Marcia Chambers Photo
Dan Cosgrove at home.
Dan Cosgrove, a sportsman, political engineer, master builder and philanthropist, died yesterday, surrounded by family and friends. He was 98.
Cosgrove’s funeral is Friday morning.
Cosgrove was both a master builder and a master politician, a man who loved numbers and had an amazing facility to work them in his head, so much so that he daily envisioned transforming the lands of Branford and beyond. He began Cosgrove Construction Company in Branford, the company that until recently was run by First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove, one of his grandsons.
For over 60 years he converted land, a mover and shaker whose ingenuity led to the creation of the Long Wharf complex in New Haven and to airports in Block Island, in Oxford, Connecticut, and even in Cuba. He built industrial parks and malls and many condo complexes throughout Branford. He also built corporate headquarters for Bayer Labs, Bristol Meyers, and Ethan Allen Furniture, his formal obituary says.
A Consummate Politician
Cosgrove was also a consummate politician whose business enterprise dovetailed nicely with his ability to control governmental activity as the head of the 12th District Democratic State Central Committee for more than 20 years. He knew well how to handle Hartford and beyond.
He learned early on that power came from controlling those who held public office. He ruled Branford, but not through elected office though he did hold the selectman’s position later on in his career.
“I got a lot of satisfaction out of being involved in politics,” he said, admitting he made enemies along the way.
He had an active political life, his formal obituary says: “He was on a first name basis with some of the most important people in Washington D.C. It was understood by most that if you needed to get something done, he was the man to see.” Once he gave his word, it got done, he told the Eagle in 2006 in a story entitled “The Boss of Branford.”
Exit 56
In the decades of the 1960s and 1970s, the era of the Democratic bosses, Cosgrove oversaw the condo boom in Branford as well as the transformation of parts of Stony Creek into a truck stop. (He sold land to the Union 76 Company back in 1970 for its development and the Planning and Zoning Commission approved a needed variance. No surprise there.) A group of Stony Creek residents sued him; when they lost, he turned around and sued them because they had held up his business deal. He also had his attorneys attach each plaintiff’s property, tying them up in court for nine years.
He did much of this from his office at Cosgrove Construction, or “the garage” as folks called it. There, at 164 North Main St., is where he held court, mapped strategy for the town’s major boards and commissions, ran the Sewer Authority and kept his keen Irish eye on the town’s pulse, usually smoking a cigar as he juggled it all. This was before the creation of the Freedom of Information Act and public meetings law in 1975. Votes first went down in the garage and later at Town Hall.
“I knew how to get things done,” he told the Eagle in an interview.
Butting Heads
Not surprisingly Cosgrove often butted heads with environmental commissions, having little use for those who would try to stop him from building what and where he wanted to build, especially since he owned the land, he would say. He had little patience for zoning or environmental laws, having grown his businesses early in the last century when these laws did not exist.
In a 1992 article in The National Geographic, entitled “Our Disappearing Wetlands,” Cosgrove was interviewed about his views on the wetlands.
“There’s too much damn government, that’s the truth of it,” he told the magazine. While he was serving as third selectman at the time (elected on the Taxpayer Party line), Cosgrove was better known “as the founding father of Cosgrove Construction Company, which specializes in earthmoving contracts for airports, commercial developments, and other large projects frequently positioned next to, or heretofore on top of, marshes and swamps.”
“You can’t deal with it all,” he said. “All these laws do is hold you up. Sure, there’s merit in that noble purpose that brought about the law in the first place, but then there is only abuse by those who enforce it.”
That was his view. And the debate continues: The town’s Inland Wetlands Commission may well start deliberations Thursday evening about whether to approve a major development, including a Costco, in an area off Exit 56 where decades ago Cosgrove brought major construction.
Danny and his Dogs
Marcia Chambers Photo
Cosgrove and family on the occasion of his 95th birthday.
Danny Cosgrove was never far from his many dogs and his large family.
“I like dogs,” he said in an understatement. “I’ve owned over 300 in my life. I liked to take in strays, and I had 25 at once one time,” he once told the Eagle. He liked to teach them; he had his own method and style. He appreciated their loyalty. Indeed loyalty was a part of his personality that he expected from others.
His dogs, and many, many of them were strays, spent the day with him at the garage, or with him in a pick-up truck or at his home on 99 Todds Hill Road, not far from where he grew up. He once owned a monkey, too, he said. The animal shelter, named in his honor, is one of many facilities, including Connecticut Hospice’s original facility, where his generosity has been felt. He was one of the early donors, his friend Bill O’Brien recalled.
“I asked him for $5,000, early on,” O’Brien recalled in an interview. He said, ‘no.’ I didn’t quite understand. So I said, ‘okay.’ Then he said, ‘how about $10,000?’”
When he turned 91, Cosgrove was feted with a party at Orchard House. There was song and his favorite poem, Lord Byron’s “Epitaph For A Dog” was read. He was an avid reader of classical poetry and he loved Shakespeare; he sometimes discussed Shakespeare’s Othello and King Lear with the Eagle.
Philanthropist
Dan Cosgrove knew how the system worked and how to work it and his deftness with numbers worked in his favor. His was a world of patronage, favoritism, working behind the scenes, arranging for state and federal jobs. Boards voted the way he wanted them to. When we interviewed him over the years, he yearned for the days of the boss. Things got resolved in those smoke-filled rooms: “It’s either that or you lose.”
He and Attorney Ed Marcus were longtime friends and colleagues. “He and I donated a piece of property in Cheshire to Albertus Magnus College in New Haven. It was worth $2.6 million and they sold it for $6.5 million and with the funds they built a gym for the college and named it after us,” he said. He was proud to be part of the Albertus Magnus College family, he said.
Over the years Dan Cosgrove has had many philanthropic interests. The one that tops his list is the Connecticut Hospice, which he helped found in 1974. It was the first in the nation. He has served on the Hospice’s board of directors for many years, and a wing at the facility was dedicated in his honor. He spent time recently at Hospice, his obituary says.
In a recent interview he said another favorite charity was the Monastery of Our Lady of Grace in North Guilford, where he has been a benefactor since 1947. “That’s been one of my favorite charities,” he said.
Puglist
Earl Colter Photo submitted by Bill O’Brien
Inducted to Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.
Cosgrove started out in sports, in the 1930s as a young man, making a name for himself as a boxer and a wrestler. In 1989 he was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame, his friend Bill O’Brien said of Cosgrove’s ability. His crowning achievement in that arena was being inducted into the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame at age 90.
After he left athletics and made his fortune as a builder, he contributed to various schools, including St. Mary’s School in Branford; Notre Dame High School in West Haven; and Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, where the athletic center bears his name.
He was the husband of the late Alice Brown Cosgrove, whom he met at Branford High, and the father of Daniel T. Cosgrove and Susan Cosgrove Barnes, both of Branford and Mark M. Cosgrove who with his wife, Linda, lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.
Cosgrove leaves nine grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. His family extends special thanks to the staff of Connecticut Hospice and his aides Ampi, Troy, and Mo.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held Friday at 11 a.m. at St. Mary Church in Branford. Friends are invited to go directly to church. Burial will follow in St. Agnes Cemetery. Visitation will be held on Thursday from 4 – 8 p.m. at the W.S. Clancy Memorial Funeral Home, 244 North Main St.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Connecticut Hospice, 100 Double Beach Road, Branford, CT 06405.
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