Information, News, and features from Montauk Library’s local history collection.
George Watson bought a dive bar he would later call The Dock from Bob Fitzgerald in 1973 after a handshake deal over 9 a.m. shots of blackberry brandy. “It was a cinderblock building. It was kind of raw looking,” he recalled during an oral history interview late last year. “And one of the first things… Read more »
Is there anything sweeter than a community cookbook? Often compiled to raise money for a good cause, they tend to be stuffed with all manner of extra ingredients. Corny jokes, endearing illustrations, poetry, sage advice, tips for hunting, gathering, and fishing, the names of book committee volunteers and recipes from others fondly remembered, even celebrities… Read more »
Let’s take a break from our winter-themed posts. We could all use a respite from the below-freezing temperatures, incessant winds, and piles of snow still lining the sidewalks, driveways, and playgrounds. Fast forward to summer. Strap on your Mary Janes and get your favorite striped T-shirt out of storage. We’re going fishing with this young… Read more »
“When I struck the Napeague road I thought I had come to the abomination of desolation,” said Florence Sammis in 1967 of her first trip to Montauk, in 1918. Interviewed in 1976, Martha Greene remembered a similarly lonely landscape when she commuted from East Hampton in the 1930s as a secretary for the Montauk Beach… Read more »
This week’s chilly weather gave us a taste of the biting temperatures and harsh winds our Montauk ancestors experienced in winter. With lower recorded temperatures and less forestation and development hindering the wintry maritime winds, Montauk must have felt uninhabitable to year-round families struggling to stay warm. “All of the local bays and harbors are… Read more »
Two years into World War II, “tin fish,” a non-threatening nickname for torpedoes, became the prevailing fish running in Montauk’s Fort Pond Bay. What was once a bustling fishing village, still in recovery from the 1938 hurricane, was now occupied by a US Naval Torpedo Testing Range. The US Navy started construction of the torpedo… Read more »
Brrrr! Bill Gosman recently donated this icy image to the Montauk Library Archives, along with 16 others depicting activity on the harbor as far back as the 1920s but primarily in the 1940s and ‘50s. Bill is, of course, a member of the Gosman family who over several generations built a popular harborside empire… Read more »
Santa looks like such a contented fellow. The red and green color scheme, the Dalmatian pup, the fishing lures placed inexplicably on top of a drum. Fred Guardineer, the illustrator, lived in Babylon and wrote a “Fish & Game” column for The Babylon Beacon. So what does he have to do with Montauk? Fishing lines… Read more »
“Are you contemplating a ‘good ole summertime’ vacation?” asked a letter to customers of the Wavecrest Motel and Apartments in anticipation of the summer of 1961, which was personally signed by the resort’s owners, Franklin and Lucille Jarmain, as well as their children. “Now is the time to look forward to that special week or… Read more »
It is no surprise that Camp Hero (Montauk Air Force Station) is the most requested topic to research in the Montauk Library Archives. The former military base, turned state park, is not only brimming with lore and legend, but also significant for the military innovation that took place at the coastal defense site. These factors… Read more »