Nice to see coverage on CT towns.
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@Kate Skaff CT is covered weekly in the NYT real estate. Long Island seems to get the least.
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last month i met a lovely family on the train
this family just moved from texas to darien for husbands job
they were extremely friendly and we had a great chat with
the wife she seemed happy to be in darien for the schools
i have lived in conn and now in arizona
i know my friends here do not care where i went to school and what clubs i belong to or live in a trophy house
i wish the texan family the best , but i think they may miss
the friendlyness and connections to community
soon after the kids graduate from school
rent do not buy
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Take it from someone raised in Darien (within the last 10 years)-
It's a purgatory dollhouse. It's safe, the schools are really good. But if you're anything Darien is not (rich, white, Republican, etc), you're in for a world of hurt. I'm lucky to have been raised there, but it doesn't undermine the torture it is to be "the other" in Darien. It's a nice town, but I find it funny how the article paints such a pretty picture of young white families getting involved in sports clubs and buying houses worth millions each. This is not the reality of life for the overwhelming majority of Americans let alone people across the world. You can be active and included socially if you have money to pay for those clubs, are good at sports with an exceeding love for them, and drive a German luxury vehicle. Darien in this day and age is all about appearances. It's a great place for the people who fit the bill and can continue doing so- (both literally and figuratively). Anyone else, look elsewhere. I certainly wouldn't raise my kids here.
A more fitting title and subtitle would be:
"Darien, Conn.: An Old New England Town Perfect for the 1%"
This affluent coastal community offers wealthy white residents a variety of ways to flaunt their wealth and shelter themselves. All while pretending they are anything but hyperprivileged beneficiaries of today's twisted society.
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@anon Your last sentence says it all...
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Carol Kane, the actress (Latka's girl friend on "Taxi") went to Cherry Lawn School in Darien. Topher Grace is from Darien. Chloe Sevigney too.
Forget Darien - its got I-95 going right through it and has the Merritt parkway on the north side. The Boston Post Road cutting through downtown is a steady stream of traffic - two to three lanes each way. All you hear is traffic and trucks. Go to Ridgefield where you have the number one high school in CT and a great community. The downtown is a movie set of charm and only cool people live here - not a bunch of wannabe's.
@Rolling my eyes Only drawback to Ridgefield is that you live in your car. You have to drive to go any place. And then you discover the traffic on Route 7.
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I can only hope things have changed since I spent my middle and high school years in Darien through the early 2000's; if so, I'll withhold some of my current eye-rolling. As of just a few years ago, any shred of difference or stray from the accepted-town-wide list of country club and church youth group memberships, permissible clothing brands, and test grades (hint: positive performance rarely yielded a positive response by peers) resulted in outright social brutality. Bullying exists everywhere, but in Darien its most aggressive display is toward those who dare sidestep the status quo - pursuing a sport that isn't soccer or lacrosse, or, seriously, daring to wear the Darien uniform North Face jacket in the wrong color. Beyond ethnic diversity, Darien could always stand a hearty dose or twelve of diversity of thought and values. "Nervousness, wondering how they're going to meet each other" is more accurately described as "nervousness, wondering how they're going to fit in with each other" and that anxiety manifests itself in expectations pretty tragically passed onto the children to do/wear/play whatever it takes to fit in. Those considering moving in, with kids who have surpassed that 4-year-old soccer team age (given that 4 years old is roughly when the high school travel teams are chosen): welcome and enjoy, so long as you leave the "be yourself" mentality at the door.
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Still plenty of Gentleman's Agreement here
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May we pause for a minute and consider the concept of a 31-year-old museum fundraiser being able to buy a $5.775 mil. waterfront home?
The Times real estate section's matter-of-course descriptions of the ultra rich's real estate purchases is irresponsible. These blasé portrayals only reinforce the wealthy elite's complacency about the unconscionable level of income disparity in the U.S.
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Lived there for 40 years until 2014. Very wealthy, very aspiring population, very Republican, nothing wrong with any of those things. What got to me was the seeming transient aspect of many residents. Their big corporations would put them in for 5 years then ship them just anywhere in the world. Nothing really wrong with that but a group would arrive in Darien in the 70s and by the early 80s they would be off to new headquarters for their companies, headhuntered to other organizations, virtually financially booted out of town when companies went belly up (think Lehman Brothers). The turnover was great so long term relationships weren't common.
Downtown was always pretty derelict before David Genovese helped there, but the reason was not Darien's fault. The railroad cuts to downtown straight in half and there is virtually not way to cure this.
People are nice. Crime is active but the police force is good. Nobody really knows anyone else much because of the above movements. Some famous people always lived or live in the town - Christopher Plummer, Moby, Scott Pelley, Leslie Groves from the Manhattan Project. Notable financial criminals. And me. Just your average broadsections of crazy Americans.
But tell you true, when you said you were from Darien people all over the country which one you were talking about and it wasn't Darien, GA
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I reverse commute to near here from Brooklyn. It is pretty but lacking soul. Good place to move if you are wealthy and looking for a safe, unchallenged life. I love the absence of lines at Darien Trader Joe's though!
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@ck
If you think nature (beautiful trees, hills, ponds, horses, birds) are soul, then it has more soul than Brooklyn.
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@richguy - Brooklyn has trees and parks, for goodness' sake. "Soul" can come in many different formats and, if you're looking for trees, hills, ponds, horses, and birds, they're everywhere. Those things aren't exclusive to Darien.
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Children actually walking on your front lawn ?!? 'You've got to like that kind of thing' ?
Older people can remember when kids (and dogs) ran all over everybody's front lawns. When parents opened their front doors and the kids took off.
That was before all the walls and hedges went up in front of the houses. One of the most striking changes in the past few years has been the transformation of front gardens into Private Space in many communities. Walls, hedges, gates...
Something's happened to the way we think about other people.
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There was an another article in today’s NYT about this town, describing parents being banned from lunchrooms. Apparently there’s a family Facebook group and meeting with vigorous opposition to this. Kind of tells you everything you need to know about the town. I’m sure it’s very nice if you’re the county club type.
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And "Gentleman's Agreement" was about what - not something to be proud of...and maybe some of that attitude still exists...
The most non-diverse town on the Gold Coast of CT...
and it screams that...a town for the very few...
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@lynda Darien, where the "D" is silent.
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Diversity? As my father in law, a long time Darien resident, said when asked about the lack of diversity, "Why would anyone want to live near people who aren't like them?"
Or as another reader here said, "... the neighboring town's [sic] have plenty of diversity, and there was plenty of diverse domestic help around."
Or as a friend said about another Darien high school attendee, "He's not black. He's from the Caribbean."
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I was born in the 1940's and lived in Darien until I was 21. The Darien of today is sadly not the Darien I knew. The young rich have come into town, taken historic homes, destroyed them and built "McMansions". Downtown is not the friendly little town it once was. I came "home" for my 50th class reunion, as a treat we were taken on a bus tour of Darien. Sadly I didn't know most of where we went :(. Cherry Lawn School once a Jewish boarding school is now a park, the buildings are gone. My grammar school Royal isn't what it use to be, I only recognized the back of the building. Progress has buildings stuffed in every where, the businesses of my youth are gone to be replaced with high end businesses. I walked around downtown when I came "home" for my 55th class reunion, nothing is familiar, what happened to our Sugar Bowl? The only difference I liked was the public parking behind the Post Road businesses. Darien and Fairfield County have always had the nick name "the bedroom of New York", now it seems the residents of NYC have taken over.
This article missed some of the deep historical features of Darien, its rich in history. Our ancestors mostly came over from the United Kingdom (counties). They fought hard to establish Darien. Go to the library to learn about the history of Darien. Take a walk in Selleck's Woods to walk where early settlers lived. Spend some time at the Bates Scofield House to learn about the rich history of Darien.
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@sb
My grandparents, Romanian Jewish immigrants sent my father to Cherry Lawn School. They lived in Washington Heights. My brother downloaded a copy of his yearbook for us to look at. We were wondering what happened to the school. Thanks for satisfying our curiosity.
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@Andrea Its very sad to see Cherry Lawn and its history wiped away. If you look carefully, there is a plaque in the ground for Cherry Lawn. Now its mostly bare ground, parking, play ground area, sports field, and a building that is the Darien Nature Center. Its almost as if the whole area was sanitized :(. Not sure when all of this happened.
I lived on Brookside Rd, and could watch the kids walk by our house to the Goodwives Shopping Center. There was a soda shop they used for their "hang out". I wasn't suppose to go in there when the kids were there but I did. These kids weren't any different then we were except they weren't from Darien :(.
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@sb, has not the entire nation changed dramatically since the 1940s and 1950s, for better and worse? Darien population was 11,700 per the 1950 census and is now 22,000 according to this article. The US population was around 139 million in 1945; and it is now over 325 million. Significant population growth will change places.
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Ah, the dilemma of being rich or just plain affluent! Tennis courts, private or public schools, which sports for the kids. How do they ever manage?
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My wife Sally and i lived in Darien from our childhood up until I retired at 49. We owned a total of three home over that period. We did not know each other in school as we were a couple of years apart. We met after we each had completed college. The Times article sums up the town pretty well. It failed to mention the town's rich Italian heritage. My impression was that the town was founded by an influential group of Italians. We went through the Darien school system and so did our son Jason, although the elementary school we both went was torn down some 30 years ago. Darien was and is a great place to live, work and raise a family. While true it is not that ethically diverse, the neighboring town's have plenty of diversity, and there was plenty of diverse domestic help around. All in all it was a great place. When my son went off to university of the South I retired and moved Florida for warmer winters and year round boating. We have no regrets for having lived there, or leaving when we did.
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@Sam shutts, "While true it is not that ethically diverse, the neighboring town's have plenty of diversity, and there was plenty of diverse domestic help around."
Did you intend the above as a joke?
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@Sam shutts - The Italian guys and others bought up a lot of property and worked as 'townies' while the people who thought they were rich commuted to New York. The houses and commercial real estate the blue-collar guys bought became so valuable that it turned out they were quite wealthy as well.
3
LOL, bit a suspension of disbelief here. How does museum fund-raising afford one a $6-mil pile on the waterfront? Not criticizing, just fishing for the on ramp to this trajectory. Thanks in advance..
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@LucianoYYZ, I noted that, too. Possibilities: 1) inherited wealth, 2) investment banker husband.
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@LucianoYYZ
I was curious as well, but they did not say what the husband does.
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@Irina Yep, either one of the two.
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Out of curiosity, I looked at the most recent (2017) census data and -- no surprise -- Darien is 89.1% white. Lack of diversity, in my opinion, makes any place less than interesting and not a suitable place to live and raise a family.
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@Judy well, as a woman of color who grew up in a small,mostly white, now mostly minority CA town, "diversity" would not be at the top of my list. Climate would be- sick of a 12 month fire season, 7+ years of drought. I thought the houses would be more expensive- in Arcadia, CA 2 bedrooms go for 1.5 million on a regular basis, due to the schools. Even in towns with 2 gangs or more, houses go for $500,000. My eventual goal would be to move to New England, I just have to get the funds; 25+ years of taking care of my mother has not left me with a big bank account.
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@stuckincali
Come on over. I think you will love being here. The history, the colleges, the towns, and the glorious. beautiful autumn (where all of nature goes to glory). Yes, there are problems, but I don't every want to leave New England.
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@stuckincali
Having recently arrived in Cali, we are struck by the gap between the privileged who love it and the less privileged who want desperately to leave. We hope you find a good home in New England and appreciate your comment that diversity of skin color is not fundamental. There are, to be fair, a lot of people fleeing Connecticut, too, and the fiscal situation is tough.
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Mostly accurate (but for mislabeling Noroton Heights Station as Darien Station on the map) and timely piece about our little town — where the strength of community, volunteerism, and philanthropy thrive like no where else I’ve experienced on the planet. The reference to a movie made before my grandparents were born, however, is unfair, outdated and irrelevant. Why must the NYT mention a 70+ year old movie in every article that references Darien?
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@Hutch Pegler If the article had not mentioned "Gentleman's Agreement," I would have ended the piece thinking that a very pertinent part of Darien's heritage had been purposely avoided. to the report's detriment.
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@Hutch Pegler
I also wondered why the NYT would single out an old movie from all the other more relevant and interesting historical aspects of Darien. I thought it was sort of a dog whistle to some that they would be better served to seek residence in Westport or anywhere in Westchester. Oh, and not everyone in Darien belongs to country club, or wants to.
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Nice article, lovely town. Went to boarding school nearby years ago and then often returned for horse shows and more. Great photo of Ox Ridge and the young pony lover.
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Certainly doesn't look very ethnically diverse, but then again, that might be the attraction for some folks.
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Can u imagine a homeless family reading about Darien
There are two Connecticuts
Wealth and Power
Minimum wage and diminished hope
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"There are so many get-togethers for new parents,” she said. “Stroller walks; mom workouts, where you bring your baby; moms’ night out, when you can leave the baby at home. Now we just need the baby so we can participate in all these things.”
Wow, so non-heteros need not apply, eh?
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@Bonnie
Not sure I'm following you, are you saying only hetros are parents these days?
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One of the only perks of passing 45 is that you might, if you're lucky, be able to own a home in Greenwich, Darien, Westport, or New Canaan. I've been to Africa, Hawaii, Tuscany, Wyoming, and the Grand Tetons. All gorgeous places, but I think northern Greenwich takes the cake. To me, the Round Hill Rd area of Greenwich (close to Darien) is more beautiful than Hawaii. I visit South Fork for the parties. I visit Fairfield County for the beauty.
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@richguy (really, that's the handle you chose?!), believe it or not, many of us who are over 45 and could afford to live in "Greenwich, Darien, Westport, or New Canaan" choose not to. I'll take Manhattan any day.
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@Judy
I live in TriBeCa. I love Manhattan as well. It's a tough choice. I'm a car guy (I track as a hobby). I love driving around the twisting roads of Greenwich and Bedford. Also, I dream of having parking for four cars and room to change my own tires. In addition, I want my kids to have a tennis court. If I can't afford a summer home with tennis court in South Fork, I'll get a primary residence with a court. I work at home. So, I don't have to commute,. If I had to commute, I'd probably just stay in the city.
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@richguy
also, while I'd prefer to send my kids to private school, I might not be able to swing that. so, schools matter. I'd want to live somewhere with good average SAT scores (over 600 in each section). My own prep school was, I'd guess, closer to a 650 average per section (maybe even higher than that. It was an Ivy feeder school). furthermore, I want my kids to have outdoor field sports (soccer, lacrosse, field hockey).
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Thank you for this article about my home town, Darien. Although born in Indianapolis, I grew up in Darien from age 2 through high school in the DHS class of 1971. I returned from Maine to Darien for a few years to take care of my elderly mother after the death of my father in 1999 and practice law there. Although some grand houses had been build, and businesses have come and gone, Darien High School has been replaced with a new structure, and the home prices were too high for me to remain there after settling my mother's estate, my deep impression from my three years in Darien and New Canaan from 1999 to 2002 are that it is very much the same place where I grew up on Chester Road, where our family home's back yard abutted Woodland Park (Irving's Woods in my youth before the Town bought it as a nature preserve). Your article brings me back also because it shows familiar sites, such as Noroton Yacht Club, where my cousin Jeff Eng has been the manager for about three decades, and Holmes School, where I went to elementary school and was in the 4th grade the day President Kennedy was shot in Dallas, as I was made so aware of a few days ago on the 55th anniversary. And the article names people who I remember, such as Realtor Doug Milne, who was a year ahead of me at Darien High School. Darien keeps up with the times in many ways, but it also remains somewhat timeless, which I truly appreciate. Anyone lucky enough to grow up in Darien has a lot to be thankful for.
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@Martin Womer I’ve lived on Chester Rd for 20 years. The best place to grow up!
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I lived there from age 3-9!! I was good friends with a lot of people on the street. Chester road was an amazing place to grow up. Best memories I have. (EF you are one of them❤️)
@Martin Womer - Hey, Marty, great to see you're still around. I hope you can make the 50th DHS class reunion in 2021, I'd like to see some of the old crew again.
Since I am still living in Fairfield county, I can visit Darien from time to time, but I agree all the rich people have ruined it. People can hardly believe it when I tell them that when I lived in Darien, normal people could afford it. We went to school with the kids of a bus driver, an industrial arts teacher in Stamford, and the guy who owned the Chinese laundry on West Ave. Everybody thought this was normal.....little did they know!
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I'd like to throw Norwalk, CT into the ring for anyone reading this article and thinking of a move to lower Fairfield County. Norwalk is adjacent to Darien and while much larger in size, our taxes and home costs are significantly lower. There is also a vibrant arts and cultural scene and much more diversity - exponentially more so than in other neighboring towns. We are an hour commute from Grand Central, have great neighborhood schools, plentiful shopping options, and a fantastic "suburb within a city" feel.
For anyone moving to the 'burbs from NYC, I recommend coming 5 extra minutes down I-95 and seeing what Norwalk has to offer. No, I'm not a local realtor or politician, just a former NYC resident who is raising my young family here and really happens to love our "new" city!
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@Alyson
Norwalk could elevate its image by painting all the red brick white. the shopping areas of Greenwich and Darien have a lot of white in the facades, which makes them look more like beach resort towns (Southampton, East Hampton). red brick looks like Yonkers or Brooklyn. It looks more urban. It's a small, trivial detail with, I think, a large effect. Downtown Norwalk feels more like Yonkers. Downtown Darien and Greenwich feel more like the Hamptons. It's just the look. The stores could all be the same. Mentally, I always confused Norwalk with Bridgeport, even though Norwalk is very much at the heart of Fairfield.
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Don’t give away the best kept secret!
@Alyson.
Just a quick correction, the taxes in Darien are lower than Norwalk. I grew up in both towns, but have spent the majority in Darien.
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I went to Holmes School. In the 60s, most people in Darien were middle-class, with a few rich areas.
Holmes School had no school buses. Every kid walked to school every day, and nobody thought it was strange.
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@Jonathan Now they have a free range movement to get kids to do normal things like walk to school. That's if child services doesn't nab you first.
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