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.
Today Riverside is barely two square miles of winding lanes and waterfront between Cos Cob and Old Greenwich, split by Interstate 95 and the Boston Post Road and threaded by the Metro-North line that built it. The c.1760 Samuel Ferris House, the Ferris family’s old Cape farmhouse, still stands near the Post Road. It is a quiet, patrician corner of the Gold Coast — sailboats off the harbor, the old cast-iron bridge, and a farmhouse-to-mansion arc along the Mianus River.
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.
