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Building was given impetus by the zoning laws which went into effect in 1926, and many new residential parks appeared. The development of Putnam Avenue as a business center dates from then.
Many changes in government have also taken place since the turn of the century. As the town increased in population and the functions of government increased it became apparent that the old methods must be improved. Incidents happened which showed the need of throwing safeguards around the town's finances. In 1909 the town made its first radical departure from the traditional form of town organization by establishing a Board of Estimate and Taxation which was to control the fi- nances of the town and which in recent years has come to wield great influence also in administrative affairs ..
Another radical change came in 1932 when the borough gov- ernment, which had been established in 1854 to give the resi- dents of Greenwich proper the advantages which they desired, was abolished as no longer necessary. Other parts of the town had come to enjoy the identical advantages for which the bor- ough was organized. With the elimination of the borough passed the system of double taxation which had been a hardship on borough property owners.
The open town meeting, in which many of the town's prob- lems had been settled by the voters themselves from the time the settlement was founded, gradually outlived its usefulness. When a point was finally reached where there were more than 15,000 eligible voters with no hall available which would ac-
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commodate more than one thousand of those voters it was ap- parent that something would have to be done. The problem was solved in 1933 by the institution of a representative town meet- ing, which preserves the New England tradition of a town meeting, within workable limits.
Electrification of the railroad has brought the city even closer and today hundreds of the town's citizens travel back and forth daily. Widening of the Post Road from a rough eighteen foot macadam road to a four-lane concrete highway has been accom- plished during the past ten years and has had a marked effect on property values. Improvement of the back country roads has continued during the same period, each improvement opening up new areas for development.
So great was the growth of traffic along the Post Road dur- ing the last decade and so intolerable had conditions become that it was necessary to provide some relief. That relief will be found in the near future in the long-awaited Merritt Parkway, now under construction, which will wind its way through Greenwich's back country, taking most of the traffic from West- chester County's splendid system of parkways instead of divert- ing it through the heart of the business district.
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VI. PRESENT AND FUTURE
I T IS no mean task to cover nearly three hundred years of a town's history and do it justice, and at the same time keep within the limits of a convenient volume. Particu- larly is that true in the case of Greenwich, whose history is so rich in its background of adventure, romance, and personalities that any writer examining into it is constantly tempted to take side journeys from the main theme.
To succumb to that temptation means the preparation of a book full of detail, in which many persons are not interested. To resist the temptation means inevitably the elimination of stories and incidents in which others would find pleasure. In "Greenwich, Old & New," the effort has been made to present, within easily read limits, a comprehensive picture of the develop- ment of Greenwich from the days of its settlement by a few hardy pioneers down to the present. In this volume an effort has been made to trace the steps by which the transformation of Greenwich from a typical New England farming community to a smart, attractive suburb of a metropolitan city has come about.
That transformation had its beginnings back in the middle of the nineteenth century and developed slowly for nearly fifty years, but it has come to its full fruition during the three and a half decades of the twentieth century. For those who would say that this book does not tell enough about the accomplishments
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of the twentieth century in Greenwich, with the reform in habits, manners, and government, that have accompanied these accom- plishments, the defense can only be made that the twentieth century is not yet history. It is still too early to tell what future historians will regard as the significant happenings and trends in Greenwich during the past thirty five years.
The task would not be well done, however, if there were not some picture presented of Greenwich as it is today and some outline drawn of the problems and possibilities of the future. It is easy to use superlatives in writing of Greenwich. This New England town has a wide reputation as the wealthiest commun- ity per capita in the United States, with the single possible ex- ception of Brookline, Mass. In financial circles Greenwich is pointed to as a model of municipal finance, a town which could pay all its bills, finance its relief efforts, make capital expendi- tures out of income and still have a surplus of $200,000 in a depression year, besides oversubscribing its Community Chest goal. In the realm of society Greenwich is known wherever so- ciety moves for its many clubs, its magnificent estates, its riding, its fox hunting and its other activities in which society folk like to indulge.
Circles of government at Hartford and Washington are con- scious of Greenwich as the center from which large sums of money come in the form of taxes on real estate, incomes and in- heritances. It probably would not be disputed that there is no community comparable in population which makes a more sub- stantial monetary contribution to government than does Green- wich. Greenwich is known as the home of leaders in finance, business, the law, education, science and every field of human endeavor. Again, speaking in superlatives, probably no com- munity has a larger representation in the volume, "Who's Who in America," than has Greenwich.
This is the view which the world has of us. And yet those who live in Greenwich know that these things form only part
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of the answer to the question of what Greenwich really is. They know that Greenwich has almost every advantage as a place of residence that could be desired. They know that it has the water of Long Island Sound and the hills; it has well paved streets and country highways, almost without exception bordered with trees. It has public and private recreation facilities that provide every- thing that could be asked. It can be surprisingly remote within a few hundred feet of the Boston Post Road and yet it is easily accessible. Its air is not polluted by the smoke of factory chim- neys and it is free of the other undesirable features that mark an industrial town or city.
Its new High School with accommodations for 1,700 students and its ten grammar schools situated in strategic parts of the town constitute a public school system that can hardly be ex- celled. Its five private schools, appealing to all kinds of groups, and one junior college for girls offer additional advantages to those who desire them and can afford to pay for them. The town has splendid churches, and many of the pastors who have served them during the three centuries have been famous as scholars and leaders of thought.
All of these things taken together still do not present the en- tire answer as to why the town of Greenwich is a wonderful place in which to live and bring up a family. Through the gen- erosity of many of its citizens the community is liberally supplied with character building agencies such as the Young Men's Chris- tian Association and its companion organization, the Young Women's Christian Association. For all of its wealth Greenwich has its quota of less privileged families and the boys from these families find health and fun in the Boys' Club. The Greenwich Hospital, the Havemeyer School, Bruce Park, Binney Park, the Town Hall, Island Beach - to mention only a few - have all helped to enrich the life of the town.
Although only thirty miles from the metropolis, Greenwich has been developing, particularly during the past decade, a busi-
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ness center capable of meeting the needs of the most discerning families. The widening a few years ago of Greenwich Avenue, its principal business street, providing greater and more conven- ient parking facilites than any other large communty in the metropolitan zone, has played an important part in the develop- ment of the business center. It has strengthened the demand for improvement not only in buildings but in the meeting and handling of customers by the merchants of the street.
FIFTY YEARS OF CHANGE
OF COURSE there are those who do not like the new atmosphere of Greenwich. Many of its older citizens sigh for the good old days when Greenwich Avenue was only a path leading in the direction of the harbor. They remember Belle Haven when it was one large farm, and Rock Ridge when it was another farm, and when what is now Milbrook, and Laddin Rock, were wild places for children, young and old, to explore. They remember when the Post Road was a country highway, before the days of macadam and concrete pavements. They remember when Old Greenwich, Riverside and Cos Cob were only farm land and the entire back country of Greenwich was given over to fields of grain, hay and potatoes.
That is substantially what the town of Greenwich was like as late as 1880. In 1883 all of the land now comprised by Belle Haven with the exception of about forty acres, was assessed at $15,490 and paid $193.62 annually in taxes. Today this land, the choicest in Greenwich, with its long shore line, is valued in the millions and the houses whch grace them would add still other millions. When Nathaniel Witherell acquired the Zacch- eus Mead farm and began the development which is now Rock Ridge he was reported to have paid about $14,500, but today one would pay that price for a small part of one plot. Prices of property along village streets and in the back country areas have risen accordingly.
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While the contrast between the Greenwich of today and of fifty years ago is of course more marked, it is true also that the Greenwich of today is a different Greenwich than that of ten years ago. Ten years ago the trolleys came from East Port Ches- ter, filled the center of Greenwich Avenue, turned into the Post Road and bumped their way east over the tracks to Stamford. The tracks of another company ran from Adams Corner on the Post Road down Sound Beach Avenue to its end, and thence by Shore Road to Stamford. When a trolley car moved up or down Greenwich Avenue traffic moved at a snail's pace.
West of Greenwich Avenue on the Post Road were the two buildings of the New England Motor Sales Company, one on each side of the road, and several other business buildings, but between Greenwich Avenue and Mason and Church Streets on the east, business had not invaded. The Open Door Inn catered to transients and townspeople but the business block on the op- posite side of the street, at the Milbank Avenue corner, was not there. Neither had any gasoline service station invaded the tree- bordered sanctity of East Putnam Avenue. In fact, the number of service stations and other roadside stands along the seven miles of Post Road was but a fraction of the present number.
Even the depression has failed to halt the onward march of Greenwich. Owners of older buildings along Greenwich Ave- nue, seeing their tenants move to newer structures, have been forced to modernize and that street has been steadily under- going the process of having its face changed. True, some of the buildings have the same old framework under the veneer and the paint, but the fronts which they expose to the eye of the passerby are a great improvement. They add immensely to the appearance of the street and incidentally pay their way by bring- ing more business.
When the cost of the depression is figured up it may be found that so far as Greenwich is concerned its relief bills were more than offset by the savings made in cost of government, and the
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improvements that were made which probably would not have been done under other circumstances. While the town's financial affairs were handled prudently even before the depression there is no way of telling to what extent the town would have bonded itself for public improvements. Certain it is that the depression caused the town's responsible officers to stop and think. Needed improvements have been carried out and bonds have been floated easily when they were necessary. Today the town's credit is un- excelled and no matter what plan of public improvement were launched the money would undoubtedly be forthcoming for the asking.
WHAT OF THE FUTURE?
THE PROBLEM of the future is one of great importance. It is one about which many are deeply concerned. As is always the case there are varying divisions of thought. Many of the native pop- ulation still resent the invasion of their quiet community and its transformation into a busy town, its streets constantly filled with automobiles. They realize that no magic could restore the peace and quiet of the old days but they would like to see the rapid growth of the last thirty five years halted.
Neither are they alone in that hope. With them on the one hand are many of those families which fled from the noise and confusion of New York to find contentment and calm along some country lane or quiet street in Greenwich who now dis- approve the still on coming stream of new residents. They feel that the town of Greenwich today has as large a population as it can conveniently absorb and they would preserve it in its present state, reserving its beauty and advantages for their own enjoyment. On the other hand are those who would take great pride in seeing Greenwich grow until it too became a great and throbbing city.
These are the extremes. Between are the great majority of people who love Greenwich as it is today; who would like
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nothing better than to see it continue about as it is today, but who realize that the gradual encroachment of a great city can no more be resisted than can the tide of Long Island Sound be turned back. They realize that a constant increase in population is undoubtedly to be expected, notwithstanding predictions of some scientists that the suburbs of tomorrow will be located one hundred, two hundred or even three hundred miles from the cities and be as accessible by air as Greenwich now is by train. While recognizing the inevitable, they would guide that increase into such channels that no matter how great the growth the appearance of beauty and the atmosphere of New England charm of the present day Greenwich would still continue.
Greenwich talked about zoning and town planning for many years before a zoning enabling act was passed by the legislature in 1926. The town was zoned in that year and since that time its growth has largely been determined by the work that was done by that first zoning commission. There would be few prop- erty owners who would not admit the tremendous value of the zoning ordinance in protecting the property of every owner against unfair exploitation.
Hand in hand with zoning has gone town planning, but that problem has not been as easy to solve as was zoning. Through- out the years Greenwich has been groping for the right answer to the question as to how future expansion of the town can best be controlled. An excellent case can be made out on paper for the adoption of a far seeing plan along which the town should grow-a plan which fixes location of future highways, parks, public buildings and other necessities of a well laid out town. When it comes to making such a plan effective, however, it is found that there are many practical obstacles in the way which seem insurmountable without working hardship on individual property owners.
Courageous men have tackled the job of planning for the future and have given up in discouragement. Two successive
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sessions of the legislature have stripped the commission of plan- ning powers because of fear of the results, and today the only planning function which exists lies in the zoning powers.
It may be that the solution of the problem lies in the simple remedy, now available, of rezoning the area extending some five to seven miles north of the Boston Post Road and creating there super-zones, within the boundaries of which present large hold- ings cannot be divided into tracts of less than two, three or five acres. Such a plan sounds simple and practicable but it has not yet been tested, and when it has it may be wrecked on the same obstacles that have wrecked three other plans. But if it is wrecked something else will be tried because all are agreed upon the necessity of protecting the town against an invasion of cheap and undesirable developments.
One might talk or write indefinitely about the future of Greenwich; the projects yet to be done; the plans still unfulfilled. No matter how much Greenwich may grow there probably will always be projects uncompleted and plans still waiting to be carried into action.
One of the most obvious needs of the future, however, is har- bor development. Greenwich is very much like the householder who owns a beautiful house, furnishes it in the finest style and then permits the front porch to be littered with rubbish. Green- wich has the beautiful house, attractively furnished, but its har- bor represents a most unsightly front door. For twenty five years there has been talk of harbor improvement, yet each plan that has been advanced has broken up upon one rock or another.
It is not the function of this book to urge a specific plan of harbor improvement. There is now in existence a committee charged with studying the whole matter and making recom- mendations. It is earnestly to be hoped that this committee will have the full support of the townspeople in the plan which they finally recommend. Certainly the Greenwich of the future will not be worthy of its ancestry if that duty is not fulfilled.
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One would be rash indeed if he were to attempt to forecast too definitely the future of Greenwich, or to point out too pre- cisely the projects which are still nebulous but which are worthy and should some day be carried out. One can never know what new discovery of science will as completely transform our habits or ways of living as has the automobile in the last few decades. Improvements which now seem obvious may in a few years be no longer necessary, while a new set of problems, now un- expected, may arise to demand solution. Instead of providing wider roads and parking facilities for automobiles, for instance, we may in a few years be worrying about the location of air- plane fields.
Greenwich will always need more schools. It may think that it has finally completed its school building program for all time, only to find that shifting centers of population have made schools in new locations mandatory. The continuing pressure on the High School must inevitably lead some day to the building of a second or even a third High School in other parts of the town or result in the adoption of a Junior High School system such as has been advocated by the Board of Education for several years. Whatever may happen in this direction Greenwich must keep abreast of educational development, and should not permit false ideas of economy to interfere with the proper education of its school children.
It is still too early to know what effect the opening of the Merritt Parkway will have upon the problem of traffic conges- tion along the Boston Post Road. It is certain, however, that as the back country develops the necessity for wider and straighter arteries to all of the stations in the town will be a pressing one. New streets and parkways will undoubtedly have to be built to accommodate this demand and present ones widened and straightened.
In Bruce Park and in Binney Park, both made possible through the generosity and vision of the men after whom they are
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named, Greenwich has two of the most beautiful parks of which any town could boast. Island Beach, the gift of another generous citizen, provides a wonderful place of recreation for the towns- people in the summer as does Byram Park, the only piece of shore property which the town of Greenwich owns. There is no question but what some day the town should have a shore front park, where those who live back of the shore line may go to find enjoyment near and on the water without fear of trespass- ing. It may be that this need will be met with the adoption of a harbor improvement plan. The future development of the town may also make necessary the location of one or more parks north of the Post Road.
A town as recreation minded as is Greenwich, with its four private golf clubs, its two yacht clubs, its various field and ten- nis clubs and its other public and private facilities for enjoy- ment of sports should have a public golf course where those of its residents who enjoy the game but cannot afford membership in a private club may play. The demand for such a course has been growing steadily and must of necessity come some day, even though the present plan of building one with depression- born federal aid should fail to come to pass.
The school facilities of Greenwich are unrivalled, and in the Greenwich and Old Greenwich libraries and the Bruce Museum the town has three fine institutions that should have continued support. If Greenwich is to continue to be the home of people of culture and refinement these libraries might well be supple- mented by a real art gallery, where the works of the many artists who now make their home in Greenwich and those who would inevitably be attracted here could be shown and where paintings and sculpture and other works of art from all parts of the world might be exhibited. Greenwich should have an art commission, with authority not only over the works to be ad- mitted to such a gallery, but to pass upon the design of any
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public buildings erected in the town to keep them in harmony with the spirit of the town.
As the town grows facilities of government must be expanded, and the need for such mundane things as garbage incinerators, fire stations and town hall additions must be taken into con- sideration.
These are but suggestions of the possibilities. The list is not complete. Many more will come to the mind of every person who gives it any thought. But all of these things might come to pass and still have something lacking. A fine community needs something more than beautiful, tree-lined streets, comfortable homes and attractively designed public buildings. With them there must be a constantly increasing sense of civic responsibility and a fine community spirit.
Greenwich of the present is a community of which all who live in it may justly be proud. It is fortunate in its situation, its people and its resources. With vision on the part of its leaders, and loyalty on the part of its citizens, there is every reason why it should some day realize the goal set for it by Dr. Oliver Huckel upon his retirement after a long pastorate, of being the "brightest, best and most beautiful town in America."
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SPONSORS
SPONSORS
The Greenwich Press gratefully acknowledges the partici- pation of the following sponsors, whose generosity and public spiritedness have made the publication of "Greenwich, Old & New" possible:
Sheldon Abbett
Joseph F. Abbott
Mrs. Frederic G. Achelis
E. Dimon Bird
Marshall C. Allaben
Eugene G. Blackford
Chalinder Allen
Paul Block Charles E. Bockus
Dr. Harold L. Amoss
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Theodore Anderson
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Harold S. Bond
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Mrs. Walter H. Bowes
Mrs. Russell T. Bailey
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William A. Bridge
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Lewis H. Brown
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Ogden Bigelow Mrs. Edwin Binney
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George S. Armstrong Lorenzo D. Armstrong Henry Adams Ashforth Dr. Albert E. Austin
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William C. Bradley
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Brunswick School Hamilton M. Brush Ralph E. Brush S. Augustus Brush Francis A. Bryant L. Paul Burke Walter X. Burns William H. Butler
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Thomas D. Hewitt Warren W. Higgons Clarence W. Hillyer
William S. Hirschberg Historical Society of Greenwich George E. Hite, Jr C. O. Hoffmann Homestead Hall
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