Since 1796, the Montauk Point Lighthouse has served as a navigational aid to mariners, casting light from the land’s end and acting as a signal for the rocky shoreline. In its early years of operation, a lighthouse keeper attended to the whale oil-fueled lanterns, carrying eight lanterns up the interior spiral staircase and lighting the… Read more »
Who lived in Montauk in 1930? The U.S. Census of that year shines light not only on who lived here but also what they did and where they came from. Tuthill, Grimes, Joyce, McDonald, Syvertsen, Paon, Pfund, Duryea, Burke, Martell, Pitts, Tuma, Gilmartin, Briand – many last names reverberate locally almost 100 years later. A… Read more »
“Mrs. Gunnar Strandberg, whose husband was employed at the Willard restaurant, was helping him put boards over the restaurant windows when the storm struck. Unable to get back to her house in the village until the hurricane abated, she was greatly concerned for the safety of her two-year-old infant, who was alone there.” “As soon… Read more »
Given the price of land today, a waterfront building is more likely to be replaced with something grander than moved from one spot to another. Back in the day, though, homes and even restaurants (like Trail’s End) in the old fishing village on Fort Pond Bay were moved to other places like Shepherd’s Neck and… Read more »
Did that gentle little boy grow up to be a veterinarian? Did that earnest little girl go on to become a broadcast journalist? We don’t know, but in all likelihood some of the children in these photos – taken by Peggy Joyce in, we believe, the early 1960s, today are the grandparents of Montauk School… Read more »
For over a century, the East End of Long Island has drawn artists from New York City and beyond, inspired by the raw natural beauty of its shorelines, forests, grasslands, glacial moraines, and built structures like saltboxes, windmills, and the Montauk Point lighthouse. In 1940, Victor and Mabel D’Amico, an artist and educator couple from… Read more »
ON VIEW IN THE LOCAL HISTORY CENTER & MAIN LEVEL Surfing in Montauk: A digital display featuring photographs by members of the community Local history room display case: Surfing Memorabilia from the collection of Tony Caramanico Main level display case: Community Surfing Display ON VIEW IN THE TEEN ROOM Endless Oceans: Video art by Sirad… Read more »
A small collection of color and black-and-white aerial photographs of the west side of Lake Montauk is included in the Montauk Library Archives. Because they were taken in the 1970s, prior to many subdivisions and developments in the 1980s and beyond, they could be useful to illustrate what have undoubtedly been shrinking swaths of eelgrass,… Read more »
It was her father’s job with Carl Fisher that moved the family of Edna Sorenson to Montauk in 1927. At first they rented a cottage in the old fishing village on Fort Pond Bay, which was then known simply as “on the beach.” “We spent many happy hours in Fort Pond Bay perfecting our swimming… Read more »
In the 1910s and 1920s, tea rooms and tea houses dotted America’s new motorways, providing tea and light refreshments to traveling tourists. On the eastern end of Long Island, motorists driving through Montauk could find refuge at the Weeweecho Tea House situated on the southern bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. At that time when Montauk… Read more »