Stamford was known as Rippowam by theSiwanoyNative American inhabitants of the region, and the very firstEuropean settlers in the area also called it that. The present name is after the town ofStamford, Lincolnshire, England.[10] Thedeed to Stamford was signed on July 1, 1640, between Captain Turner of theNew Haven Colony and Chief Ponus. By the 18th century, one of the town's primary industries was merchandising by water, which was possible due to Stamford's proximity to New York.
In 1692, Stamford was home to a less famouswitch trial than the well-knownSalem witch trials, which also occurred in 1692. The accusations were less fanatical and on a smaller scale, but they also grew to prominence through gossip and hysterics.[11]
New Canaan officially separated from Stamford when it incorporated as a town in 1801, followed byDarien in 1820.
Starting in the late 19th century, New York residents built summer homes on the shoreline, and some moved to Stamford permanently and started commuting to Manhattan by train. Stamford incorporated as a city in 1893.
From late 1945 through April 1946, more than 3,000 workers at the city'sYale & Locke factory, the largest employer in Stamford at the time, went onstrike.[12]: 57–62 The strike earned nationwide attention after the union declared a day of action on January 3, 1946, which drew approximately 10,000 attendees, resulted insolidarity strikes in surrounding towns and cities, and effectively broughtDowntown Stamford to a standstill.[12]: 58–62 ProfessorGeorge Lipsitz called it "the firstgeneral strike in the United States in twelve years".[12]: 56
In 1950, theU.S. Census Bureau reported the city's population as 94.6% white and 5.2% black.[13]
In the 1960s and 1970s, Stamford's commercial real estate boomed as corporations relocated from New York City to peripheral areas.[14] A massive urban redevelopment campaign during that time resulted in a downtown with many tall office buildings. The F.D. Rich Company was the city-designated urban renewal developer of the downtown area in an ongoing, contentious project beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s. The company put up what was the city's tallest structure,One Landmark Square, at 21 floors high, and the GTE building (now One Stamford Forum), along with the Marriott Hotel, theStamford Town Center and many other downtown office buildings. One Landmark Square has since been dwarfed by the new 34-storyPark Tower Stamford condominium tower, and again by the Atlantic Station development, another Rich Company project in partnership with Cappelli Enterprises.[15] Over the years, other developers have joined in building up the downtown, a process that continued through the 1980s and 1990s and into the new century.
Since 2008, an 80-acre (32-hectare) mixed-use redevelopment project for Stamford'sHarbor Point neighborhood has added additional growth south of downtown. The redevelopment plan included six million square feet (560,000 m2) of new residential, retail, office and hotel space, and a marina. In July 2012, roughly 900 of the projected 4,000 Harbor Point residential units had been constructed.[16] New restaurants and recreational activities have come up in the Harbor Point area, which is considered New Stamford. From 2008 to 2017, the city issued permits for 4,341 housing units.[17][18]
According to theU.S. Census Bureau, the city has an area of 52.09 square miles (134.9 km2), of which 37.62 square miles (97.4 km2) is land and 14.41 square miles (37.3 km2) is water. Stamford is the state's largest city by area.[21] The population density was 3,101.9 inhabitants per square mile (1,197.7/km2) in 2010. The city is halfway betweenManhattan andNew Haven at approximately 38 miles (60 kilometers) from each;[22][23] it is 79 miles (127 kilometers) from the state capital ofHartford.[24]
North of theMerritt Parkway is considered theNorth Stamford section of the city, encompassing its largest land mass though it is the least densely populated. North Stamford functionally and legally acts as one municipality with the city of Stamford. Stamford bordersPound Ridge,New York to the north, the Long Island Sound to the south,Greenwich to the west,Darien to the east, andNew Canaan to the northeast.
The city has islands in Long Island Sound:Cove Island, Grass Island, Greenway Island, Jack Island, andCuties Island (also known as Vincent Island). Cove Island is a prominent beach and recreation area.
Stamford is the only city in the United States from which one can cross the border into the same neighboring state (New York) by going due north, due east, due south and due west.[26]
Under theKöppen climate classification, Stamford has atemperate climate (Cfa), with long, hot summers, and cool to cold winters, with precipitation spread fairly evenly throughout the year. Like the rest of coastal Connecticut, it lies in the broad transition zone between the colder continental climates of the northern U.S. and southern Canada to the north, and the warmer temperate and subtropical climates of the middle andsouth Atlantic states to the south.
The warm/hot season in Stamford is from mid-April through early November. Late day thundershowers are common in the hottest months (June through September), despite the mostly sunny skies. The cool/cold season is from late November though mid-March. Winter weather is far more variable than summer weather along the Connecticut coast, ranging from sunny days with higher temperatures to cold and blustery conditions with occasional snow. As on much of the Connecticut coast and nearby Long Island, some of the winter precipitation is rain or a mix and rain and wet snow. Stamford averages about 30 inches (75 cm) of snow annually, compared to inland areas likeHartford andAlbany that average 45–60 inches (110–150 cm).
Although infrequent,tropical cyclones (hurricanes/tropical storms) have struck Connecticut and the Stamford metropolitan area. Hurricane landfalls have occurred along the Connecticut coast in 1903, 1938, 1944, 1954 (Carol), 1960 (Donna),Hurricane Gloria in 1985, andHurricane Sandy in 2012.
Stamford lies inUSDA garden zone 7a. It averages about 90 days annually with freeze. Coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone where so-called "subtropical indicator" plants and other broadleaf evergreens can be cultivated. As such, Southern Magnolias, Needle Palms, Windmill palm, Loblolly Pines, and Crape Myrtles are grown in private and public gardens. As in much of coastal Connecticut, Long Island, and coastalNew Jersey, the growing season is rather long in Stamford, averaging 210 days from April8 to November5 according to the National Weather Service in Bridgeport.
Climate data for Stamford, Connecticut (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1955–present)
Stamford, Connecticut – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
Census data from 2020 showed the city of Stamford with a population of 135,470. This was a 10.5% increase from 2010. Census data also showed Stamford had surpassed New Haven's population, making it the state's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport.
There were 54,513 housing units at the 2018 estimates and 50,847 households. The average household size was 2.53 and there were approximately 31,347 families living in the city.[39] The owner-occupied housing rate was 46.6% and the renter-occupied housing rate was 53.4%. Stamford's median household income in 2023 was $106,552.[40] The average household income was $161,829.[40] The per capita income in 2022 was $58,297, the highest of any city in Connecticut.[41] About 9.1% of the population was at or below thepoverty line.
In 2010, its population was 122,643. At theU.S. Census Bureau's mid-year 2010 estimates, it grew to 122,902.[42] Roughly 49.8% of the population was non-Hispanic white, 12.9% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian or Alaska Native, 6.8% Asian, 1.6% from two or more races, and 28.3% Hispanic or Latino. The American Community Survey determined there were 46,396 households. The average household size was 2.56 and the average family size was 3.15.[43] The owner-occupied housing rate was 56.5% and the renter-occupied rate was 43.5%.
The2000 census determined Stamford had a population of 117,083. The proportion of the population under the age of 18 was 21.6%, age 18 to 24 was 7.8%, age 25 to 44 was 32.5%, age 45 to 64 was 25.0%, and 65 years of age or older was 13.1%. The median age of 37.1 was slightly lower than the U.S. median age of 37.2. Composition of the population based on sex was 50.7 females to 49.3 males.
According to FBI statistics in 2014, Stamford is the 16th safest of the 269 cities in the nation and well ahead of any in Connecticut with a population greater than 100,000 that report crime statistics to the FBI.[45] In 2015, Stamford reported three murders, 19 rapes, and 92 robberies. Crime in Stamford is much more controlled in comparison to cities with similar population size in Connecticut and nationally. Lower crime rates in Stamford are attributed to the city's robust economic growth in recent decades. Criminal cases are prosecuted by the State's Attorney's Office, and Stamford is home to a State Superior Court, at 123 Hoyt Street, adjacent to the Stamford Police Headquarters.
TheStamford Museum and Nature Center on a 118-acre (48-hectare) site in the northern end of town has a collection of works byGutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, who was a Stamford resident for a decade.
The Fairfield County Astronomical Society was started in 1954 and runs the Stamford Observatory, which has a 22-inch (560 mm) telescope.
Bartlett Arboretum and Gardens is a 91-acre (37 ha) botanical gardens and science education center with over 850 specimen trees and plants from around the world. It is also home to several Champion Trees, the largest of their species in Connecticut.
SoundWaters Community Center for Environmental Education is in Cove Island Park.
Curtain Call Inc. presents plays and other entertainment at the Sterling Farms Theatre Complex, 1349 Newfield Avenue.
Stamford Center for the Arts: The Palace Theatre, originally opened as a vaudeville house in 1927 and reopened as a nonprofit theater in 1983. It was joined in 1992 by the Rich Forum, another downtown venue. Both have been run by theStamford Center for the Arts.
AMC Theatres has two first-run movie houses in Stamford with a total of 14 movie screens: Landmark8 and Majestic6. The Avon Theatre Film Center, a two-screen nonprofit movie house focusing on first-run independent movies, is on Bedford Street. The theater is undergoing a fundraising campaign to renovate the building and its facilities. The Ferguson Library also shows movies.
Stamford'spublic library, theFerguson Library, is one of the largest in Connecticut. The library also shows movies and has aused book store run by Friends of Ferguson Library.
The library has branches in South End, Springdale, and the Turn of River sections of the city, it also has a bookmobile that runs daily to different neighborhoods. The Turn of River branch, officially called the Harry Bennett Branch, is the largest library branch in the state. That branch also has a used book store run by Friends of Ferguson Library.
Stamford boasts miles of accessible shoreline for recreation and two public beaches.
Mill River Park is in the center of downtown. Its ancient grist mill (present when George Washington traveled through Stamford) was modernized in the 1920s. There are numerous community activities offered at the park coordinated by the Mill River Park Collaborative.
Cummings Park, a public beach, was once a popular spot for shell fishing. The park was developed in 1906 and had been known as Halloween Park because MayorHomer Cummings cast the deciding vote to create it on Halloween Night.[52]
The 83-acre (34 ha)Cove Island Park, once a farm and then an enormous factory site (Stamford Manufacturing Company), has beaches, picnic grounds and bluffs. It has a small wildlife sanctuary in the southwest corner that might be interesting for bird watchers. The SoundWaters Community Center for Environmental Education is in the park.
Jackie Robinson Park on the West Side is named after baseball legendJackie Robinson, who lived in Stamford.
Terry Connors Ice Rink[53] shares a parking lot with Cove Island Park. It offers public ice skating, group lessons, andice hockey. It is the home of the Stamford Youth Hockey Association.[54]
Scalzi Park on Bridge Street has a playground, baseball and softball fields, volleyball courts, tennis courts, bocce courts, basketball courts, roller hockey courts, and a baseball park, Cubeta Stadium. A concrete skate park was opened at Scalzi in July 2007 for $309,850, designed and built by Grindline Skateparks Inc.[55]
Stamford has two municipal golf courses. Sterling Farms Golf Course[56] opened in May 1972 and is the more popular.[57] The facility also has a driving range, restaurant, and six tennis courts.
The E. Gaynor Brennan Golf Course,[58] known locally as Hubbard Heights, opened for play in 1922 as a private course and was purchased by the city in 1949.
Dorothy Heroy Park is in North Stamford.
Mianus River Park is 187 acres (76 ha) of nature reserve in Stamford, owned by the city.
The Italian Center[59] features tennis courts, swimming pools, fitness centers, a playground and aminiature golf course.
The Stamford YMCA[60] offers swimming lessons and sports, including basketball andindoor soccer. Programs are also available periodically for physical fitness.
The Stamford Yacht Club[61] is a private organization that provides members with access to boating activities and additional amenities.
Stamford is governed via the strong-mayor form of themayor-council system. The city's legislative body is called the Board of Representatives. The forty members of the Board of Representatives are elected from twenty districts, with each district electing two representatives every four years, concurrent with the Mayor's term.[64]
Stamford has a highly educated population. Per theAmerican Community Survey from 2017 to 2021, 89.1% of adults aged 25 and older graduated fromhigh school, and 52.3% have aBachelor's degree or higher.[68] This compares to 91.1% and 37.9% nationally, respectively.[69]
Stamford Public Schools comprises 13elementary schools, fivemiddle schools and three high schools.[74] As of the 2022–2023 school year, theschool district serves 16,212 students, a slight increase over the previous year.[75] Stamford Public Schools students come from a diverse array of backgrounds, mirroring the city's diversity. As of 2022, the majority of Stamford Public Schools students areHispanic or Latino.[75] 75 different languages are spoken at home by Stamford Public School students, withEnglish,Spanish,Haitian Creole,Bengali, andPolish among the most common languages.[76] Per an April 2023 report by theConnecticut State Department of Education on racial imbalance in public school enrollment, none of the 10 Stamford School District schools studied had a racial imbalance of more than 14% compared to the school district at large.[77] According to the Connecticut State Department of Education, in the 2004–2005 academic year, 42.7% of Stamford's public school students were economically disadvantaged, and 11.6% were students with disabilities.[citation needed]
The supermajority of Stamford Public Schools funding comes from the City of Stamford. In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, Stamford Public Schools had a total operatingbudget of $301,843,542,[78] provided by the City of Stamford. This represented 82.6% of its totalrevenue that year, with an additional 9.8% coming from federalgrants, 7.5% coming from state grants, and 0.1% coming from other sources.[79]
ThreeNBCUniversal syndicated programs relocated to Stamford'sRich Forum in 2009:Maury came to Stamford from New York City, whileJerry Springer andThe Steve Wilkos Show were previously based in Chicago. The former two shows ended production in 2022 and 2018 respectively, while The Steve Wilkos Show remains in production as of 2024.
Television showThe People's Court was taped in Stamford from 2012 until the show's cancellation in 2023.[82]
WWE has had its global headquarters in Stamford since 1985, when it was Titan Sports.[84] Originally located at 1241 East Main Street, the company progressively moved to 677 Washington Boulevard starting early 2021.[85]
The fictional movieTake My Hand from the episode "I Heart Connecticut" of the NBC show30 Rock was set and shot in Stamford.[91]
Stamford served as a location for one of five branches of the fictionalDunder Mifflin paper company on the US television seriesThe Office. The branch was shown during several episodes during the 3rd season of the show, and exterior shots were of the formerStarwood headquarters building at 333 Ludlow inStamford's South End.
In theCivil War event published byMarvel Comics, Stamford was destroyed during a fight between theNew Warriors and thesupervillainNitro, in which Nitro detonated himself, killing many citizens of Stamford and indirectly causing the Superhero Civil War.[93]
Fire protection in the city of Stamford is provided by the paid Stamford Fire Department (SFD) and four all-volunteer fire departments—Glenbrook-New Hope, Belltown, Springdale, and Turn of River—plus a combination company (paid and volunteer members), Long Ridge.
Budgeting and districting of the various fire departments throughout the city had been unstable since 2007, due to an extended legal conflict between the volunteer departments and the Malloy administration.[95] As of May 16, 2012, a decision was reached by the city's charter revision committee to combine the paid and volunteer fire departments into one combination fire department, known as the Stamford Fire Department.[96]
The Stamford Police Department (SPD) is Stamford's only police force, and has lost four officers in the line of service since 1938. The police force has about 280 sworn police officers making it the fifth largest police force in Connecticut after Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, and Waterbury.[97] Most Stamford Officers were trained at the Connecticut Police Training Academy before patrolling in the city. Aside from Police Headquarters, located at 725 Bedford Street, opened in 2019, inDowntown Stamford, SPD also operates substations in Stamford'sWest Side at Wilson Street and West Main Street, and at 1137 High Ridge Road and Hope Street. The current Chief of Police is Tim Shaw since April 9, 2020, who was a police officer in Stamford before leaving to Easton, Connecticut and coming back to Stamford to become police chief.[98][99][100]
Commuter trains come into Stamford from all points betweenNew London to the east andNew York (Grand Central Terminal) to the south. The average nonstop commute is 47 minutes. Trains operate from the Stamford station between 4:43 a.m. (first departure to Grand Central) until 12:55 a.m. (last departure to Grand Central).
Stamford also serves as a prominent station alongAmtrak'sNortheast Corridor. TheAcela, ahigh speed train service between Boston and Washington D.C., makes several daily stops in Stamford.[102] Amtrak'shigher-speedNortheast Regional (between Boston or Springfield, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.) andVermonter (between Saint Albans, Vermont and Washington, D.C.) also make plentiful daily stops in Stamford. Amtrak has facilities in upper level of the Stamford station.
City bus transportation is provided byCT Transit, which is run and financed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The main terminal is adjacent to the train station on State Street, under the I-95 highway. Bus service runs along major arterial roads through the towns ofDarien,Norwalk,Greenwich andPort Chester, New York. A non-stop direct route is also offered toWhite Plains, New York. Commuters can connect in Norwalk to points as far east asMilford and as far north asDanbury. Additional connections can be made in Port Chester and White Plains to all points covered by theBee-Line bus system inWestchester County.
Two limited-access highways run through the city.Interstate 95 serves as the main route through downtown Stamford with four exits (6–9). TheMerritt Parkway runs through the northern part of the city. This road is designated for passenger vehicles only. Any congestion on the Merritt Parkway is mostly likely to occur on the southbound lane in the morning and the northbound in the evening (route to and from New York). At night, due to the absence of lighting, visibility on the Merritt Parkway is relatively poor. Stamford exits on the Merritt Parkway are 8–10, and exit 13 is just over the border in New Canaan.
Stamford is also served by four other state highways.Route1, also known as Main Street in Stamford, is also used as a major artery during the morning and evening commute. Most traffic via Route1 is short distance or fairly local, yet vehicles have utilized Route1 during times of heavy congestion on I-95 as a re-route.Route 137 (Washington Boulevard and High Ridge Road) is the main north–south road of the city and runs from the Stamford Transportation Center and serves the Turn of River, North Stamford, and High Ridge sections of the city.Route 104 (Long Ridge Road) branches off from Route 137 to serve the Long Ridge section.Route 106 (Courtland Avenue) serves the Glenbrook neighborhood and continues towards the town ofDarien.
Albert K. Dawson (1885–1967), photojournalist and film correspondent in World War I. His firm, Brown & Dawson, was based in Stamford from 1912 to 1919.
Candace Owens (born 1989), political pundit, born and raised in Stamford
Dana Delany (born 1956), actress, grew up in Stamford
Willy DeVille (1950–2009),R&B singer and composer, born in Stamford
^"Connecticut population in 2010"(CSV).2011 Population Estimates. U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division. March 2011.Archived from the original on July 2, 2017. RetrievedJuly 9, 2007.
^abcLipsitz, George (1982).Class and Culture in Cold War America: "A Rainbow at Midnight". South Hadley, Massachusetts: J.F. Bergin Publishers.ISBN978-0-03-059207-2.
^"Station: Stamford 5 N, CT".U.S. Climate Normals 2020: U.S. Monthly Climate Normals (1991-2020). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Archived from the original on May 10, 2021. RetrievedJune 2, 2021.
Burns, Rosemary (1982).Springdale remembered: the history of a section of Stamford, Connecticut, 1640–1949. Stamford, CT: Stamford Historical Society.OCLC9093878.
Majdalany, Jeanne; Wicks, Edith (1992).The story of the early settlers of Stamford, Connecticut, 1641–1700. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books.ISBN9781556136108.
Core cities are metropolitan core cities of at least a million people. The other areas are urban areas of cities that have an urban area of 150,000+ or of a metropolitan area of at least 250,000+. Satellite cities are in italics.
