Reflecting on Stamford’s ‘greatest friend’
To former mayor Mike Pavia he was “the greatest friend Stamford ever had.”
To Pavia’s brother, Tony, a retired high school principal and historian of Stamfordites who have gone to war, he was “a Stamford original.”
And lawyer Franklin Melzer remembers, as do I, that Herb Kohn was a pretty good basketball player and the last of the two-hand set-shooters in a competitive lunch-hour game at the Stamford YMCA when he was in his 70s.
Kohn was a native New Yorker who moved to Stamford with his wife when he was 31 and lived here for 65 years until his death Sept. 18 at age 96. Outgoing and affable, Kohn most likely served on more city boards — one of which he helped create — than anyone else in addition to being the last president of Stamford’s baseball Twilight League and a member of the prestigious statewide Grievance Panel that considers ethical complaints against Connecticut lawyers.
Kohn, along with Tom Martinez, a friend from Queens, New York, came to Stamford to open a furniture store on Broad Street in 1955. But in addition to selling furniture, what Kohn he did for his adopted city is mind-boggling.
He served as president of the Parents Teachers Association at K.T. Murphy School on the East Side and was a member of the Stamford Police Commission, the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Finance Board, the Urban Renewal Commission and the Environmental Protection Board (which he created with five others).
“Over several decades Herb served on the most important (and controversial) boards and commissions, more so than any other individual,” Mike Pavia, who headed the city’s Public Works Department before he was elected mayor, told me this week. “These organizations commanded countless hours of night meetings, public hearings with infinite amounts of homework and preparation time in the many controversial issues he helped adjudicate, and he always came through
professionally and admirably.”
Pavia, who Kohn named as executive director of the environmental board, also recalled how he recruited Kohn to manage the then unruly Stamford train station. “I could think of no one better, and true to form Herb did next to the impossible to control the competing interests and establish better service to the public,” said Pavia, who called Kohn his mentor. “He even broke up fights among competing taxi drivers outside the station.”
Kohn rose to become president and chairman of the board of the venerable State Street Debating Society where he moderated debates with an iron, albeit friendly, fist and was the society’s Man of the Year in addition to being named Citizen of the Year in Stamford. Kohn also was a longtime member of the Stamford Old Timers Association, and for years was a co-toastmaster of the organization’s annual dinner, first with Len Gambino and then with close friend Bobby Valentine.
Kohn could be a sharp needler. For years he would good-naturedly complain about columns of mine that were critical of Stamford’s growth and traffic among other issues he was passionate about. “Stop all the complaining. Stamford’s a great town,” he would say to me.
Herb Kohn’s love of his adopted hometown and his longtime involvement with city boards and committees endeared him to mayors. On his 90th birthday, when he was still working for the Public Works Department, he was honored at a party hosted by Mayor David Martin at the Stamford Government Center. For years, Kohn and his wife hosted a barbecue before the city’s Fourth of July fireworks display on the back lawn of their home on Wallack’s Point. Guests often included some of Stamford’s most prominent citizens, including then Mayor Lou Clapes, a close friend.
During his first year in the U.S. Army during World II, Kohn, an outstanding shortstop, was a member of an army all-star team based at Colby College in Maine, which included several eventual major leaguers. Later he served as a cryptographer at a China-Burma Army base in India decoding Japanese messages and trying to get boys interested in baseball, a fruitless task, he later conceded, since their sports loves were cricket and soccer. Soon after returning home in 1946, Kohn married his childhood sweetheart, Kay Cleary, with whom they raised two children, Kevin and Kathy.
“Next to marrying Kay, moving to Stamford was the best thing I ever did,” he said to me years later.
Kohn also became close friends with a number of football’s New York Giants. On game days, Kohn often drove his wife and the wives of several Giants to Yankee Stadium (players had to leave much earlier). Herb was especially close to wide receiver Joe Walton, serving as his son’s godfather.
A trademark of Herb Kohn’s ebullient personality was his way of ending a conversation by saying “Keep smiling.” Many of his friends, including me, will do just that whenever we think of “the greatest friend Stamford ever had.”