Merritt Parkway Resources

Guide to the Merritt Parkway

This new guide is designed to enhance the way neighbors, commuters and passing motorists experience the Merritt Parkway, which connects and unifies the people and special places of Southwest Connecticut. It highlights some of the great bridges and their remarkable details, great old trees, swamps and rivers, stone walls, rock outcrops and more!

Connecticut Department of Transportation

Travelers through Connecticut and within Connecticut who wish to use the restricted Merritt Parkway need to understand the rules of this historic road - including height restrictions considering the older bridges! Please visit the Connecticut Department of Transportation web page about what is allowed on the Merritt by clicking here. Documents are also available from the department (with a reproduction fee) that will provide background on the agency's perspectives on preserving the unique character of the parkway:

• A Landscape Master Plan For The Merritt Parkway (1994)
• Merritt Parkway Conservation and Restoration Plan: Bridge Restoration Guide (1999)
• Merritt Parkway Guidelines for General Maintenance and Transportation Improvements (1994)

HABS/HAER Photographs, Bridge Reports, and History

These resources are the result of a documentation project undertaken by the National Park Service's Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record. Note: follow link below, then search for "Merritt Parkway".

"The Merritt Parkway", by Bruce Radde

This book traces the history of Connecticut's Merritt Parkway from the proposals for its construction and design in the early 1920s to its triumphant completion in 1940. Filled with vintage and recent photographs, it is not only a picturesque tour of a renowned landmark (the largest Art Deco design in the world), but is also an appraisal of a major contribution to the built environment - one recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Yale University Press, 1993.

"The Merritt Parkway", The New Canaan Historical Society

This is the first comprehensive book to cover the legal, design, planning and regulatory guidelines for the maintenance and preservation of historic roads. Provides criteria for determining a road's historic significance and includes an introduction to relevant transportation policy and laws. Adapts current design and capacity standards recommended by the American Association of State Transportation and Highway Officials specifications to historic road configurations. Includes enlightening case studies and 100 black and white photographs. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

 "Saving Historic Roads: Design & Policy Guidelines", by Paul Daniel Marriott

This is the first comprehensive book to cover the legal, design, planning and regulatory guidelines for the maintenance and preservation of historic roads. Provides criteria for determining a road's historic significance and includes an introduction to relevant transportation policy and laws. Adapts current design and capacity standards recommended by the American Association of State Transportation and Highway Officials specifications to historic road configurations. Includes enlightening case studies and 100 black and white photographs. John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

 nycroads.com

This site, which provides information on all the major roads in the New York City region, has an excellent little history of the Merritt Parkway and a number of related links.

  Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation

The Connecticut Trust is the state's nonprofit leader on historic preservation matters. Current issues in preservation, state policy developments, resources for those interested in preservation and restoration of historic homes and facilities, and a great deal of additional information for preservationists and others who care about maintaining Connecticut's character can be found here.

 Merritt Parkway in Art

The Merritt Parkway has been an inspiration to artists throughout its history. The Parkway has been sketched, painted, photographed, and, for all we know, responded to in sculpture! Here's the first work we found on the Internet, a painting from the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art by the famous modern painter Willem de Kooning in 1959. We will add others over time...

Please send us your suggestions for other high-quality resources or links!  We would love to hear from you.

Photographs courtesy of the Patrick A Deluca Deluca Construction Company and the Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER).

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