South End of Stamford
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The South End of Stamford, Connecticut is an economically depressed section just south of the Downtown section of the city. It is expected to be greatly changed with redevelopment over the next decade. This section at the southern end of the city covers a peninsula bordered by Interstate 95 to the north and almost totally by water on all other sides, with a few other streets linking it to neighborhoods to the east and west. Along with old factory buildings and small homes and apartments, a number of buildings have been erected for offices, especially on Canal Street.
Pitney Bowes has a long history in the South End. In 1917, Walter Bowes moved his operations there, and in 1920 combined his firm with another to form Pitney Bowes. The company had manufacturing operations in the neighborhood for decades and has its corporate headquarters at 1 Elmcroft Road, near Dyke Park at the southern tip of the triangular peninsula.
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[edit] Nearby neighborhoods
Downtown is to the north, Waterside is to the west, the Shippan section of town is immediately to the east, although the East Side is close by to the east as well, Shippan Point is to the southeast, also not quite bordering on the South End. To the west is the Waterside section of town.
[edit] History
The South End was one of the first sections of Stamford to be cleared and held in common by the original settlers from 1641 to 1665. By 1699 it and other sections of the town had been apportioned to individual land owners.[1]
"The area of Stamford known for many years as Hoytville was owned by George Hoyt, a real estate agent and the largest property owner in the city in the 1870s," wrote Susan Nova in an article in The Advocate of Stamford. "Bounded by train tracks and the ship canal, the industrial site is now owned by Greenwich-based Antares, which plans a multiuse project on 82 acres."[2]
The South End was the manufacturing heart of the city in the nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries.
Linus Yale, Jr. introduced some combination safe locks and key-operated cylinder locks around 1862. Then in 1868, he and Henry Robinson Towne founded the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company in the South End to produce cylinder locks. Yale died later that year. The Yale & Towne lock company manufactured locks there (giving Stamford its early nickname, "Lock City"). And other manufacturing businesses were sited there.
In 1938, the neighborhood was severely flooded by a hurricane that swept through southern New England. Since then, barriers have been constructed in Stamford Harbor to prevent similar flooding.
Moby once lived in some of the abandoned factory space in the South End.
[edit] April 2006 fire
On April 3, 2006, the biggest fire in Stamford's history started in Building 15 of the old Yale & Towne factory buildings, then spread to another, 17,500-square-foot (1,630 m²) building housing antiques dealers. 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. The biggest casualty was a firefighter who suffered a minor knee sprain. [3]
Firefighters used 1 million gallons of water in three hours. Then the water mains ran out and, for the first time in the city's history, water from the nearby harbor was pumped in to douse the flames. The fire department spent $25,000 in overtime to put out the fire.[4][3]
The complex at 735 Canal St. had been rented out by Antares Investment Partners of Greenwich to various businesses, including about 100 antiques dealers.[4]
The blaze started as a fire on a workbench in a piano shop, although city fire marshals never determined the exact cause.[3] City investigators found Antares hadn't fixed the sprinkler system, although it knew when it bought the building from Heyman Properties of Westport in October 2005 that the system was broken. To fix it would have required cutting off the heat in the building as a new heating system was installed, and Antares was waiting until later in the spring or summer for that, Bruce Macleod, operations chief at Antares, had said, according to The Advocate of Stamford. Heyman officials knew of the sprinkler system problems "and did nothing to fixt them for years, the city's chief fire marshal said in April," The Advocate reported. The sprinkler system had broke in the 1990s when parts of the building were vacant and the heat was turned off. Water still in the pipes froze and the pipes cracked and rusted.[4]
The antiques dealers filed a class-action lawsuit against Antares and the piano shop in July 2006.[4]
[edit] Redevelopment
Antares Investment Partners, headquartered in Greenwich, has purchased 82 acres, roughly the northern half of the South End, including both the old Yale & Towne site and the site of the former coal gasification plant off Washington Boulevard. The development company plans to convert the former industrial land into a residential neighborhood of townhouses, lofts, rental apartments and condominium apartments.[5]
the 20 acre Yale & Town site would have about 300,000 square feet (30,000 m²) of retail space in new buildings off Canal Street, along with 175 loft apartments in a century-old, six-story factory building on Henry Street, according to plans Antares presented to the city Zoning Board in early 2007.[6]
The two former industrial tracts would be the first phase of a 10 to 12 year development eventually encompassing 6,000,000 square feet (557,000 m²) of interior space for housing, retail and office uses.[5]
About 4,000 housing units are planned for the development, along with some retail and office space. Antares had originally said the retail space in its plans was only to service the South End neighborhood, but in the summer of 2006 it submitted a proposal to the city Planning Board for 500,000 square feet (a typical Home Depot is 130,000 square ft). The Downtown Special Services District objected, and officials of that organization told the Planning Board at a hearing on August 10, 2006 that the retail space could hurt Downtown stores.[5]
City officials have told Antares they want to preserve the Antares-owned 14 acre tract where the Brewer Haven Yacht Marina sits as a marina.[6]
The Metro-North Stamford train station and the train tracks also separate the South End from Downtown Stamford. Since 2000, real estate near train stations in Southwestern Connecticut has been recognized as valuable for office and residential space, and plans are underway for several office buildings near the station in the South End, some on land owned by Antares, some not.
[edit] Filming location
- Part of Elia Kazan's 1947 film Boomerang was shot in the South End, particularly at St. Luke's Chapel, and nearly all of the rest of the movie was shot in Stamford, espeically the Downtown section.[7]
[edit] In the South End
- Koscusko Park — a city park at the southern tip of the peninsula
- CTE Inc. — an anti-poverty agency on Woodlawn Avenue
- South End Branch of Ferguson Library — 34 Woodlawn Avenue
- Ponus Yacht Club
- Woodlawn Cemetery — a large, old cemetery in the southeast part of the neighborhood
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Feinstien, Estelle S., Stamford: From Puritan to Patriot 1641-1774, published by Stamford Bicentennial Corporation, 1976, page 20
- ^ [1] "A part of Stamford history is for sale," by Susan Nova, special correspondent, The Advocate, Real Estate section, August 4, 2006, accessed August 5, 2006. The Advocate tends to take its articles off the Web site after a week, the article appeared on page R1; the quoted material on page R4; the article was about the Scofield-Hoyt house on Eden Road, not in the South End
- ^ a b c Lee, Natasha, "South End blaze costs millions: Antiques dealers still displaced after fire", article in The Advocate of Stamford, December 31, 2006, pp A3, A7
- ^ a b c d "Class-action lawsuit filed over Yale & Towne fire: Nearly 100 Antique dealers say owners failed to meet fire codes," an article by Zach Lowe in The Advocate of Stamford, July 24, 2006, pp. 1, A4
- ^ a b c Dalena, Doug, "Antares plan stirs raves and worries," article, The Advocate of Stamford, August 11, 2006, pages A9, A11, not online
- ^ a b Dalena, Doug, "Zonking Board hearing on South End plan is delayed", news article in The Advocate of Stamford, pp A7, A8, Stamford Edition, May 14, 2007
- ^ Russell, Don, "'Roles' in movies are nothing new for city: Kazan used Stamford in the '40s", editorial page column in The Advocate, Stamford edition, page A10, April 25, 2007
[edit] External links
[edit] In the South End
- Antares Real Estate
- South End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone
- Ponus Yacht Club
- CTE Inc., an anti-poverty agency
- Ferguson Library South End Branch
- Made In Stamford - A History of Stamford as a Manufacturing Center. Made In Stamford. Retrieved on September 6, 2005.
[edit] In Stamford
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