Hamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant". The town is part of the South Central Connecticut Planning Region. The population was 61,169 at the 2020 census.
Sleeping Giant, , is a rugged traprock mountain with a high point of 739 feet (225 m), located eight miles (13 km) north of New Haven, Connecticut. A prominent landscape feature visible for miles, the Sleeping Giant receives its name from its anthropomorphic resemblance to a slumbering human figure as seen from either the north or south. The Giant is known for its expansive clifftop vistas, rugged topography, and microclimate ecosystems. Most of the Giant is located within Sleeping Giant State Park. The mountain is a popular recreation site: over 30 miles (48 km) of hiking trails traverse it including 5 miles (8 km) of the 23-mile (37 km) Quinnipiac Trail. Quinnipiac University is located at Mount Carmel's foot in Hamden.
Regicides Trail is a Blue-Blazed hiking trail, about 7 miles (11 km) long, roughly following the edge of a diabase, or traprock, cliff northwest of New Haven, Connecticut. It is named for two regicides, Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe, who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England. Upon the restoration of Charles II to the throne and the persecution of the regicides, the pair hid in Judges Cave near the south end of the trail in 1660. The Regicides is widely known to be one of the most technical trails within the CT Blue-Blazed trail system.
The Mill River is a river in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States.
Route 40, also known as the Mount Carmel Connector, is a 3.08-mile (4.96 km) freeway connecting Interstate 91 and Bailey Road in North Haven, Connecticut to Route 10 in the Mount Carmel neighborhood of Hamden. Route 40 is a four-lane freeway with one intermediate exit leading to/from U.S. Route 5 in North Haven. It crosses over Route 15 but does not have an interchange with it. This is the only place in the state where two freeways cross without an interchange.
Route 22 is a 14.07-mile-long (22.64 km) secondary state route within the U.S. state of Connecticut. Route 22 is an L-shaped road that is signed east–west from Hamden to the western junction of Route 80 in North Branford, and north–south to its eastern terminus in Guilford. It was designated in 1951 as a bypass of New Haven, connecting the Wilbur Cross Parkway and Route 80.
Connecticut Route 10 is a state highway that runs between New Haven and the state line near Granby. It continues north of the state line as Massachusetts Route 10, which in turn continues directly to New Hampshire Route 10.
U.S. Route 5 (US 5), a north–south United States Numbered Highway that is generally paralleled by Interstate 91 (I-91), begins at the city of New Haven in Connecticut and heads north through western Massachusetts and eastern Vermont to the international border with Canada. Within Connecticut, US 5 proceeds north from New Haven and passes through Meriden and Hartford toward Springfield, Massachusetts.
Whitneyville is a neighborhood in the southeastern portion of the town of Hamden, Connecticut. It started in the early nineteenth century as a factory town for workers in Eli Whitney's gun factory. Around the turn of the twentieth century, it evolved into a trolley suburb of New Haven. Today it is primarily residential, with a mixture of single-family homes and small apartment and condominium buildings. There is some commercial development centered around the intersection of Whitney and Putnam avenues.
The Quinnipiac Trail is a 24-mile (39 km) Blue-Blazed hiking trail in New Haven County, Connecticut. It is the product of the evolution and growth of the first 10.6-mile (17.1 km) trail designated in Connecticut's Blue-Blazed Hiking Trail system, with its light-blue rectangular vertical painted blazes.
West Rock Ridge or West Rock of south-central Connecticut, is a 7-mile (11 km) long trap rock mountain ridge located on the west side of New Haven with a high point of 700 feet (213 m) at High Rock, also known as York Mountain. The ridge forms a continuous line of exposed cliffs visible from metropolitan New Haven and points west. West Rock Ridge is part of the narrow, linear Metacomet Ridge which extends from Long Island Sound near New Haven north through the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts to the Vermont border.
Newhallville is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, named for industrialist George Newhall.
The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail is an 82-mile (132 km) multi-use rail trail located in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
The Mount Carmel Congregational Church and Parish House is a historic church complex at 3280 and 3284 Whitney Avenue and 195 Sherman Avenue in Hamden, Connecticut. It consists of an 1840 Greek Revival church with a tetrastyle temple front portico, and a 1911 Colonial Revival parish house. A non-contributing 1925 sexton's house is also on the property. The church is considered to be Hamden's finest example of Greek Revival architecture, and the parish house one of its finest Colonial Revival houses. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
Whitney Avenue is a principal arterial connecting Downtown New Haven with the town center of Hamden in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Most of the road within the city of New Haven is included in the Whitney Avenue Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The designation begins at Grove Street in the northern part of Downtown New Haven and extends through the town of Hamden up to the Cheshire town line. North of Dixwell Avenue in Hamden Center, the road is a state highway and designated as part of Route 10. From the New Haven town line to Dixwell Avenue, the road is state-maintained with an unsigned designation of State Road 707. Within New Haven, Whitney Avenue is a town road. The J route of Connecticut Transit New Haven, which connects New Haven to Waterbury, runs along Whitney Avenue.
Farmington Canal State Park Trail is a Connecticut state park forming a portion of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail in the towns of Cheshire and Hamden. The developed section of the trail within state park boundaries runs over 17.0 miles (27.4 km) from Lazy Lane in Southington to Todd Street in Hamden and includes the historic Farmington Canal's restored Lock 12, located south of Brooksvale Road in Cheshire. The paved, multiple-use trail is used for hiking, biking, jogging, in-line skating and cross-country skiing.
Centerville, originally spelled Centreville, is a neighborhood in the east-central portion of the town of Hamden, Connecticut. It is the location of Hamden Town Hall and other major town government buildings. It derived its name from being at the intersection of the town's two principal thoroughfares, Whitney and Dixwell avenues, both with commercial development. The rest of the neighborhood is residential, with single-family houses, condominiums, and apartments.
Highwood is a neighborhood in the south-central portion of the town of Hamden, Connecticut. It is primarily residential, with a mixture of small apartment buildings and single-family, two- and three-family homes. Commercial development is concentrated on its principal street, Dixwell Avenue. Immigrants from Germany were the first to settle the area extensively in the 1860s, followed by others from Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe later in the nineteenth century. Today it is predominantly African American.
Spring Glen is a neighborhood in the southeastern portion of the town of Hamden, Connecticut. It is primarily residential, mostly single-family homes with a few two-family. Commercial development is entirely on its principal street, Whitney Avenue. It was developed throughout the first half of the twentieth century as a trolley suburb of New Haven. It was named for the Spring Glen dairy farm established by James J. Webb in 1858 in what would become part of the neighborhood.
The Orrin Todd House is a historic house at 3369 Whitney Avenue in Hamden, Connecticut. Built about 1800, it is one of the best surviving examples of Federal period architecture in the town. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. It is presently owned by Quinnipiac University, and was rescued from demolition in 2017.
