Why this ride
A flowing parkway whose bridges and landscaping are the attraction. The road: CT-15. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Merritt Parkway Art Deco Run
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 62 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 1 h 01
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Greenwich
Most people arrive in Greenwich by train and think of hedge funds, but for a rider it is the doorstep of a road with a real pedigree. The Merritt Parkway begins near the New York line here, and it is one of the most beautiful and eccentric roads in America. Built in the 1930s and named for Schuyler Merritt, the Stamford congressman who championed it, the parkway was designed as a garden road, not a freeway, with planted verges, gentle curves and a long run of bridges, each of which has its own Art Deco design. There are dozens of them, and no two match.
2. New Canaan
New Canaan is where modern architecture quietly took root in the Connecticut woods. After the Second World War a small group of designers, known as the Harvard Five, built daringly plain houses of glass, steel and wood among the old stone walls here, and the most famous of all is the Glass House, designed by Philip Johnson and finished in 1949 as his own residence. It is a glass box in a meadow, and it is now open for guided tours that sell out, so booking ahead matters if it interests you. Other, newer buildings, such as the Grace Farms pavilion of 2015, carry on the tradition.
3. Westport
4. Trumbull
The Merritt Parkway's southern half ends in a way that feels like a small ceremony. Near Trumbull, the road crosses the Housatonic River on the Sikorsky Memorial Bridge, named for Igor Sikorsky, the Russian-born aircraft designer whose helicopter factory is just downstream in Stratford, and on the far side the road becomes the Wilbur Cross Parkway and carries on east through the state. For a rider finishing a run from Greenwich, that crossing is the natural full stop.