page_title: Glenbrook (Stamford)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Glenbrook (Stamford) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard depicting the former Glenbrook School in the Glenbrook section of Stamford. Store Web page states: "view of Glenbrook School in Glenbrook, Connecticut. Mailed in 1911. Publ. by Hugh C. Leighton Co. Printed in Germany."
context_page_description: Glenbrook is a section of the city of Stamford, Connecticut. It is located on the eastern side of the city, east of Downtown, north of the East Side and the Cove sections and south of the Springdale section. To the west is Downtown Stamford and to the northwest is Belltown. To the east is Darien.
  An estimated 15,400 people live in the neighborhood of about 1.7 square miles. "Many residents see themselves as living not in a bustling city, but in a separate small town," according to a New York Times article about the community.
  Glenbrook is a middle class section of town, with single-family homes making up 65 percent of housing and about 25 percent condominiums or co-ops. Residential architecture ranges from Queen Anne style homes to Colonial style, Cape Cod and ranches. Some public housing developments are in the southern end of the neighborhood.
  In August 2007, scenes for College Road Trip, a Walt Disney film released in 2008, were shot on location in one of the Queen Anne style homes of Glenbrook.
  There are several retail sections, including the Glenbrook Center shopping plaza, as well as an industrial park. The neighborhood also has several churches. The Julia A.
context_section_description: In 1866, Joseph Whitton purchased a 20-acre (81,000 m²) tract, including the old Dixon Homestead in New Hope, as the area was originally called. The New Canaan railroad was built five years later, passing through the center of Whitton's land. Whitton laid out streets, including Cottage Avenue, Union Street, and Railroad Avenue.
  In the 1870s, New Hope residents decided they wanted a name more pleasing to the ear and came up with "Glen-Brook."
  Former U.S. President and Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sometimes visited Glenbrook after he left the White House in 1877. He played poker with Ferdinand Ward, who owned a home at Strawberry Hill Avenue near Holbrook Drive and was a partner in a business with Grant. When Grant found out that Ward was cheating clients, he stopped visiting. The firm failed in 1884 and Grant went bankrupt. The gatehouse of Ward's estate remains, but the other buildings are gone.
  Charles Henry Phillips, a British pharmacist who invented and patented hydrate of magnesia ("Phillips Milk of Magnesia") had an estate at 666 Glenbrook Road. His heirs sold the Charles H. Phillips Company to Sterling Drug in 1923, which maintained a plant in Glenbrook until 1976.
  Until the 1960s Stamford's now large neighborhoods, like Glenbrook, were often looked on as individual, unofficial towns, and residents would write their mailing addresses using the name "Glenbrook, Conn." instead of "Stamford, Conn."
  In the 1950s, the train station was moved from a spot near the Courtland Avenue overpass (on the New Haven line) to its present location a bit to the northwest on the New Canaan line. As of 2007, city officials were considering the idea of building a second train station in the area, possibly at the original Glenbrook station site.
caption: Another view of the Glenbrook School (1911 postcard)
exif: {}