Town #106: Greenwich

Inside Connecticut, Greenwich is just another affluent town. Outside of the state, it's iconic. It's one of those places like Beverly Hills that has so many stereotypes associated with it, you're not sure you can appreciate it for what it really is.

Some parts of the town are pretty ritzy. Many celebrities maintain residences in Greenwich. The average house sells for a little less than 2 million dollars. We saw a lot of sports cars and expensive shops. One was even selling throw rugs for thousands of dollars as usable pieces of art. But once we got into Old Greenwich, the place was more low key.

First, we stopped at the Bruce Museum. It's a museum that's always intrigued me,

really for the name more than anything else. It turns out that the building was donated to the town by a wealthy textile merchant from New York. His only stipulation was the museum to be built had to be “a natural history, historical, and art museum for the use and benefit of the public." So today the museum is a bit unique. Whereas a museum could usually focus on one of these areas, this museum has to incorporate all three. It's a relatively small space by museum standards. Going today we saw about two dozen Andy Warhol prints: black and white next to the same in color. There was a historical display of Victorian dresses, and a natural history collection of many taxidermy animal species.

The science part of the collection was composed of various kinds of rocks and minerals. The most interesting to me was the meteorite that weighed 1200 pounds but was the size of large beach ball.

We were able to get through the entire museum in under an hour and a half. So we went for a stroll afterward. We noticed that this part of Greenwich is mostly named after Robert Moffat Bruce, the museum's benefactor--streets, buildings, businesses. For lunch, we ducked inside Penang Grill. There aren't many Malaysian restaurants around, so we were happy to find this spot. Malaysian cooking is usually very simple, but in the US it's usually spicy. The brown rice and broccoli I had was wonderful.

Down the street was the Computer Super Store, so Bruce insisted on checking that out. Then we went to the Black Forest Pastry Shop to get some tea. Afterward, on the way to the park, we got caught up in some traffic going to an "indoor yard sale" and ended up wandering through someone's house for a few minutes. Back on track though, we found Bruce Park and went for a stroll.

Originally the land was part of the Bruce estate and was used to create a 60-acre park with many walking trails. (The land was marsh before Bruce decided he wanted to make it a park. He brought hundreds of people to in to create the park--even raising the level of the land.)

The trails are broken up by tons of well-traveled roads. There was real a sense of privacy or tranquility where we were walking, but it was still a lovely setting. There are five sculptures in and around the museum and park. We ran across three while we were there. The Girl in Nature is an interesting one. Tucked back from the street, it is strangely mostly hidden among the trees and bushes, very easy to miss, and looks more like a short, elderly woman than a girl.

Greenwich stats:
Population: 62,236
Size: 67.2 square miles
Villages/Other Communities: Banksville, Byram, Cos Cob, Glenville, Mianus, Old Greenwich, Riverside, Round Hill, Sound Beach, Stanwich
Historic Places: Bush Holley House, Byram School, Cos Cob Power Station, Cos Cob Railroad Station, Samuel Ferris House, Fourth Ward Historic District, French Farm, Glenville Historic District, Glenville School, Great Captain Island Lighthouse, Greenwich Avenue Historic District, Greenwich Municipal Center Historic District, Greenwich Town Hall, Greenwich YMCA, Knapp Tavern, Thomas Lyon House, Merritt Parkway, Methodist Episcopal Church, Mianus River Railroad Bridge, Nathaniel Witherell Historic District, New Mill and Depot Building, Putnam Hill Historic District, Riverside Avenue Bridge, Rosemary Hall, Round Hill Historic District, Sylvanus Selleck Gristmill, Sound Beach Railroad Station, Strickland Road Historic District, United States Post Office (Greenwich Main), William E. Ward House, Josiah Wilcox House