Information, News, and features from Montauk Library’s local history collection.
Postcard of The Panoramic View, Inc., Old Montauk Highway The archives at the Montauk Library holds a rich collection of postcards, many of which represent now-defunct Montauk motels from days gone by. It makes sense that motel owners would have created their own postcards; it was a cheap but ingenious form of advertising…. Read more »
This great shot from the Montauk Library’s Al Holden Collection was taken in 1988. The fish tank over the bar has been replaced by a boxing print, and the name has changed to The Dock Bar and Grill, but other than that the Dock Rest doesn’t look that different from the way it… Read more »
Ken Weldon worked from 1963 through the 1980s at the Montauk Beach Company selling real estate. The 1960s were high times for sales in Montauk housing developments like Culloden Shores. Some of the maps and paper records used by Ken were donated to the Montauk Library by Ken and Loretta Weldon,… Read more »
This photograph from the 1970s shows Dick White and Phyllis Clemenz holding a flag that appears to be moments away from hoisting. We think the image is from the 1970s; the Bicentennial Year of 1976, more precisely. However, Phyllis Clemenz is wearing a winter coat and gloves. When asked about the flag, Dick… Read more »
In this photograph sporties, or businessmen from New York City who took the “Fishermen’s Special” from Penn Station that arrived in Montauk at the crack of dawn, stand in quiet anticipation aboard charter boats about to embark from Union News Dock. They will try their luck in Montauk’s notorious fishing grounds, fervently hoping… Read more »
The decade of the 1920s is filled with ingenuity and invention in the field of aviation. Visionaries like Sherman Fairchild pushed aviation science forward, intertwining aesthetics and engineering. Fairchild (1896-1971) was fascinated by “photogrammetry,” the science of gleaning map measurements from photographs. When he was 21 years old Fairchild designed an… Read more »
A tweet that surfaced in March about swans reappearing in Venetian canals made hearts rejoice worldwide. Temporarily displacing stories of corona gloom and doom, the original post credited clearer water to fewer tourists. Mother Nature was cleaning up the canals! The post went viral. However, Natasha Daly from nationalgeographic.com took issue with the… Read more »
This aerial view donated by the Windsor family to the Montauk Library Archives shows the center of Montauk Village from the late 1950s or early 1960s. A photographic foray into recent history, it reveals a number of easily recognizable buildings. In addition, gaps in the aerial landscape, i.e., those stores and businesses that… Read more »
When Phillis Ridgeway jumped into the fighting chair of her husband Jack Rounick’s sport fishing boat, she thought she was about to tangle with a swordfish. Its radiant blue sheen made it clear, however, that what she had sighted was a very rare blue marlin. In his “FISHING” column for The… Read more »
This aerial postcard of the Bridgeford Cottage Colony on East Lake Drive came into the Archives with the one cottage already circled, a message from a guest to the addressee, “this is where we stayed!” Edwin Bridgeford owned this cozy group of cottages, advertised as “Your Country Estate at the Sea Shore.” The… Read more »