Featured Apartment:
Connecticut-Darien - 1
bedroom - 1 bath - spacious, clean & sunny unit! - Brick Building - Hardwood
Floors - Modern Kitchen - Spacious Living Room - Large Bedroom w/ Double Sliding
Door Closet - Updated Bathroom - Off Street Parking - access to commuter rail,
bus, shops & restaurants, first and last months rent
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About Darien
Darien is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the
2000 census, the town population was 19,607, but a July 1, 2002 Census estimate
put the town's population at 19,887. Like its neighbor to the north, New Canaan,
Darien is one of the most affluent small communities in the United States.
Two Metro North railroad stations serve Darien: Noroton Heights and Darien. The
part of Interstate 95 that runs through Darien is considered the most dangerous
stretch of that highway in Connecticut.
Both the 1975 and the 2004 film versions of the novel The Stepford Wives were
filmed in part in Darien. The public library in Darien, the Darien Library, has
consistently ranked in the top ten of its category in the HAPLR (Hennen's
American Public Library Ratings)Index of libraries.
The McDonald's restaurant located at the rest stop on Interstate 95 southbound,
between exits 10 and 9, is the busiest McDonald's in the country. David Johnson
was among a number of painters who depicted Darien in the late Nineteenth
century. His Near Noroton, Connecticut (1875) is shown at right. Darien is one
of the most affluent and wealthiest towns throughout the US.
In addition to some small neighborhoods, the larger divisions of the town (which
are not governed separately except for volunteer fire department services) are
Noroton (roughly in the southwest corner of town) and Noroton Heights (roughly
north of Interstate 95 to Middlesex Avenue with an eastern boundary somewhere
east of Noroton Avenue. Tokeneke is in the southeastern end of town.
The Noroton section of Darien is defined by two peninsulas that claw their way
into Long Island Sound, their curved appendages protecting enough coves and
inlets to make the area a haven for beachgoers and sailors.It is the water,
however, that gives Noroton both its name -- an Indian word assigned to the
river along Darien's border with Stamford -- and its identity. The shorter of
the peninsulas, Noroton Neck, is divided into shore communities like Noroton Bay
and Pratt Island.
Long Neck peninsula, which extends farther into Long Island Sound, providing
westerly views of Manhattan, is just as exclusive. Accessed by the Ring's End
Landing bridge, a graceful stone structure that marks a major shipping point for
early settlers, Long Neck became a summer destination for the wealthy when rail
travel made it accessible during the mid-1800s.
Noroton Heights "grew up around the Noroton Heights train station and housed the
European immigrants who serviced the old estates," according to an article about
the community in The New York Times. The densely populated streets of this part
of town are full of "modest Capes and colonials" along with other house styles.