History of Stamford, Connecticut

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The history of Stamford, Connecticut

Contents 1 Early history 2 Twentieth century 2.1 Ku Klux Klan in Stamford 2.2 Downtown development 3 Twenty-first century 4 Pictures 5 On the National Register 6 Footnotes 7 External links 7.1 Stamford Historical Society links

[edit] Early history

Stamford was known as Rippowam by the Native American inhabitants to the region, and the very first European settlers to the area also referred to it that way. The name was later changed to Stamford after a town in Lincolnshire, England. The deed to Stamford was signed on 1 July 1640 between Captain Turner of the New Haven Colony and Chief Ponus. The land that now forms the city of Stamford was bought for 12 coats, 12 hoes, 12 hatchets, 12 glasses, 12 knives, four kettles, and four fathoms of white wampum. The deed was renegotiated several times until 1700 when the territory was given up by the Native American inhabitants for a more substantial sum of money.

In 1641, Stamford was settled by 29 Puritan families from Wethersfield, making it part of the Connecticut Colony, unlike Norwalk to the east, which was part of the New Haven Colony.^[1]

The first public schoolhouse in Stamford was a "crude, unheated wooden structure only ten or twelve feet square". It was built in 1671 when settlers tore down their original meeting house, which they had outgrown after three decades, and used some of the timbers to put up a school near the Old Town Hall on Atlantic Square. On the nearby common they built a new 38-foot (12 m)-square meeting house, which also served as the Congregational church.^[2]

One of the primary industries of the small colony was merchandising by water, which was possible due to Stamford's proximity to New York.

Starting in the late 19th century, New York residents built summer homes on the shoreline, and even back then there were some who moved to Stamford permanently and started commuting to Manhattan by train, although the practice became more popular later.

Stamford incorporated as a city in 1893.

[edit] Twentieth century

On Memorial Day, 1901, a cannon from the USS Kearsarge was placed in West Park (now Columbus Park) as a memorial to Civil War veterans. Cast at West Point in 1827, the cannon had also been used on the USS Lancaster. The artillery piece sat in the park until 1942 when it was hauled away for scrap.^[3]

In 1904, the Town Hall burnt down. A new building in the Beaux Arts style was constructed from 1905 (when the cornerstone was laid) to 1907 in the triangular block formed by Main, Bank and Atlantic streets. The building was eventually named Old Town Hall and held the mayor's office until about 1961, when Mayor William Kennedy moved to the Municipal Office Building which formerly stood further south on Atlantic Avenue. Nearly all municipal offices were moved to 888 Washington Blvd. in 1988.^[4]

On February 19, 1919, at the site of the present Cove Island Park, in the Cove section of Stamford, the Cove Mill factory of the Stamford Manufacturing Company burned to the ground in a spectacular conflagration.

Stamford is the birthplace of the electric dry shaver industry. By 1940 Colonel Jacob Schick employed almost 1,000 workers at the Schick Dry Shaver Company on Atlantic Street.^[5]

[edit] Ku Klux Klan in Stamford

The Ku Klux Klan, which preached a doctrine of Protestant control of America and suppression of blacks, Jews and Catholics, had a following in Stamford in the 1920s. Across the state, the Klan's popularity peaked in 1925 when it had a statewide membership of 15,000. Stamford was one of the communities where the group was most active in the state, although New Haven and New Britain were also centers of support.^[6]

During the 1924 election, one of the largest Klan meetings in the state took place in Stamford. Grand Dragon Harry Lutterman of Darien organized the meeting, attended by thousands of Klansmen.^[6]

Historical population of Stamford[5]
1756	2,768
1774	3,563
1782	3,834
1800	4,352
1810	4,440
1820	3,284
1830	3,707
1840	3,516
1850	5,000
1860	7,185
1870	9,714
1880	11,297
1890	15,700
1900	18,839
1910	28,836
1920	40,067
1930	56,765
1940	61,215
1950	74,293
1960	92,713
1970	108,798
1980	102,453
1990	108,056
2000	117,083
2002	119,850 (est.)][6]

The Stamford Republican Party used its Lincoln Republican Club as a front for all Klan activities in the area. The Stamford Advocate (as The Advocate of Stamford was then known) published an advertisement signed by local Democrats (who relied on the Catholic vote) protesting the meeting. The Klan published an advertisement in response, noting the "un-American" names of some of those who signed the Democrats' statement.^[6]

By 1926, the Klan leadership in the state was divided, and it lost strength, although it continued to maintain small, local branches for years afterward in Stamford, as well as in Bridgeport, Darien, Greenwich and Norwalk.^[7]

[edit] Downtown development

Since 1963, when 94 downtown acres were razed to make way for urban renewal, towers with more than eight million square feet of office space have been built along Interstate 95 between exits 6 and 9. Altogether there are 14,000,000 square feet (1,300,000 m²) of commercial space, but the intensely developed central business district is just 3 percent of the city's 39 square miles (101 km²); the rest is heavily residential.

Despite its age, Stamford has very few historic buildings. This can be attributed to a massive urban redevelopment campaign (starting in the 1960s and gaining steam in the 1970s) that changed the face of the downtown, giving it its distinctive look as a modern, very urban-looking business district with a high skyline. Since 1963, a total of 94 acres (0 km²) in the downtown were razed for urban renewal. Between then and 1989, more than eight million square feet of office space were built from Exits 6 to 9 along Interstate 95 in Stamford, raising the total to 14,000,000 square feet (1,300,000 m²) of office space in the city by that year. The intensely developed downtown business district, however, is only 3 percent of the land area of the city, which is mostly residential.^[1] Much of the city, especially in North Stamford, remained woodsy.

The few historic buildings include the Old Town Hall (1905, currently unoccupied), the Hoyt Barnum House (1699), and the old Yale and Towne building (1869, part of the Yale and Towne complex was destroyed in a fire on April 3, 2006), which was once a lock company (the city seal has the two keys from it).

The F.D. Rich Co., a construction company founded by F.D. Rich Sr., an Italian stonemason (with an Americanized name) several decades before, was the city-designated urban renewal developer of the downtown,

The redevelopment was contentious, with groups of residents suing to prevent the demolition of nine city blocks and the displacement of 400 businesses and 1,100 families.^[8]

After building High Ridge Park, a suburban corporate campus, in the 1960s, the company put up the city's tallest structure, Landmark Building, and the GTE building (now One Stamford Forum). The Stamford Marriott, with a revolving restaurant dining room at the top, overlooking Long Island Sound, is another F.D. Rich landmark that changed the look of Downtown. ^[8]

In the 1970s F.D. Rich Co. also built 10 Stamford Forum (designed by Steven M. Goldberg of the New York office of Mitchell/Giurgola),^[9] and in the 1980s it built the 1,000,000-square-foot (93,000 m²) Stamford Town Center mall, 4 Stamford Forum (designed by Cesar Pelli), 6 Stamford Forum (Arthur Erickson) and 8 Stamford Forum (Hugh Stubbins), 300 Atlantic Street and 177 Broad Street. When real estate prices collapsed in the 1980s, the company had to sell nearly all of its properties, although it continues to rent space in Landmark Square.

Many of the buildings along Tresser Boulevard, parallel to Interstate 95, had little but garage entrances and exits accessing the street, although they presented a modern, glittering glass facade to travelers along the highway. The Rich family (which still owns F.D. Rich Co.) was criticized for creating pedestrian-unfriendly streets, and Tresser Boulevard became notorious among many architecture and urban design critics.

"The streets were never meant to be for pedestrians," Robert N. Rich, then head of the company, told a reporter for the New York Times in 1999, apparently referring to Tresser Boulevard and the immediate area around it. "GTE came here because they were bombed in New York. Crime was a problem in the city. That's why the buildings were designed to be impenetrable."^[8]

Over the years, other developers have joined F.D. Rich Co. in building up the downtown, including Antares, which has built some of the large condominium projects, and W&M Properties, which built and owns Metro Center, a prominent building just south of the Stamford train station where Thomson Corporation, officially a Canadian company, has its operational headquarters.

F.D. Rich Co., still headquartered in the Landmark building, sold nearly all of its Stamford buildings (including the Landmark) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The company recently built and owns a Courtyard by Marriott hotel at the corner of Summer and Broad streets, which houses the restaurant Napa & Company. The Rich Forum, a downtown performing arts center, is named after the Rich family.

[edit] Twenty-first century

On September 11, 2001, nine city residents lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks, all at the World Trade Center: Alexander Braginsky, 38; Stephen Patrick Cherry, 41; Geoffrey W. Cloud, 36; John Fiorito, 40; Bennett Lawson Fisher, 58; Paul R. Hughes, 38; Sean Rooney, 50; Randolph Scott, 48; and Thomas F. Theurkauf Jr., 44. A total of 65 Connecticut residents lost their lives on that day.^[10]

One of the biggest fires in Stamford's history occurred April 3, 2006 in the South End. The fire started in a piano store in a building that was part of the former Yale & Towne lock factory complex. It spread to a neighboring building housing antiques dealers. Eight businesses were destroyed and others were damaged. City fire marshals never determined the cause, but said an unfixed sprinkler system helped the fire spread. Firefighters used 1 million gallons of water in three hours and then had to pump water from Long Island Sound when the water mains ran out. Dark mushroom clouds formed over the scene, visible for miles along Interstate 95. About 200 residents from homes on Pacific and Henry streets were evacuated. In July 2006, more than 100 antiques dealers filed a class-action lawsuit against the owner, Antares Real Estate Services of Greenwich.^[11]

In recent years, Stamford has appeared as a setting in some television shows: In the NBC television series The Office, the character Jim Halpert transferred to a Dunder Mifflin branch in Stamford. The sitcom My Wife and Kids is set in Stamford. An episode of The Cosby Show mentioned a neighborhood supermarket chain as being based in Stamford.

In the early afternoon of August 3, 2006, one of the hottest days of the year when air conditioning raised electricity consumption, downtown Stamford experienced a blackout after underground electricity cables on Summer Street overheated and caught fire. Many offices were forced to close down. A concert (part of the Alive@Five series) with Hootie & the Blowfish continued at Columbus Park early that evening, but many restaurants had to throw out their food beforehand.

Stamford was devastated in a 2006 Marvel Comics miniseries called Civil War. The story depicted a group of superheroes being filmed for a reality television show as they raided a suburban home being used as the safehouse for a group of supervillains, one of whom, Nitro, used his power to explode to destroy the neighborhood. Although no specific Stamford buildings seem to be depicted, a store sign from A Timeless Journey" a local comic book shop, is featured in Issue The Amazing Spider-Man #532. Marvel writer Jeph Loeb, who grew up near Riverbank Road and attended the former Riverbank Elementary School, came up with the decision to use Stamford, according to an article in The Advocate of Stamford. The use of the comic-book store sign came because the store owner, Paul Salerno, was quoted in an April Advocate story saying he'd love to have his store depicted, even if it were devastated in the series. The day after the article came out, the store owner got a call from Marvel.^[12][13] Stamford had previously appeared in Marvel Comics as the location of the suburban home of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four, at a time when the married couple were semi-retired as superheroes and attempting to establish a "normal" home life for their son Franklin.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Pictures

Massee School for Boys, about 1921

Rippowam River, about 1905

[edit] On the National Register

• Agudath Shalom Synagogue — 29 Grove St. (added June 11, 1995)
• Benjamin Hait House — 92 Hoyclo Road (added December 30, 1978)
• C. J. Starr Barn and Carriage House]] — 200 Strawberry Hill Ave. (added October 14, 1979)
• Church of the Holy Name — 305 Washington Blvd. (added 1987)
• Cove Island Houses — Cove Road and Weed Avenue (added June 22, 1979)
• Deacon John Davenport House — 129 Davenport Ridge Road (added May 29, 1982)
• Downtown Stamford Historic District — Atlantic, Main, Bank, and Bedford Sts. (added November 6, 1983)
• Downtown Stamford Historic District (Boundary Increase 2) — Roughly, Bedford Street between Broad and Forest Streets (added February, 2003)
• Fort Stamford Site (added October 10, 1975)
• Gustavus and Sarah T. Pike House — 164 Fairfield Ave. (added June 24, 1990)
• Hoyt-Barnum House — 713 Bedford St. (added July 11, 1969)
• John Knap House — 984 Stillwater Road (added April 5, 1979)
• Linden Apartments — 10-12 Linden Place (added September 11, 1983)
• Long Ridge Village Historic District — Old Long Ridge Road bounded by the New York State Line, Rock Rimmon Road, and Long Ridge Road (state Route 104) (added July 2, 1987)
• Main Street Bridge — Carries Main Street over the Rippowam River (added June 21, 1987)
• Marion Castle, Terre Bonne — 1 Rogers Road (added August 1, 1982)
• Nathaniel Curtis House — 600 Housatonic Ave. (added May 15, 1982)
• Octagon House — 120 Strawberry Hill Ave. (added September 17, 1979)
• Old Town Hall — between Atlantic, Bank, and Main Streets (added July 2, 1972)
• Revonah Manor Historic District — Roughly bounded by Urban Street, East Avenue, Fifth, and Bedford Streets (added August 31, 1986)
• Rockrimmon Rockshelter (added September 5, 1994)
• South End Historic District — Roughly bounded by Metro-North railroad tracks, Stamford Canal, Woodland Cemetery, and Washington Boulevard (added April 19, 1986)
• St. Andrew's Protestant Episcopal Church — 1231 Washington Blvd. (added 1983)
• St. Benedict's Church — 1A St. Benedict's Circle (added 1987)
• St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church — 628 Main St. (added 1987)
• St. Luke's Chapel — 714 Pacific St. (added 1987)
• St. Mary's Church — 540 Elm St. (added 1987)
• Stamford Harbor Lighthouse — South of breakwater, Stamford Harbor (added May 3, 1991)
• Suburban Club — 6 Suburban Ave./580 Main St. (added September 10, 1989)
• Turn-of-River Bridge — Old North Stamford Road at Rippowam River (added August 31, 1987)
• US Post Office-Stamford Main — 421 Atlantic St. (added 1985)
• Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford — 20 Forest St. (added 1987)
• Zion Lutheran Church — 132 Glenbrook Road (added 1987)

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

[edit] Stamford Historical Society links

• Stamford Historical Society Web site
• "Stamford Connecticut, 1641 - 1893: the first two-and-a-half centuries" by Dr. Estelle F. Feinstein

Stamford Historical Society "Condensed History of Stamford" online articles:

• "History of Stamford through the 18th Century"
• "The 19th Century"
• "Renovah Manor"
• "Into the 20th Century"
• "The Most Exciting Parts of Stamford's History"