Greenwich Avenue Historic District

The Greenwich Avenue Historic District is a historic district representing the commercial and civic historical development of the downtown area of the town of Greenwich, Connecticut. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 31, 1989. Included in the district is the Greenwich Municipal Center Historic District, which was listed on the National Register the year before for the classical revival style municipal buildings in the core of Downtown. Most of the commercial buildings in the district fall into three broad styles, reflecting the period in which they were built: Italianate , Georgian Revival , and Commercial style . The district is linear and runs north–south along the entire length of Greenwich Avenue, the main thoroughfare of Downtown Greenwich, between U.S. Route 1 and the New Haven Line railroad tracks.
The town of Greenwich was first settled in 1640, but settlement was scattered among several villages. It was not until 1665 that Greenwich was formally incorporated as a town of Connecticut. In 1672, a group of settlers bought a tract of land known as Miossehasseky. The area occupied by Havemeyer Fields was used by these settlers as a pasture for horses and the entire village soon acquired the name Horseneck. In 1703, the town voted to have town meetings split between Sound Beach and Horseneck, which was centrally located in the town. In 1760, a “Town House” for conducting town meetings was constructed at what is now the intersection of Putnam and Maple Avenue. The population of Horseneck boomed in the mid-19th century, transforming from a farming village to a wealth suburban community of New York City, mainly as a result of the establishment by the New Haven Railroad of a station at the lower part of Greenwich Avenue. This rapid growth prompted the incorporation of Horseneck as the Borough of Greenwich in 1854. The establishment of borough government ultimately allowed for the rapid construction of new public buildings after the Civil War on previously vacant farmland. Around the area of public buildings, intensive development of commercial as well as residential areas was also taking place.

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