A logbook, or ship’s log, is an official record of events, conditions, and observations documented during the voyage of a ship, generally kept by captains or first mates. Historical logbooks provide information about the ship’s position, weather, ports visited, and daily life aboard the vessel. The engineer’s log of the steamship “George Appold” chronicles the… Read more »
September 5 will be Day 1 for Montauk School students – a Thursday, which should give them a soft landing after summer vacation. For the second September in a row, Jack Perna, the school’s longtime superintendent and principal, will still be on vacation, however, having retired in 2023 after more than 50 years. Hired by… Read more »
During the dog days of summer, you will find splashes of pink dotting the roadsides throughout Montauk, especially in low-lying areas on the margins of wetlands and shorelines. These lush native displays belong to the swamp rose mallow or Hibiscus moscheutos, as it is known scientifically. The swamp rose mallow, commonly called the hardy… Read more »
Most of the historic audio materials in the Montauk Library’s archives consist of recordings of oral history interviews, lectures, and local community organization meetings captured on cassette. But hidden among the stacks was a copy of Old Montauk: The Song for People Who Love It on vinyl record. Old Montauk is a country-inspired ballad performed… Read more »
Barbara Metzger (1944-2023) was an award-winning novelist, editor, writer of greeting card verses, artist, and longtime volunteer with the Friends of the Montauk Library. It was in that last capacity that Bob-E, as she was known, was instrumental in organizing book fairs on the Montauk Green on July Fourth weekends from 1980 to 2014. In… Read more »
“Sportfishing, even for the biggest fish, was not just a man’s sport,” Bill Akin wrote in The Golden Age of Montauk Sportfishing. “Women had always been part of the picture.” Women – particularly the partners of wealthy sportfishermen – boated some impressively large specimens. One was Chisie Farrington, the wife of the sports journalist and… Read more »
Frank Borth dedicated this cartoon to Dr. Gavino Mapula, who practiced at the Montauk Medical Center for more than two decades. So many patients visited the doctor to have fishhooks removed that he had a collection of extracted ones on display in his office. Dr. Mapula marched at the head of the 1995 Montauk… Read more »
Above is Teresa Harrington Sarno | From an album of photographs taken by Maria-Louise Sidoroff, documenting the staff and kitchen during a 12-hour shift from dawn to dusk at Gosman’s Seafood Restaurant in Montauk, New York, on Labor Day Weekend, c. 1975, Montauk Library Archives Teresa Harrington Sarno at Gosman’s. | Teresa Harrington Sarno Photo… Read more »
A 74-gun British warship, the H.M.S. Culloden ran aground at the northeast corner of Fort Pond Bay during a winter storm in 1781. At the time Long Island was occupied by British forces, and the Culloden had been patrolling Block Island Sound in search of French ships providing aid to Rhode Island colonists. The Culloden was… Read more »
Does anyone remember this bracing foray on Fort Pond Bay? We know that the year was 1963, the group were Montauk Girl Scouts, the leader wearing glasses was Betty Morici, and the photo was taken by Frank T. Moss. A Montauk troop—Troop No. 1 – of the Girl Scouts had been formed on February 16,… Read more »