History of Stamford, Connecticut - Twenty-first Century

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.

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 (3,800,000 l) 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.

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 (fictionally) 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. 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.

On October 11, 2007, a freak storm dumped 5 inches (130 mm) of rain in about four hours in Stamford and nearby communities of New Canaan, Darien and Norwalk. The storm flooded streets and basements and caused the loss of electricity to 700 homes, with about 20 people needing to be evacuated from their cars and 40 others removed from their homes to an emergency shelter. The Federal Emergency Management Agency later said 41 homes in Stamford (and 11 in Darien and New Canaan) had about $167,000 in damage). City sewers and drains were clogged. The city was sued in 2009 by homeowners who asserted that a city employee failed to start a pumping station on Dyke Street soon enough, but a city lawyer called the event a "100-year storm" that simply overwhelmed municipal resources.