I Spent a Day in One of America's Richest Cities: Greenwich, CT

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Since the coronavirus outbreak hit New York City in March, the city has seen an exodus of wealthy residents. At least 420,000 people left the city for places like upstate New York, the Hamptons, and Connecticut, according to mail forwarding data.

Many of those New Yorkers headed to Greenwich, an affluent town on Connecticut's coast about an hour from the city. In fact, about 1,319 New Yorkers moved to Greenwich in the past four months, per the Hartford Courant.

One moving company told The New York Post last month that it had seen a 75% surge in relocations from NYC to Connecticut between March 15 and April 28. Connecticut's governor said in May that "phones are ringing off the hook at real-estate agent offices."

A wealthy enclave on Connecticut's Gold Coast, Greenwich is consistently ranked as one of the richest cities in America. In 2018, the average household income in its Old Greenwich neighborhood was $336,692, the 12th-highest in the nation, according to Bloomberg. The year before, two Greenwich ZIP codes — 06878 in Riverside and 06831 in Greenwich — ranked among the wealthiest in the US.

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Greenwich's "hedge fund capital" nickname is well-earned: The city is also to several hedge funds that include AQR Capital Management, Viking Global Investors, K7 Investments, and Axiom Investors.

On an unseasonably cold March morning last year, I got on the Metro North from Grand Central Terminal in New York to spend a day in Greenwich and get a feel for the affluent community. Here's what it was like.

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