Darien
About Darien
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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.