Pinkumb

Pinkumb t1_j0ldwto wrote

Reply to Should I move to Stamford right out of college? by trin2424

I grew up in the Boston area and now live in Stamford.

Boston beats Stamford by every possible metric. Better opportunities, better housing, better neighborhoods, better community, better culture, better parks, better pay, and better quality of life.

The only reason you wouldn't move to Boston is 1) you hate Boston sports teams or 2) you really can't stand another few degrees of cold in the winter 3) you want to be closer to home.

1

Pinkumb t1_iy3sy4a wrote

Reply to Rents in Stamford by zxasqwcde

They say you shouldn't spend more than 30% of your income on housing but that's largely outdated and most people spend 50%. In a comment you said you're earning $85k, so your take home is roughly $4,700 a month. You can afford up to $2,300 a month for an apartment — especially if it includes utilities or parking or other amenities as many do downtown. You can also choose to live outside of downtown and get a spare room in a multifamily home somewhere and it'll probably be cheaper by $200 - $500 a month.

Stamford has better and worse areas but it's not like other cities where there are "bad" areas. As a general rule, anything west of the river of east of the train tracks is going to be a worse area (the "west side" and "east side"). This is also true for the South End for any building that isn't a BLT building ("Harbor Point"). Again though, these areas just haven't had significant investment in decades but they're not crime infested. Everything North of the downtown is standard suburbia and it gets less and less dense as you go further north.

2

Pinkumb t1_ixe52xb wrote

Reply to What kinds of businesses would you like to see in Stamford that aren’t here currently? by [deleted]

  • A bar that plays music 50% quieter than all the other ones.
  • A bar that plays music released after 2010.
  • A board game store/gathering spot. I'd take a Battlegrounds Gaming like in Norwalk or if someone could manage what Board Room does in DC that'd be fantastic. Board Room is especially great because they just sell alcohol. You can order food to the venue and they don't care. Probably cheaper for the venue not to worry about overheard on spoiled food and works for guests too. They can also do cheaper drinks because they can safely assume people will be there for 2-3 hours.
  • More places like Third Place that orient their business around small-scale event space. It provides an opportunity for lesser-established arts/organizations to do something cool locally and it has the added benefit of providing a lot of seating if you want to meet friends somewhere.
  • An Alamo Drafthouse. The Majestic was sold to AMC during the pandemic, which is a shame because that would've been an excellent spot for an Alamo (not that they're expanding or anything). Every time I go to that theater there's some high school kids talking through the entire movie. That's why I drive to Yonkers to see movies.
  • A grocery store downtown (but north of I-95). Hopefully in that retail space at the Smyth?
  • A diner that's open 24 hours. I think we lost all of them after Bulls Head closed?

That's off the top of my head. I don't think I'm representative of the typical Stamford person but that'd be my requests.

46

Pinkumb t1_itc1yh9 wrote

Reply to Car Blocking Sidewalk In Glenbrook Literally Every Day and Never Ticketed or Towed by theLastAlaskn

Like u/mellamandiablo said, Fix It Stamford is your best bet. You can type out www.stamfordct.gov/fixit and it will redirect to this page. It's also one of the main buttons on the Stamford CT website.

One thing to note: If it has "ST" in the license plate, it's a city vehicle. For example, "ST 1" is the Mayor's car (it might be 1 - ST, or 01 - ST, I forget). Which isn't to say it's parked legally, but rather an employee is being lazy and betting no one will take issue with it. In my experience, if you do take an issue with it, they'll change their behavior.

You can also call the police non-emergency line at 203.977.4444 and ask what to do about it. In my experience, police punt to traffic enforcement but maybe they'll do something.

5

Pinkumb t1_it4xovg wrote

Reply to comment by wheresmylife in Brunch by high_philosophy_01

I'd consider this an anomaly. I won't pretend Lucky's is anything more than a kind of comfort food diner spot, but the I know the owner John is pretty demanding among his staff. I imagine you got someone who was criticized too many times and you got the bad end of a walk off. Give it another shot? Assuming you like the food which is what it is.

4

Pinkumb t1_isstp09 wrote

Reply to Visiting for a few days for work by taboos4u

Kotobuki and Chez Vous are my evergreen dining alone recommendations.

Tiernan's tries to have live music on Friday nights. It's more of a local dive bar if that's your thing.

Avon Theater shows limited release films (nothing too crazy).

Cove Park is nice. Mill River Park is nice.

If you're looking for a place you can just kinda hang out for the evening without "going out" I'd recommend Third Place.

Report back on what you liked or what you did instead. This question gets asked every few weeks.

3

Pinkumb t1_isk7b26 wrote

Reply to Smoke shops by stuffseaker

I just noticed a new one opened on Summer Street by the Stop and Shop shopping plaza and another one opened on Broad Street x Summer Street within ~a month or so. There's already ANOTHER smoke shop on Atlantic Street maybe 2 blocks from the new one on Broad.

It's annoying, but those new locations were previously vacant for 3+ years. Not sure if it's a smoke shop problem or a general small business problem.

6

Pinkumb t1_is7hzk2 wrote

Reply to Harbor point by Ok-Recommendation556

Building management tends to have highly restrictive contracts for any new businesses in the spaces available. For example, Sally's Apizza on Summer Street was a BLT building and had similar management as everything down in Harbor Point. You may be thinking "Sally's is the exact kind of thing I want!" Well, not really. Those locations can include stipulations like the lease being guaranteed through other income — which is another way of saying it has to be a chain. Sally's could open in Stamford only because they were already a super successful business elsewhere in the state. It's also not merely having multiple locations, but other locations that are so profitable they can pay for downtown/harbor point leases in addition to operating their original business.

Effectively, the building management has selected out for any creativity. They're not in the business of innovators. They're in the business of incredibly reliable tenants — which just so happens to be incredibly boring, overpriced, and dull establishments. You can hem and haw about the management, but they won't respond to those arguments.

Ultimately, the most persuasive argument would be to allow for zoning changes that allow for housing/commercial that's somewhere between high-rise luxury apartments and crappy single-family homes. These — of course — are things the local board is consistently against for a bunch of bad arguments (parking, water drought, "character" of our neighborhood), and etc. Honestly, they were against BLT too but they just had no grounds to oppose it and BLT had the gumption to take on legal battles to get their buildings built.

Some might say this is why Stamford is a cultural hellhole...

4

Pinkumb t1_irtnpno wrote

Reply to What a good grocery spot ( 75 tresser area ) by calamaio

I think the answer to your unstated question is no, there is no walkable grocery store from your location. Well, other than Target on Broad Street. It's kind of a hike since it's on the sixth floor or whatever.

Alternatively, you can shop bougie at Maruichi Select on Summer Street across from Bar Taco. It's small but probably has the essentials.

3

Pinkumb OP t1_iredb6b wrote

Reply to Opinion: Stamford is a cultural hellhole by Pinkumb

An excerpt:

>Stamford is unique because the politically engaged populace in town only expresses one consistent desire: opposition to everything. Real cities have community members who create organizations advocating in favor of things, rather than endlessly arguing against anything. Real cities have business owners that become excited at the prospect of more people coming into town to stimulate their business, populate our community, and enrich our culture. Real cities have local representatives that care to imbue the place where we live with art, culture, history, architectural beauty, walkable spaces, and connected communities.
>
>Stamford has none of these things. Despite being the most diverse city in Connecticut, the crown jewel of the state, and the fastest growing community in the county, Stamford can be best described as washed-up. Largely because our defining cultural influence is a coalition I’ll call the CAVE People. Citizens Against Virtually Everything.
>
>If Stamford has a culture, it is the emptiness of this group’s borderline nihilistic passions. The Glenbrook Community Center is in disrepair and has been closed for a number of years, which means it is the exact kind of dilapidated and blighted building CAVE People will do everything to protect. In the past, Stamford has sought “historical preservation” for buildings like a carriage house of a rich guy who lived 200 years ago and factories irradiated with toxic dirt. The CAVE People’s idea of The Paul Revere House appears to be Paul Revere’s garage or maybe his septic tank. Except it’s not even Paul Revere — it’s just some guy.
>
>CAVE People love deteriorating buildings so much the only new construction our boards will approve is from developers who build new ones that collapse in on themselves. Or maybe it’s because the developer had to spend so much of their budget fighting a legal battle with our board to get the building approved at all. You get what you pay for.
>
>That last example is from Stamford’s Harbor Point, which may serve as a salient metaphor. The management company for Harbor Point sometimes pitches it in marketing materials as the “sixth borough of New York.” A more accurate pitch for Harbor Point — and all of Stamford — would be to call it a New York borough from 20 years ago. Stamford is the cultural mecca where our marquee community events get headliners such as The All-American Rejects, Third Eye Blind, Nelly, T-Pain, and every other artist saved to your iPod in 2006.
>
>This love for outdated things actually rolls all the way down to Bedford Street, where we basically have the same exact bar copy/pasted five times. Each of them subscribed to the same playlist including "Don’t Stop Believing," "Sweet Caroline," and "Free Bird." This may have been a neat gimmick if it was passed off as an intentional decision — like a 1980s "Stranger Things"-themed bar — but no such creativity exists in this city.
>
>There’s nothing wrong with a little nostalgia but Stamford has made it a pathology. In Stamford, the only action you’ll ever be applauded for is if you can cling to the past so tightly you freeze time itself. Call it the Stamford Time Warp.
>
>We’ve successfully locked our city in an alternate dimension where the past lives perennially in the present. Where there is no housing crisis to address, where people still drive everywhere, where people are still enamored with pop stars from the Bush era, where the bars play the same music as the supermarket, and where there’s no greater offense than doing something new. Our community will abandon every virtue they claim to possess — empathy for others, belief in truth, and general civility — and don the CAVE People persona to keep things from ever changing.
>
>This is the only explanation I have for this bizarro coalition that pops up whenever an elected official who claimed they would make things better actually tries to do that. It is the CAVE People who see no issue simultaneously arguing conflicting points so long as nothing changes. CAVE People don’t support building single-person units, multifamily units, accessory dwelling units, luxury apartments, affordable housing, or commercial zoning. They don’t support bike lanes, sidewalks, traffic calming measures, or traffic widening measures. They complain about the lack of communication from city hall but also shout down the mayor and city staff whenever they attempt to explain their policy. You can summarize their views on zoning and new buildings as BANANAs: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

9