My love affair with Cos Cob

Last Updated on Friday, 13 January 2012 15:26 Written by Christopher vonKeyserling
Thursday, 12 January 2012 01:00

Since this is my first meeting with you as a “columnist,” you should know my core secret. I have a love affair with Cos Cob.

Not always so. As I was a child of North Street, Cos Cob appeared only in the periphery of my life as a place one passed through on the way to Tod’s Point. A strange kind of area, like the servant’s quarters of a large English country house, populated with “vague people who did for us.” These were quiet people who didn’t intrude and kept to their own business.

Later, as a young father shopping for an affordable house, those same Cos Cob people captured me with their “gentility” and sense of community. They fascinated me with their endlessly entwined families and personal networks of fealty. Here was a real mix of sturdy Swamp Yankees, rock-bound Calabrians, stubborn Scandinavian-German-Irish, and a new, native “Hebrews.” They all had common beliefs: church, family, country; hard work; fierce loyalty and honor. Their motto seemed to be “Do it right, do it yourself.”

Yes, they would get a little archy about stranger’s advice for Cos Cob, but they still tipped their hats to a lady (especially under 12 and over 50). Courtesies were always observed. Most emphatically, no one on hard times was without a discreet community of support.

It has taken me a lifetime to worm my way into a Cos Cob disguise. Membership in the St. Lawrence and Old Timers Clubs will ever elude me (although they let me be a guest). Now my comment to Riverside friends that “God put the Mianus River there for a reason” has an authentic ring. (Oddly, they agree?) When traveling abroad, my home is announced as Cos Cob, not Greenwich. Greenwich is merely a buffer zone, a DMZ with Westchester. Cos Cob is where real Greenwich people go to live their private lives. Here is the last bastion of the hand-shake deal, where one’s word is prized above profit.

So now that I have confessed my true identity, do not mistake any future comments as prejudiced, only informed.

Chris von Keyserling is a Republican member of RTM District 8. He may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . The new “Greenwich Voices” column will feature a range of perspectives on the issues that matter to town residents. Mr. von Keyserling is one of five columnists recruited to participate.