Riverside also keeps a genuine rarity. Carrying Riverside Avenue over the railroad tracks is the Riverside Avenue Bridge — a 19th-century truss built almost entirely of structural cast iron, the only surviving cast-iron bridge in Connecticut and one of very few left in the country. It began life in 1871 as part of a six-span railroad bridge over the Housatonic in Stratford, fabricated by the Keystone Bridge Company; when that bridge was replaced, a span was salvaged and re-erected here over the tracks in 1894. Elegant, ornate, and improbably durable, it has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977.
Look closely at the Riverside crest and you’ll find an oyster, and that is no accident. Mianus Neck lived on the water — fishing and oystering the Mianus River and the shallows of Long Island Sound, where Greenwich and neighboring Cos Cob were part of the great Sound oyster trade that fed New York for a century. The oyster on the logo, over “Connecticut · Est. 1636,” is the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Connecticut town — a nod to the Sound’s shellfish heritage and the colony’s founding era. On Riverside it points straight back to the Neck, when the day’s living came up out of the river on the half shell.
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.
