pitch. So, Carol Klein, by the age of 20, decided she's going to change her name and instead of spelling her name C-A-R-O-L, she spelled it C-A-R-O-L-E and she changed Klein to King and before she was 20, she was Carole King and already with Paul Simon doing demo records.
So, Carole King was a Waubeeka resident and kid growing up, back in the 1960's."
This is just a short clip of the Carole King story presented on the Ethan and Lou Show by Mike Allen.
We learned a lot about Lake Waubeeka during "The Place You Live". Some of the other fun Waubeeka facts include:
- The Lake Waubeeka community spans 600 acres, 50 acres of which are lake.
- Lake Waubeeka is a private community with two beaches.
- There are 250 houses in the community.
- While searching for properties to escape NYC, Klein and his group almost chose Pawling, NY.
These are the kinds of things, you can only learn about our region on the Ethan and Lou Show. We do "The Place You Live" every Tuesday morning between 8 - 9 am with Mike Allen, don't miss it.