What a difference 32 years makes! Here are some photographs that were meant to be buried in a time capsule in 1992. Middle-school Montauk Girl Scouts were equipped with disposable cameras to record what Montauk looked like at the time, said Jane Liebell, who led the group:
Top: Rita’s Stables, left, and the Blue Marlin. Middle: the Anchorage restaurant and the Avallone apartments, both under construction. Bottom: the then-deteriorating Montauk Playhouse and John’s Drive-In with Dave Rutkowski, the owner, out front. | Jane Liebell Collection, Montauk Library Archives
The girls took 68 photos of themselves and their mothers, and local businesses, landmarks, landscapes, and water bodies, including the Montauk Lighthouse, Montauk School, Montauk Green, St. Therese Church, Montauk Community Church, Montauk Library, Second House Museum, Long Island Rail Road station, Memory Motel, Plaza Sports, Crow’s Nest, Coast Guard station, Montauk Manor, John’s Drive-In, Playhouse, Deep Hollow Ranch, Third House and Second House, Fort Hill Cemetery, Tuthill Pond, Fort Pond, Fort Pond Bay, Lake Montauk, and Anchorage restaurant. Jane Liebell, who was active with the Montauk Library as well as with the Girl Scouts, went on to donate scans of the photos to the library’s digital archives.
Apparently the time capsule never made it into the ground, seeing as Jane still has a wooden box filled with the photos, a school yearbook, newspaper clippings and sixth-grader digests of the news – “Earthquake hits Montauk,” “George Bush is running again, against Bill Clinton,” “Longtime teachers retire” (“We will all miss Mrs. Borth, Mr. Kelsall, and Mrs. Potts”). Also recorded, in pen on a spiral notebook sheet, are movies of the month: “Wayne’s World,” “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “Gladiators,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” with brief reviews.
Perhaps the most precious gem in the un-buried treasure, however, is a hand-written account of the “latest news in cupples.” There was, reported Ali’s Awsome Gossip, one new sixth-grade couple, one recently broken-up couple, and just two couples that were still holding strong. “This is not good for the season of love – springtime of course,” the columnist wrote. “Yet there are still some of you single guys and gals that can get together. Think about it!”
Ali’s Awsome went on to forecast a hot summer as far as hunks were concerned, and to note a couple of recent birthday parties at the Gallops’ and the Urveleks’. Anyone with “any burning info” was invited to pass it along.
Whether Ali got more gossip is anyone’s guess, as is where – if they’d ever gotten around to it – the Girls Scouts’ time capsule would have been buried.
But honestly, who cares? These things are about the process.
“We had so much fun,” Jane said.
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