Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded
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Back in the 60s, a neighbor on Gilliam Lane, Joe Ryan, was absolutely deranged on this subject, and together with a band of like-minded fellow RTMers, pushed for an elaborate scheme of four-story parking garages, both on and off the entire length of Greenwich Avenue. Joe would drop by our house during the evening to unroll the latest drawings and try to gain my father’s support. The Commander rarely drove, and certainly never shopped on Greenwich Avenue; what he was concerned about was increased taxes, so he declined (politely — my father was always polite, even to crackpots) to join in their efforts, though we boys always enjoyed the show.
Joe’s and his pals’ plans went nowhere then, and similar ideas have met the same fate. As I recall, the only reasonable suggestion to add parking came when the new Richard’s building was being planned for the bottom of the Avenue, and there was discussion of the town paying for a little deeper digging, to provide a level or two of public parking under the building. Regardless of its possible merits, that idea was shelved.
Freddie Camillo has the right take on this subject, I think:
[W]hen it comes to building a parking garage on Greenwich Avenue, First Selectman Fred Camillo calls it a “nonstarter,” an idea that is “not worth wasting breath and time on” because “it’s not going to happen.”
“We are not building any standalone parking structures in Greenwich, Connecticut,” Camillo said. “That was settled about 20 years ago. … I have never heard anybody say they want these ugly structures in our town.”
