Imagine driving up a meandering dirt driveway lined with ornamental trees, a horse-riding track on your left, a watchtower home to a fancier of pigeons on your right, greenhouses stocked with tropical plants, and a private zoo replete with gazelles and peacocks, all surrounding a Spanish-Moor-styled estate. Does this sound like Montauk? While contemporary estates… Read more »
It’s that time of year when we write a post about the Montauk St. Patrick’s Day Parade, sharing some aspect of its founding or the history of its organizers–the Montauk Friends of Erin. Last year we posted a cartoon by Frank Borth depicting a colorful parade of marchers, floats, and balloons rounding the plaza. The… Read more »
According to the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread – yes, there is such a thing! – Irish soda bread was born of necessity during the potato famine. Ireland was importing a soft type of wheat from America, and yeast was difficult to obtain. Adding baking soda (also called bread soda) to… Read more »
Just received your letter and I want to say It has recalled the day when we first met dear Now I’m feeling better and I promise true I will return to you So don’t forget dear When William H. Heagney released the song In Montauk Dear With You in 1928, Montauk was in a period… Read more »
Leisuramas were small, cookie-cutter vacation homes built in the Culloden Shores subdivision of Montauk in the early 1960s. They were designed to be affordable and came conveniently pre-furnished from top to bottom. “All you need is a key and a six-pack,” Frank Tuma, who managed their construction, was rumored to have said. The marketing of… Read more »
Winter birdwatching in Montauk draws a dedicated and frostbitten crowd who are rewarded for their resiliency with abundant scoters, razorbills, loons, eiders, and many species of dabbling ducks amassing along the shorelines, lakes, and ponds. “It was agreed that Montauk was a marvel in the feathers department, particularly in the off-season and after a spell… Read more »
It was a misty morning on January 16, 1894, when “Fannie J. Bartlett,” a three-masted schooner transporting coal from Philadelphia to Boston, ran onto an outer bar just two miles east of the Napeague Life-saving Station. Captain A. T. Hutchins was following a pilot boat when he lost his bearings in the fog at 4… 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 »
Montauk’s forests, hills, valleys, cliffs, and shorelines have long inspired creative types flocking to the East End for open spaces and wild muses. Montauk’s untamed woodlands and resident trees have been contemplated by writers and artists alike. In the library’s collection and on the community room walls we see instances of their influence in poetry,… Read more »
Staff Sergeant Arthur M. Dunne (1916-2009), a World War II veteran, first came to East Hampton in June 1942, the day after the Nazi saboteurs landed in Amagansett. The next month he was assigned to Montauk to install and operate a radar tower at the Montauk Point Lighthouse. By this time, the Coast Guard had… Read more »