Villages

A cold blast from the past: One January day in 1899, the temperature here hit zero. Afterward — need it be said? — “several days of good skating” were “enjoyed on Town Pond.”

Ruth Bedford Moran (1870-1948), seen here on a wicker “sleigh” in San Diego, and her father, the painter Thomas Moran (1837-1926), were among East Hampton’s early and prominent winter snowbirds.

Coyote sightings on the North Fork this autumn and a month ago in Bridgehampton are not surprising to those who study this wide-ranging mammal. Coyotes have never bred in Suffolk County, but with one-off sightings increasing in frequency, the question isn’t if they will breed here but when.

Montauk again took the brunt of the damage, with heavy flooding downtown and at Ditch Plain.

What’s old is new again: notes from the East Hampton zoning code battles of 25 years ago. And much else of interest from The Star of yesteryear.

When Leroy and Julia Kayser were married the Allies had not yet landed on the beaches of Normandy. “It Had to Be You” by Helen Forrest and Dick Haymes was a radio hit, and the movie “Casablanca” was about to win the Oscar for best picture.

In this circa 1900 glass-plate image from The Star’s archive, the Boughton family has gathered for a feast. Edward Smith Boughton, who bought this newspaper, sits at the head of the table.

From small litter like discarded face masks, bottles, and packages to bigger things like car parts, old appliances, and furniture, to the signs advertising tutors, nannies, soccer camps, and even lawn clippings and leaves, keeping up with illegal dumping and punishing the scofflaws is a challenge.

When darkness closed out the Audubon Montauk Christmas Bird Count and the species were tallied, participants agreed that the good weather might have played a role in the total: 134 were found, the highest in a decade.

Record crowds turned out for New Year's Day polar plunges at Main Beach in East Hampton and Beach Lane in Wainscott, helping to raise some $40,000 for local food pantries.

Near a gap in the 30-foot-tall border wall that separates the United States from Mexico, Elissa McLean and Andy Winter found themselves wrapped up in humanitarian efforts to aid the hundreds of refugees who have been pouring into the U.S. daily, waiting — and hoping — to be picked up by Border Patrol agents so they can begin the process of seeking asylum, having fled extreme violence, corruption, and crime in their home countries.

In this photo from The Star’s archive, N. Sherrill Foster shows a visitor to Clinton Academy a clock that once hung from the Presbyterian Church’s belfry.