Villages

Jack Brinkley-Cook may well have solved some of Sag Harbor’s perennial summertime problems: traffic congestion and a scarcity of parking during the village’s busiest months of the year.

More than 350 elite musicians from East End middle schools will gather in East Hampton on Saturday for the annual Hampton Music Educators Association concerts.     

An acrimonious exchange on Friday between the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals and an attorney ended in the board’s abruptly adjourning a hearing.

Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead celebrated the completion of its new $67.8 million facility on Friday. 

The Corey Critical Care Pavilion and Kanas Regional Heart Center on Roa­noke Avenue at the hospital offers more lifesaving services on the East End, according to officials with Northwell Health, which Peconic Bay Medical Center joined in 2016.

“We are not protesters, we are protectors,” Margo Thunderbird, an elder, told a crowd that gathered outside the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum on Tuesday morning to prepare for a demonstration in front of a construction site on land that the Shinnecock Indian Nation considers the site of sacred burial grounds. 

The East Hampton Village Board is set to appoint Richard Lawler as mayor and Barbara Borsack as deputy mayor at its meeting on Friday.

Climate activists are starting the new year with a redoubled effort to generate action, with one local group set to hold a daylong event aimed at doing just that.

Item of the Week From the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection

The East Hampton Village Board decided last Thursday to appoint a new mayor to fill out the term of Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., whose resignation took effect on Dec. 31. The board will vote on an appointment at its next meeting on Friday, Jan. 17, and will then grapple with the question of whether to also appoint someone to fill the vacancy on the board.

A new seal for East Hampton Village, created to mark the 100th anniversary of the village’s incorporation, was unveiled at the village board meeting last Thursday.

The 37-unit affordable housing complex under construction at 531 Montauk Highway in Amagansett is on track to be move-in ready by the end of the year, Catherine Casey, the executive director of the East Hampton Housing Authority, said on Friday.

On Friday, the day that the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg turned 17, one of the legions she has inspired around the world staged his own climate strike outside East Hampton Town Hall, hoping in turn to inspire others.

It was tide, not bombs, that did in Fort Tyler.     

Fort Tyler, a pile of rubble and concrete walls that had been a landmark for boaters and favorite fishing spot, has nearly been consumed by the sea after standing for 120 years on a shrinking island north of Gardiner’s Island.     

An East Hampton Village law prohibiting professional landscapers from using gas-powered leaf blowers from June 1 to Labor Day, and another that requires them to obtain licenses annually, took effect Thursday, the first day of the new year.     

When an out-of-town animal rescue group showed up to remove domestic ducks from the Nature Trail in East Hampton a few days before Christmas, local wildlife advocates and stewards of the trail reacted with outrage, accusing the group of “terrorizing” the resident waterfowl.     

Sharone Einhorn and Honey Wolters, the owners of Ruby Beets home furnishings store, which has been a Sag Harbor fixture for 14 years, recently announced they will be closing the shop later this month, not because of soaring rents, or sagging sales, but because they didn’t want to overstay their welcome.     

On the heels of the controversial construction of electronic billboards on Sunrise Highway last summer, the Shinnecock Council of Trustees is in the early stages of planning a gas station and a medical marijuana dispensary, both part of a multifaceted approach to broaden the tribe’s income to support much-needed programs for its 1,600 members, according to Bryan Polite, the council’s chairman.     

Up for a challenge . . . for a good cause?

The bravest swimmers on the South Fork can answer the polar plunge call to raise money for charity by taking a winter dip on New Year's Day in Montauk, East Hampton, or Wainscott.

The first one of the day is on the beach at Gurney's Montauk Resort at 10:30 a.m. Donations collected during the Gurney's polar plunge will benefit the Retreat, a domestic violence shelter program based in East Hampton.

After nearly a full year of dismal real estate sales, the East End market has begun to heat up, according to several  brokers.

“Something happened in December, and buyers started snatching up homes that had been sitting on the market for months,” said Judi Desiderio, the president of Town and Country Real Estate. 

Todd Bourgard, a regional vice president at Dougas Elliman, agreed. “The fourth quarter has been a boom, it really has exploded,” he said. 

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, and other state and local officials attended the East Hampton Village Board meeting on Friday to pay tribute to Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., who will be resigning on Tuesday, more than six months before his term is up. 

You may have seen Stuart Weiss riding his bicycle around town. At 85 years young, he favors orange polka-dot suspenders — a tan fedora when he’s on foot. “I’ve gone over 700 miles this year,” said Mr. Weiss earlier this month. “It’s good for me mentally and physically.” 

After a search, an architectural design firm has been selected for Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s new location, 15 acres on the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University, on Tuckahoe Road in Shinnecock Hills. The $305 million project is targeted for completion by 2025.

Just west of the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church on Main Street, where the checkered flags once went up for the Bridgehampton auto races at the turn of 20th century, now stands a new historical marker. 

Fifty-four athletes journeyed 18 miles from Montauk to Block Island on stand-up paddleboards and in kayaks last summer as a fund-raiser that raised about $180,000 for Paddlers for Humanity.

Christmas came early last week for dozens of underprivileged children at four schools and three baseball camps in the small city of San Francisco de Macoris in the Dominican Republic.     

The Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons wants to expand its medical facility and construct new holding and intake areas for dogs and cats at its 124 Daniel’s Hole Road property in Wainscott.     

Item of the Week From the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection

Seeking to add a fire pit, patios, walkways, and other accessory structures to the 25 Fithian Lane property where they are building a house, George E. Doty Jr. and his wife, Le-Ellen Spelman, requested variances from the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on Friday.     

The timing was perfect. Last Thursday’s full moon, backed by a strong wind, finally brought in a great low tide. It had been at least nine months since I’d witnessed one of such magnitude. Its significance also prompted me to head over to one of my favorite sand flats to dig up some steamer clams.

The first Montauk Christmas Bird Count was in 1938, and though there were a couple of wartime years when it did not take place, it is one of the oldest annual bird counts still running, according to Brent Bomkamp, one of the coordinators of this year’s event on Saturday.