Our Riverside logo carries the Connecticut oyster over “Connecticut · Est. 1636,” the founding era of the colony — the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Connecticut town. Printed in clean retro black-and-white that reads like an old oyster-crate label, the oyster stands for the whole Long Island Sound shellfish coast; what makes this one Riverside is everything behind it — Mianus Neck and the Mianus River, the cast-iron bridge, the 1888 yacht club, and the leafy Greenwich shore.
What’s with Mianus Neck? Before it was Riverside, this corner of Greenwich was called Mianus Neck — a quiet 17th-century farming-and-oystering village on the lands lying by the Mianus River. The river, and the village, took their name from Mayn Myannos, a Munsee sachem; for generations the river was the main route in and out of eastern Greenwich. Then in 1869 two developers, the New York real-estate broker Jeremiah Atwater and the attorney Luke Vincent Lockwood, bought up the Neck, built a railroad station, and renamed the place “Riverside” — a prettier, sellable name to lure summer New Yorkers up the new line. The bet paid off. The oystermen’s neck became one of Fairfield County’s most refined railroad suburbs, and the old name survives mostly in the river that still borders it.
Why People Visit Riverside
Riverside rewards visitors who like the quiet, watery side of the Gold Coast: sailboats on the Mianus, shaded streets, and a handful of real landmarks close together. Add the Sound-side parks and the easy ride to the city, and the genteel calm makes its own case.
