page_title: Darien, Connecticut
section_title: Sections of the town
hierarchical_section_title: Darien, Connecticut / Geography / Sections of the town
caption_attribution_description: English: Built as the First Presbyterian Church of Darien, Connecticut, it now serves as chapel at Noroton Presbyterian Church.
context_page_description: Darien is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States 37 miles northeast of New York City. With a population of 21,000 and a land area of just under 13 square miles, it is the smallest town on Connecticut's "Gold Coast". It has the youngest population of any non-college town in Connecticut, a high rate of marriage, and high number of average children per household. Darien is also one of the wealthiest communities in the U.S. According to Bloomberg, Darien is ranked in the top 10 richest places in the country.
  Situated on Long Island Sound between the cities of Stamford and Norwalk, the town has relatively few office buildings. Many residents commute to Manhattan with two Metro-North railroad stations–Noroton Heights and Darien–linking the town to Grand Central Terminal. For recreation, the town boasts eleven parks, two public beaches, the private Tokeneke beach club, three country clubs including the first organized golf club in Connecticut, a hunt club, the public Darien Boat Club, and Noroton Yacht Club.
context_section_description: In addition to some small neighborhoods, the larger divisions of the town are Downtown Darien (area surrounding Boston Post Road from I-95 to Brookside Road), Noroton (roughly in the southwest corner of town on Boston Post Road), Ox Ridge (northern end of Mansfield Avenue), (Noroton Heights) (roughly north of Interstate 95 to Middlesex Middle School with an eastern boundary of Noroton Avenue), Noroton Bay (southern end of Noroton Neck), Long Neck Point (southernmost part of town up to historic Ring's End Landing), Delafield Island (waterfront community in between Long Neck and Tokeneke) and Tokeneke (mostly private community in the southeastern end of town).
  The name Noroton originates from the Native American "Norporiton". Long Neck includes Long Neck Point which provides westerly views of Manhattan. Though the general geographic reference to this land feature is Long Neck Point, therein are two different neighborhoods, each with their own main road and distinct features.
  A key part of Connecticut's Gold Coast, Long Neck Point is consistently ranked one of the best places to live in America.  In 1902 during the Gilded Age, Anson Phelps Stokes of the Stokes family built an elegant Georgian manor on the point, dubbed "Brick House" which was later occupied by Andrew Carnegie.  Brick House was later run as the Convent of the Sacred Heart before it was split in half and sold as two private residences. The property on the tip was divided in two and neither home can rise above 20 feet.  Historically, it has also been called Collender's Point and "La Belle" Point.
  On its east side, Long Neck Point Road stretches south beginning near the Ring's End Landing bridge and terminating at the southerly most tip of land.  This area is somewhat inland and away from the eastern shoreline and at a relatively high elevation above the water.  The west coast of Long Neck runs along Goodwives River and includes Pear Tree Point.  Situated on Noroton Harbor, Pear Tree Point includes a public beach (Pear Tree Point Beach Park) and a private club (Darien Boat Club).  Pear Tree Point Road, begins at the Ring's End Landing bridge, runs south along the western side of Long Neck adjacent to "The Gut" and to outer Noroton Harbor.  This charming route hugs the shoreline at an elevation close enough to the tides such that storm conditions can bring the water level over the road. Approximately half-way south along the peninsula, Pear Tree Point Road turns abruptly to the east, ninety degrees, heading uphill and connecting to Long Neck Point Road, distinguishing Long Neck from Long Neck Point.
  The large island to the east is the remaining estate of the late William Ziegler. The Ziegler Estate is the most expensive waterfront plot on the eastern seaboard. With thousands of feet of direct undeveloped waterfront, it has the fourth largest property tax in town. Recently, for the first time in over a century, the 63-acre portion of the estate known as Great Island was listed for sale.
  Darien's eastern coastline is almost entirely Tokeneke, a private community with a beach, club, and police patrol. Tokeneke is a private neighborhood and tax district established in January 1957. All homeowners within the district pay a separate tax to maintain the roads and police constables in the neighborhood. Coveted Contentment Island sits in the southeastern most part of town, encompassed by Tokeneke.
  Noroton Heights "blew 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.
caption: Church in Darien.
exif: {"Image Make": "SAMSUNG", "Image Model": "SAMSUNG ES20/ VLUU ES20/ SAMSUNG SL35", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.4150", "Image DateTime": "2010:07:25 13:03:30", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright 2009", "Image ExifOffset": "2360", "Image XPKeywords": "[48, 0, 55, 0, 50, 0, 53, 0, 49, 0, 48, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "1/96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "1/96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8168", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4589", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/173", "EXIF FNumber": "81/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:07:25 13:03:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:07:25 13:03:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "168521/98304", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3713/500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6071/1000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-33/100", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2971/1000", "EXIF MeteringMode": "MultiSpot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8022", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "34", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4168"}