Postcard of the Wavecrest Motel. Printed by Color Photog. Assoc., Glen Cove, NY, ca. 1960s. Photographers, Olga Bedorf and Mona Shelley. Montauk Library Postcard Collection. Montauk Library Archives Postcard of the Blue Haven Motel, 1960s. J. J. Heatley, Smithtown, N.Y. Montauk Library Postcard Collection. Montauk Library Archives Knowledge about Montauk’s “Golden Age,” the period of sportfishing and vacationing that pushed our sleepy… Read more »
“Camp Wikoff, 24th Infantry (colored) coming to Detention Camp,” by photographer Dwight L. Elmendorf, 1898. African-American regiment arriving at Camp Wikoff in Montauk, N.Y. Montauk Historical Society Collection, digital image. Montauk Library Archives It was August 1898 when Camp Wikoff opened to what quickly grew to be to be more than 20,000 sickened, injured, and… Read more »
Hither Hills State Park, c. 1950s. Postcard from the Montauk Library’s Postcard Collection. The pensive girl in the kerchief and the stone walkway lend a kind of European flavor to this thoughtfully composed image. Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” also comes to mind. Could the photographer be paying homage to a famous painting? The image, which… Read more »
“Marie and Chewy,” 2012. From the Mike Carlisi Collection, Montauk Library Archives. We are in the thick of the “dog days” of summer. The reference comes to us from ancient Rome, when our brilliant forebears ascribed the excessive summer heat and humidity between July 3rd and August 11th to Sirius, the brightest star in the… 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 »
Trusty Dalmatian Guards Crates of Budweiser Beer during 1992 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Color photograph from the Herb Herbert Collection, Montauk Library Archives. A favorite website is National Today, or nationaltoday.com. It’s a day-by-day calendar, listing an event or activity that is celebrated on a particular day in a specific month, every year. According to National… Read more »
Photo collage of Book Fair volunteers, ca. 1996-1998: Starting in the top left-hand corner: Mary (last name unknown), Angela Lambriola, Robert Schorr, Christine Langerfeld, Judith Rade, Bob Mautschke, June (last name unknown), Charlotte Schorr, Eileen Mautschke, Doris and Frank Donahue, Suzanne Gosman, and Elaine Kahn Photograph of Bob-e Metzger, Chairperson of the Friends’ Book Fair, looking over boxes in the storage area… Read more »
This week’s Throwback Thursday is a tribute to the children of Fort Pond Bay Village. The Bay was their frontage and the train tracks their backyard boundary. Nothing, however, could restrict these kids from exploring the larger world around them. This image from around 1938 comes from the Pitts-Burke-Cullum collection, a large group of photographic… Read more »
As the school year draws to a close, everyone looks forward to passing their exams and moving up another grade level. Especially seniors! (Or in the case of Montauk School graduates, 8th-graders.) Graduation ceremonies bring celebration and a sense of freedom. Before graduation, however, there’s the school trip. Its itinerary is usually structured around an… Read more »
The annual Blessing of the Fleet became part of Montauk culture after Vinny Grimes witnessed a similar ceremony during his tenure with the U.S. Navy. In 1955, the Montauk community supported Grimes’ idea of creating a blessing ceremony for fishermen’s vessels. On June 7, 1956, the East Hampton Star ran a notice alerting the public… Read more »