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 »
This shot from Jane Liebell’s collection of photographs donated to the Montauk Library in 2005 says everything about seasonal celebrations in November: the Girl Scouts are at the firehouse, and have just cooked a delicious Thanksgiving turkey! (Although “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” as they say.) We know that a Boy… Read more »
Funny – considering it was she who advocated, in “A Room of One’s Own,” for a peaceful, quiet space to write – that it was Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that made it possible to provide just such a space for writers and visual artists here in Montauk. In the 1960s, after Albee… Read more »
A friend wrote recently to ask if there were ghosts at the Montauk Manor. About 20 years ago, he said, his sister and her husband stayed in a room on one of the upper floors — perhaps one built into the roof level, as she remembered a sloped ceiling – in the massive, four-story landmark…. Read more »
It was August 1898 when Camp Wikoff opened to what quickly grew to be more than 20,000 sickened, injured, and weakened soldiers returning from the Spanish-American War. A hastily created patchwork of tents and infirmaries blanketed virtually all of Montauk, from Fort Pond Bay to Ditch Plains to Third House. It was intended to… Read more »
“Gather wild grapes in early September,” Jean Fischer advised in her recipe for Wild Grape Jam with Lime in Montauk Cooks with Friends. “Many vines will not have fruit. The heady rich aroma of ripe grapes and your nose will help you find them.” It’s true that only the female vines of wild fox grapes… Read more »
After Ruth Woodrow died in 1983, Bessi Hochstein wrote a letter to the East Hampton Star describing her memories of boarding at Mrs. Woodrow’s cabins in Shepherd’s Neck. “The first time I was in Montauk was early spring, 1979, the year before I entered college,” she wrote, “I came, like hordes of others my… Read more »
After a bright and fair morning on September 21, 1938, an unexpected Category 3 hurricane made landfall on Long Island around 2 pm. With no cause for alarm, the New York Times’s forecast for the day read “Rain, probably heavy today and tomorrow, cooler.” No one had predicted the storm to take its path north… Read more »