Presumably in town to wrestle the native landscape into a Miami Beach of the North, Carl Fisher’s investors (above) at least had the deference to remove their hats at Montauk’s oldest settlers’ cemetery. That was wise: In 2011, East Hampton Star reported in jest that Montauk’s first lighthouse keeper, Jacob Hand, who was laid… Read more »
Legend has it that Carleton Kelsey visited the Montauk Library when he was in his 90s to see if it was “worthy” of receiving a portion of his prize collection of historical photographs and postcards. It was, he determined not long before he died, so he donated what he had that was relevant to 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 »
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 »
“I don’t know who first coined the term ‘highway haiku’ for vanity plates, but I think it is most appropriate. Lovers of Montauk are so clever in how they express themselves, even in such a brief way,” Mark Levy wrote in a letter to the editor of the East Hampton Star in 2016. At the… Read more »
Early local settlers waited till the cows came home – literally — before celebrating Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving holiday was almost exclusively a local New England tradition observed as early as October or as late as January, depending on the town. On the eastern end of Long Island, the date was determined by the homecoming of… Read more »
Who else remembers card catalogues and date-due stamps and brontosaurus-size desktops? Leased for $1 a year from the Montauk Community Church, the first Montauk Library opened on November 24, 1980, in a cottage that was miniature but a massive improvement over not having any library at all. “On opening day, it was reported that there… Read more »
“Our fighting men are SHEDDING their blood for you. Do your bit by GIVING some of yours to save them.” That was the slogan on the letterhead of the American Red Cross in a November 10, 1943, thank-you to Mrs. Harry A. (Nydia) Bruno of the American Women’s Voluntary Services, also known as the AWVS…. Read more »
Jeannette Edwards Rattray wrote in 1938 about a previous time, in the late 19th century, when Montauk was a “Gunner’s Paradise,” a “practically womanless Paradise for groups of men who went ‘on’ gunning for days and weeks at a time.” They camped in little shacks and packed few provisions, as they could live on… Read more »
Is there anything sweeter than a community cookbook? Often compiled to raise money for a good cause, they tend to be stuffed with all manner of extra ingredients. Corny jokes, endearing illustrations, poetry, sage advice, tips for hunting, gathering, and fishing, the names of book committee volunteers and recipes from others fondly remembered, even celebrities… Read more »