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topicnews · September 22, 2024

Brighton becomes Stars Hollow from “Gilmore Girls”

Brighton becomes Stars Hollow from “Gilmore Girls”

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(This story has been updated to add new information.)

Stars Hollow, the fictional Connecticut town featured in “Gilmore Girls,” has a certain small-town feel that Brighton tried to emulate on Saturday. They came pretty close with an autumnal color palette, a makeshift Luke’s Diner and an idyllic downtown setting.

The only problem? There were so many people in Brighton that it didn’t feel like a small town at all. It was bustling.

Fans of the iconic 2000s dramedy series came from all over to wear their Gilmore Girls merchandise and their favorite flannel shirts. The event was hosted by two Brighton locals, Kathleen London and Laura Boote, who always felt their hometown resembled the dreamy TV village. Together, the pair recruited over 40 small businesses to participate in the event by temporarily changing their storefronts to resemble locations from the series or offering special menu items based on the theme.

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Taylor Allvin, 28, for example, describes herself as a “mild fan” of the show, but traveled with her friends from Grand Rapids to immerse herself in the energy of Stars Hollow.

“It’s fun to capture the small-town atmosphere of the show,” Allvin said.

Her friend, 31-year-old Olivia Cook, is from Brighton. Although the small-town atmosphere was palpable, the local noted that she had never seen so many people in the city center.

“I have never seen Brighton so busy and I have lived here for 31 years,” said Cook.

Hundreds of bottles were stacked outside stores like Lynn’s on First (which was Luke’s Diner that day) and Brighton Coffeehouse (which posed as Black White and Read Bookstore), and Cook said she was happy to see small businesses tackling the massive influx of customers.

“There are a lot of long lines, but I love how the stores have adapted to it,” Cook said.

To encourage fans to shop at small businesses, the celebrations included a ‘passport’ that allowed them to collect stamps while shopping at various stores throughout the day. Anyone brave enough to wait in the long lines in 27 degree heat to shop at 20 of the participating stores in Brighton could be entered into a prize draw to win goods from local businesses.

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And as is typical for small towns, Destination Stars Hollow was a family affair. Lauren Perugi, 31, of Plymouth, and her mother Kathy Perugi, 65, of Northville, spent the day with their friends and mother-daughter team Deb Chamberlain, 63, and Jessica Gibbons, 34, of Manchester.

The four wore matching bright yellow T-shirts with quotes from “Gilmore Girls” on the front and “Team Logan” on the back, in reference to their favorite love interest from the series.

“We’ve seen (Gilmore Girls) as a mother-daughter pairing for years,” Lauren Perugi said. “When we saw that was coming and Brighton was only 30 or 40 minutes away, we decided to make it a girls’ day and spend some time in Stars Hollow.”

News reportR Liam Rappleye can be reached at [email protected].

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