Holy cow, a bidding war in Cos Cob!

97 Cognewaugh, a 196o-ish ranch, was listed at $995,000 and sold for $1.o100 million. I’ve mentioned here before that most winners of bidding wars don’t come out well in the end, but the very fact that there were multiple bidders on this house has to be encouraging to sellers.

Conyers Farm

My mention of Joan Caldwell, a woman I do not know, brought forth a number of negative comments about her once serving as Peter Pervert Brant’s spokeswoman during his development of Conyers Farm. I don’t know from nothing about what went on back then but I surely do recall the huge fear of many of us in town about what could happen up there. It’s zoned for four acres and we could have seen hundreds of homes (hundreds? Well certainly a heck of a lot of homes) built up there, at a huge cost to the town between hundreds of new students, fire protection, etc. Brant’s development, with ten-acre minimum lot size and many far larger than that, was a boon to Greenwich. I don’t like the man’s taste in art, but I am certainly grateful for what he did with the Rosentheil (sp) estate and if Mrs. Caldwell played a part in that then that’s just one more reason to admire her.

Free speech, blah blah blah

Of course I understand the importance of free speech and I abuse that right regularly. But I just drove by Binney Park and was appalled to see it despoiled by campaign signs for every political candidate running for office. Ruin our traffic rotaries, clog up the Post Road, but leave our freaking parks alone!

A high-placed Democrat politico I am familiar with, and who will deny ever saying it, confirmed my cynical guess that sign placing duty is assigned to enthusiastic morons as a way to use up their energy and keep them out of campaign headquarters. That’s certainly a wise strategy, but if it results in annoying people, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who hates seeing our parks desecrated, it may backfire. Maybe our political parties should set a minimum IQ standard of, say, 70, for sign planters.

Customer service at LL Bean

Daughter Sarah is off for northern California and, as of Friday, is going to need a place to sleep. So I ordered her this tent from LLBean and paid $20 bucks extra or so to get it to her before then. It hasn’t arrived, so I emailed them last night to ask what happened and this morning got a reply – they screwed up (something I did just last week, so I know from that) and sent it regular shipment.

BUT! Beans has sent out another tent, express, to make sure it arrives in time, and asks only that, if the first tent arrives, we call them and they’ll have UPS pick it back up and return it at Bean’s expense).

I’ve always liked Bean’s products and have used them since at least the mid-60′s, but customer service like this has just guaranteed them a customer for life.

Aw, Playland’s going down

I went there often as a kid and took my own children there many times, but that seems to have been the problem: Westchester County taxpayers paid to maintain it while non-residents used it. So off it goes. That certainly makes sense economically, but if you have kids or grandchildren, you really ought to get them down to Rye this month for one last fling at others’ expense. It’s a fun day or, even better, evening.

Oh, for heaven’s sake – a fireboat for Greenwich?

HMS Boondoggle

Greenwich has applied for the return of stolen money in the form of a “free’ fireboat from the feds. There are no free lunches and no free fireboats. The craft wold have to be manned and maintained and, despite one official’s asinine quote that it would come in handy if Captain Sully came out of retirement and decided to land his next plane in Greenwich Harbor rather than the Hudson, no practical use for the thing.

Public safety officials said that homeowners [and Captain Sully] wouldn’t be the only beneficiaries.

“I think if you talk to any yacht clubs or marinas in town, I’m sure they would welcome that additional coverage,” [Fire Chief  Peter] Siecienski said. ”The local yachts would be glad if we had it”.

If there’s a fire at Riverside Yacht Club, an institution dear to my heart, and the boats go up well, that’s why members insure their boats. Better they pay insurance premiums than taxpayers run a fireboat.

RTM member Joan Caldwell (no relation, so far as I know) is, as usual, all over this ridiculous idea and I think we’re safe. I’ve never met the lady, but I’d like to – why isn’t she our First Selectman?

(Hat tip to Pulled up in OG)