The first known aerial photograph was taken over Paris by Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, a French photographer and balloonist, in 1858. Tournachon used a wet plate collodion process that required the photographic material to be prepared, exposed, and developed from a portable darkroom while aloft in a basket suspended from a gas balloon. From the 1880s to… Read more »
The Montauk Air Force Station operated from 1951 to 1981. Previously, the property had been used as a World War II coastal defense station disguised as a coastal fishing village. Subsequently, most was absorbed into Camp Hero State Park or used by the town for affordable housing. Originally from Pennsylvania, Ed Crasky had served as… Read more »
We’re trying something different for this week’s Throwback Thursday — sharing a photograph from our archives that we don’t know much about and asking for your help in identifying or recollecting the people, places, and stories behind the image. What we do know is that this photograph is of a Montauk Community Church variety/talent show,… Read more »
Montaukers of a certain age may recollect some of the people and places in this chamber directory. They might even remember using a two-letter telephone exchange prefix: MP for Montauk Point, for example. The directory comes from a collection of printed materials and ephemera promoting Montauk restaurants, hotels, and the Montauk Chamber of Commerce… Read more »
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. — Anatole France, 19th-century French poet, novelist, and journalist Clearly in agreement are more than 70 people who sent in photos of their “babies” for a Montauk Library community slideshow called “Pets of Montauk.” Dogs frolicking on the beach, cats curled on… Read more »
A nasty horse named Humpty Dumpty gets a kick out of throwing riders. A bathtub morphs into a UFO and lifts off. A little girl wins a baby elephant in a mail-in coupon contest. A surfcaster hooks a mermaid off Montauk Point. The imagination of the illustrator Frank Borth extended all the way from drawing… Read more »
It draws at least 1,000 people today, but the Thanksgiving Day Run for Fun started in 1976 with John Keeshan and only a handful of other runners bounding from the Plaza to Deep Hollow Ranch on Thanksgiving morning. “Over the years, it grew and … after a while, we ended up with a couple of… Read more »
On the corner of Main Street and Carl Fisher Plaza, White’s Pharmacy was a magnet for Montauk kids in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. For starters, it had a soda fountain and a great view of any action that was going down in town. “What the liquor store is now was Dick White’s drug store,”… 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 »
Much as they like to talk about real estate, most people in Montauk these days wouldn’t be referencing a 750-or-more-square-foot house with no AC or winter insulation on a 7,500-square-foot piece of property. The product of a late 1950s collaboration, the 200 or so prefab summer residences were designed by Andrew Geller and Raymond Loewy… Read more »