Southampton Publick House

Bowden Square, Southampton

283-2800

Lunch noon-4 p.m. every day

Dinner 5-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 5-11 p.m. Friday

and Saturday

With an atmosphere reminiscent of an old-style pub - warm woods, a scrolled tin ceiling, and individual votives placed in each window after dark - and a menu of fresh, flavorful, microbrewed beers, it's too bad the food at the Southampton Publick House isn't better than it is.

The restaurant's taproom is a great place for groups of friends to hang out, and the dining room attracts families with kids because it's big and has a varied menu, but don't expect fine dining here.

Do go for the beer, though. There are always at least half a dozen brews on tap, several of which are seasonal specials. Last week they were offering an Octoberfest, a Pumpkin Ale, and a Porter. A lover of dark beer, I tried the Porter, which had a strong molasses flavor and wasn't bitter - but neither did it have the richness of a Guinness. Pints are $4 and $4.50, about average for an East End bar.

"Growlers" To Go

Four-ounce samplers are available for anyone who can't decide among Southampton Golden Lager, Montauk Light, Southampton Pale Ale, Southampton Secret Ale, or any of the special brews. And for those who believe, as the Publick House does, that "fresh beer is the best beer," the brewery offers half-gallon "growlers" to take home, at $10 for the first fill-up and $8 for refills.

From the appetizer menu, we ordered popcorn shrimp, one of many $6 choices. The portion was generous, more than enough for the three of us to share, the shrimp were tender, and the breading was Cajun spicy, moderated slightly by dipping in tartar sauce. Marinara would have been a nice foil, too.

Other appetizers include Long Island mussels in beer broth ($9), black ale onion soup ($4), and conch fritters ($8).

Duck A L'Orange

A Caesar salad ($5), with strips of roasted red pepper, was a little bland to my taste, but just fine for a 16-year-old, who devoured it. The Caesar salad also comes with grilled chicken ($9) or shrimp ($12), and there are several other salads as well.

Of the four dinner specials being offered, we chose two: duck a l'orange ($18) and lobster ravioli ($16). And, for the youngest one at our table, ale-battered fish and chips ($14) from the regular menu.

With the duck came a choice of garlic mashed potatoes, french fries, or rice pilaf (the latter was chosen), and a blend of seasoned steamed vegetables. When the plate came out, it looked as though it had sat a tad too long under the heat lamp: the orange glaze was somewhat congealed, and some of the rice had gotten dried up and crunchy. Which would have served the duck's skin, actually - it was a little soggy, though the meat was well cooked.

Fries Disappointed

Six large ravioli came in a wide-brimmed pasta bowl covered with a creamy sauce of roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, and mushrooms. And though the ravioli themselves were on the gummy side, and the flavor of the chopped lobster filling got a little lost, the dish as a whole was tasty and satisfying.

Fish and chips seemed like a sure thing for a young child, and it came out looking authentic, newspaper wrapping and all. But while she loved the thick fillets of what looked and tasted like fresh cod, I found them to be greasy.

And the french fries - oh, my goodness, they were fresh from the freezer! What a disappointment.

Specials Aplenty

Also on the menu are steaks, from a 12-ounce sirloin at $15 to a marinated boneless rib eye at $20 - the highest-priced entree. There are chicken dishes, pork tenderloins, salmon, and a selection of pastas at $13 and $14. Sandwiches range from burgers at $6 to crab cakes at $9. The children's menu has all the usual items, from grilled cheese to chicken fingers, each at $6.

Dinner specials are available most days. Entrees are 15 percent off Monday through Friday from 5 to 7, they're two for one on Tuesday, and three-course dinner specials are $18.95 Thursday and Sunday. Wednesday night is ladies night in the taproom from 9 to 11, and a free drink comes with Sunday brunch.

I recall previous visits to the Publick House, mostly with groups of students from Southampton College, as being fun and festive, focused mainly on the beer (and the conversation). And for that, it's an ideal gathering spot.

John Pinderhughes, one of America's leading photographers, is known both for his award-winning commercial work and for his striking fine-art photographs, which hang in many museums.

Operating out of a studio in Manhattan's Flatiron District for the past 20 years, he lives on the Upper West Side with his wife, Victoria, a psychologist, and their daughters, Sienna, 13, and Ghenet, 9. The family also owns a house in Sag Harbor they visit at every opportunity.

During a recent interview, he spoke about his life and work, about the East End, where he is on the board of The Nature Conservancy, and about the racial prejudice he has encountered, and still must deal with, both at work and at play.

Trip To Africa

Born in Washington, D.C., Mr. Pinderhughes lived in Alabama before moving to New Jersey, where, as a teenager in Montclair, he was left cold by a high school photography course and aspired to be a painter and graphic artist.

An eye-opening trip to Ethiopia during the summer of 1966 changed all that, however. Stunned by the beauty of Africa and its people, he felt inspired to photograph everything in sight.

"I was 20, and had desperately wanted to visit Africa," he said. "I stumbled upon my calling quite by chance."

Found His Way

Rejecting a small camera his father had given him, he quietly appropriated a friend's, which had two lenses, and started taking pictures.

"I knew at once that I had found my tool. That was it. I never looked back."

As a marketing major at Howard University in Washington, D.C., he photographed the anti-war protests and student uprisings then in full swing.

Those years not only deepened his commitment to his art but led to collaboration on a book, "Centennial Plus One: A Photographic and Narrative Account of the Black Student Revolution; Howard University, 1964-1968."

"I grappled with technique, learning to express myself and make the statements that were important to me. You never completely master your craft, of course, but you become comfortable with your equipment."

Photography And Cooking

Mr. Pinderhughes likens photography to cooking, at which he also excels. He has published articles about food and cookbooks, among them "Family of the Spirit Cookbook: Recipes and Remembrances from African American Kitchens," and is an expert at the outdoor grill.

"Both photography and cooking require some scientific knowledge - chemistry and optics, for example - but they're things I've learned to do instinctively," he said.

"I grill year-round. I even go out there in the snow and grill. It's the same with taking pictures. I just go out and do it, because it's what I love."

A Quick Study

His first job out of college was with McGraw-Hill, where he coordinated the printing of brochures, but not until he was hired by Cowles Communications, publishers of Look, Family Circle, and Venture magazines, did he get his first taste of commercial photography.

"I was doing paste-ups and mechanicals, all done by computer now, in order to be near these big-time photographers in their labs," Mr. Pinderhughes recalled. "If they'd known I was a photographer they wouldn't have talked to me, so, as a young black kid, I let them think I was a messenger."

He was a good listener and a quick study. "They'd go into long, detailed explanations because they didn't think I was a threat, or would even understand what they were saying. It was quite humorous, and they unwittingly taught me a heck of a lot that I'd go home at night and try out on my own."

Big-Name Clients

After studying at the WNET Black Journal Film and Television Workshop, he struck out on his own, stubbornly lugging his portfolio around, taking pictures, and, at times, getting pretty hungry.

Small jobs started coming in, then big ones. For the past 25 years Mr. Pinderhughes has worked exclusively as a freelance photographer, on assignments ranging from national ads, posters, album covers, and magazine illustrations to billboards and bus-stop shelter placards.

His impressive list of clients includes Miller and Anheuser Busch beers, McDonald's, General Foods, the American Cancer Society, Bell Telephone, Equitable Life Assurance, Western Electric, Gulf Oil, RCA, Essence, and the United States Army, to name but a smattering.

"I'm a problem-solver for my clients," he said. "My job is to translate their ideas into photographs."

Two weeks ago, for example, he did a shoot for an AT&T program that provides medical scholarships to minority students. The photo featured a 9-year-old girl fighting with her older brother.

"I will so be a doctor," was the caption.

"I'm primarily a people photographer," said Mr. Pinderhughes. "I did the casting, looking for that snap and pride that says, 'I will succeed!' I interviewed about 40 kids at an agency, putting them through a little scene I devised of a pretend fight in which the little girl gets the last word."

"I submitted two girls to my client just in case one conked out - you never know - and one of them was just terrific."

Warm And Fuzzy

Last week it was off to Chicago to do an ad for American Family Insurance about fathers and babies. "It was already cast, this father with his little baby, so my job was to make it all warm and fuzzy," said the photographer.

"Another AT&T ad showing a happy college grad jumping for joy was warm and fuzzy, too. My specialty is warm and fuzzy, actually. Personally, I think of myself as warm but not fuzzy. I tend to be a little serious and overthink things at work; my kids get the crazy side of me at home."

Mr. Pinderhughes's fine-art photographs, unlike his commercial work, are black and white. Panoramic landscapes, many with water, and surreally evocative interiors, they have a serene intimacy with mood and place.

"My work is quiet and understated," he said. "I don't like to smack people between the eyes. I'm not a street photographer who puts a camera on his shoulder and rushes out to see what he can find. I immerse myself in my subject. I sit and watch and listen and speculate. I like to make people really look at my work."

A 1991 show at the Museum of Modern Art, for example, was called "Pleasures and Terrors of Domestic Comfort." "It was a series of portraits of old folks," said the artist. "I just adore their quiet dignity and the wonderful knowledge and love they emanate. They know that they know. The museum bought one for its permanent collection."

Mr. Pinderhughes also likes to photograph "little clumps of things that have been cast up on the beach and spewed about in wavelines," and "the unbelievably beautiful local landscapes."

"I'll go back and back to a certain salt marsh or stretch of beach and ocean and sit there until I hit it right. My landscapes now are all about the water."

Grew Up By The Sea

His choice of Sag Harbor for his summer home and his involvement in the Nature Conservancy both come from his love of the sea.

As a boy on his grandparents' farm on Chesapeake Bay, he learned to fish, crab, and oyster, and, as a teenager visiting a favorite aunt on Martha's Vineyard, he discovered the joys of bluefishing.

"Just being near the water blissed me out," he said. "Now I love taking my children crabbing, fishing, and clamming, and I want to make sure these joys are preserved for them and for their children."

Racial Prejudice

Has he encountered racial prejudice in the Hamptons?

"Oh yeah, are you kidding?" he asked. "But most of the bad vibes come from the summer people with a lot of money who come out here in big cars and look down on the year-round residents anyway."

"I don't think many outside people understand there's an indigenous black population that's been here a long time. I have a lot of friends in the black community where I live, and I have no problems with the local people. The shopkeepers and everyone all know me. And through the conservancy, I've made a lot of white friends."

Racial prejudice at work?

"We live in the U.S., don't we? Unfortunately, the idea of 'The Ugly American' is not without grounds. Opportunities for a black photographer are not what they would be for a white photographer."

Subtle Or Overt

"In the advertising industry people form relationships; it's an Old Boys' club. I didn't go to school with them and I don't come out to the Hamptons with them."

Sometimes, said Mr. Pinderhughes, put-downs are subtle, like the receptionist who automatically tells him the mail room is down the hall. And sometimes they're overt, as when a magazine editor dismissed him and his portfolio because the publication had just done an issue on blacks, as if he were qualified to photograph no one and nothing else.

"I've been at this a long time," he said thoughtfully. "I've been successful, but probably not as successful as I could have been. The fortunate thing, however, is that I love and respect my people. I enjoy interpreting them, and showing them in a good light. The great thing is that I've been able to do the work I love."

Although the Children's Museum of the East End has yet to find a permanent home, its first exhibit will nonetheless open to the public on Oct. 26.

"Time and Place/Light and Space," billed as "a hands-on exploration of the world of the East End," will run concurrently with Guild Hall's new exhibit, "The Moran Family Legacy," which includes art works by over a dozen members of East Hampton's Moran family.

The founding members of the Children's Museum met last spring with Henry Korn, Guild Hall's president, and the group decided at that time to run a pilot program this fall. The new exhibit is the result of that agreement.

A Place To Start

The Children's Museum has been seeking a suitable space to settle down in for the better part of a year. It had hoped to take over the Cedar Street space vacated earlier this year by the East Hampton Day Care Center. But the East Hampton School District, which owns the property, decided to reclaim that land for its own use.

Last spring, Jorie Latham, a museum committee member, told The Star that "Guild Hall is a place to start," but that there was no possibility of the museum's taking up permanent residence there, as Guild Hall does not have enough space.

Lucy Kazickas, another committee member, said on Tuesday that "Time and Place/Light and Space" will fill Guild Hall's Woodhouse Gallery with seven different activities for the museum's target audience of children through 10 years old.

Victorian House

Ms. Muhlfeld Kazickas said that about half of the gallery space would be devoted to a mock-up of the interior of a Victorian house, one wall of which will feature a large reproduction of a Thomas Moran landscape painting that includes a wind mill.

Children will be able to open doors in the windmill behind which will be drawings and text explaining how a windmill works, and supplying historical information.

Also included in the exhibit are a costume area, where kids can change into turn-of-the-century garb, a "Tile Club" area, where they can design their own tiles using rubber stamps, a puppet area, a farm area, where they can "buy" fruits and vegetables, a seascape area, which will contain "discovery boxes," and a small bridge, where children can "catch" cut-outs of local fish.

"Hands-On" Experience

"What Is Your Community? What Was It Then, What Is It Now" is the name of the segment of the project that presents turn-of-the-century photographs of parts of East Hampton alongside contemporary views of the same places.

Last December, Ms. Latham told The Star that the museum would provide "hands-on" exhibits, a "soft room" with padded climbing areas for toddlers, craft and performance areas, and "sea-related" displays and demonstrations. With its inaugural project, it seems about to meet most of those goals.

The mission statement of the museum avers that "through interaction with exhibits and other visitors, each child's curiosity is expanded, self-esteem is enhanced, social skills are reinforced. A lively and engaging early museum experience for younger children promotes a lifelong love of self-directed learning and discovery in museums."

The other members of the museum committee are Beatrice Alda, Janet Jennings, Jacqui Leader, Bridget LeRoy, and Kari Lyn Sabin.

Search Continues

The committee hopes to "provide affordable activities and programs that will enable children and their parents/caregivers to interact and explore together in exhibits designed to excite, entertain, and teach."

Ms. Kazickas noted that many items in the exhibit have been donated by the community, and that much of the work on it will be done by local carpenters and artists on a volunteer basis. She said that she and her fellow committee members hope "that people get excited about the project, and help us to find a place" for the museum.

An opening reception for the exhibit will be held on Oct. 26 from 2 to 4 p.m.

Ms. Kazickas said that most of the new exhibit would remain intact after its initial run at Guild Hall ends on Jan. 11, so that it can be easily transported. Meanwhile, the search for a permanent home continues.

No rest for the weary, Grandma used to say. Too true. Having thoroughly wearied ourselves with the annual shaking-out and storing-away of summer clothes, an exhausting task undertaken the moment the temperature dropped and the tomatoes drooped, we now find we have nothing to wear.

It's hard to concentrate when you are walking around in wool in perspiration weather. The fall suit that looked terrific in the mirror at 8 a.m. is worse than a hair shirt by 3 in the afternoon with the thermometer edging toward 80.

Nothing for it but to pull out the cotton. Whew.

Not since the early '70s, when the last billboard on Napeague came to the end of a five-year grace period and was taken down in keeping with a forward-looking town law, have there been as many roadside signs around as there are this month. From Wainscott to Montauk they have sprouted, mainly along Route 27 but on front lawns, side streets, and back roads as well. Others are in store windows or on trees but most are planted in the ground or rising up from the beds of pickup trucks.

They are, of course, soldiers in the election campaign, and, therefore, like everything else in politics, ephemeral, which is some small comfort. But why are there so many of them this year, and why have they grown bigger than they used to be?

Brightly colored placards with party slogans or photos of beaming candidates, just like buttons, palm cards, funny hats, and other political paraphernalia, are an American tradition going back at least as far as Tippecanoe, a harmless one that, if nothing else, has spawned a thriving industry in collectibles. Put your name and face in front of the voters often enough and they'll remember it whether they want to or not, or so the theory goes.

Will they, however, go into the booth in November and pull the lever for you just because your name or grin on the highway was bigger than your opponent's? Unlike the signs, that remains to be seen.

R. David Campbell's application to replace 680 feet of a crumbling bulkhead at his Georgica Pond residence is unfolding as relevant to the proposal to shift most regulatory powers involving the waterfront from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to the Trustees.

Arguing that the site, Burnt Point, which projects into the pond at the mouth of Siney's Cove, would erode unless the bulkhead were rebuilt, Mr. Campbell won Trustee approval last year to replace his bulkhead. During deliberations on Sept. 30, a majority of the Z.B.A., however, was clearly opposed to its full reconstruction. Instead, members said, Mr. Campbell should be permitted to rebuild only its northern and southern tips. If this becomes the Z.B.A.'s formal decision, as expected, Mr. Campbell would be left with permits that contradict each other.

Proponents of the proposed Trustee environmental review permit, which would give them sole authority over the waterfront everywhere but in Montauk, say it would eliminate dual review in many circumstances and the potential for such conflicting decisions as this one on Burnt Point.

They point to another instance a few years ago, when Kevin Murphy wanted to rebuild a fixed dock on Three Mile Harbor. What happened in that instance gave impetus to the Trustees' attempt to wrest authority over lands that the Trustees own on behalf of the public from the Z.B.A.

That the vagaries of the town zoning code sent Mr. Murphy on an expensive and frustrating odyssey is unfortunate but not entirely relevant. Mr. Murphy's problem stemmed from what seemed to be a glitch in the Town Code. In the case of the Campbell property, the boards had similar jurisdiction and arrived at different conclusions.

The Trustees decided a new bulkhead was better than the stone armament Mr. Campbell had at first requested; the Z.B.A., going along with a Town Planning Department recommendation, is of the opinion that erosion is not an imminent danger inside Georgica Pond and that the applicant would have the right to reapply should it become so.

The Z.B.A. has relied more and more heavily in recent years on a section of the code that withholds a natural resources permit for a shore-hardening structure unless there is rapid erosion that is "impossible" to control through lesser measures. It is a hard test to meet, and, as a result, the Z.B.A's rulings have gone both ways.

For example, Dora Barmack's proposed revetment on King's Point Road in Springs was denied by the Z.B.A. Its members agreed that her property was not immediately threatened. The Trustees, on the other hand, decided that the Barmack property had been scoured as a result of erosion-control structures to the east and that there were no properties to the west that would be damaged if her revetment went in. A subsequent court decision upheld the Z.B.A.

The hard test for bulkheads and revetments has been carried into the language of the law that would establish the Trustees as sole authority. In addition, the present Trustees have agreed to comply with the State Environmental Quality Review Act when acting as a regulatory body.

A further complication is on the horizon - a full ban on shore-hardening structures has been proposed for much of the town in the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan. The waterfront plan has been a decade in the making, primarily under Democratic administrations. The Trustees, however, have complained that they were not always included in the discussions and, not surprisingly, have sought to reopen them.

The larger question remains, however: Which of the boards reaches conclusions more in keeping with the public's overall best interests?

The Z.B.A. watches the Town Code and listens to the town's planners carefully. The Trustees, who have relied in the past to a great extent on personal experience, say they are willing to abide by similar protocols.

Nevertheless, had the TERP law been in place, Ms. Barmack probably would have her revetment and Mr. Campbell would be able to go ahead with his new bulkhead. At least to some degree, the public ought to be guided by these cases in considering how to vote in November.

Among consumers of art history, there is no one more hungry than the artist, no one more able to incorporate or cannibalize it, change it and start new histories, contradict, subvert, and even destroy it.

At the same time, there is no one more reverential in its presence or more able to enrich it. This is the legacy, in all its full intellectual power, that Roy Lichtenstein has emblazoned and enlarged.

He died on Sept. 29 - too young, at 73 - in the same year, ironically, as Willem de Kooning, giants of our time at opposite ends of the art pole.

The Comic Strip Image

It was Lichtenstein who, with his 1962 introduction of Pop Art and the comic strip image in his first exhibit at the Leo Castelli Gallery, almost single-handedly eclipsed the Abstract Expressionist culture.

Like de Kooning in East Hampton, he was an East End artist, with his studio and house in Southampton. But he was a total contrast to de Kooning in his view and practice.

He was among the first of the university artists, products of the G.I. bill, which gave returning veterans of World War II a free college education. Just as the Works Progress Administration had brought artists together in the '30s and '40s to forge a new American art identity, so the G.I. bill empowered universities to produce career artists in fields formerly fueled by passion rather than professionalism, by noble failure rather than material success.

Mass-Produced Students

Previously, artists had come out of the art schools or had trained under older, established artists, as Jackson Pollock with Tom Benton. They went to the museums to encounter and study the actual object.

The '50s was the last great decade for the artist doing it first and then finding out what happened. With the '60s, all art history, particularly the ones that had just been pungently, sometimes violently, always vividly acted out in New York (and often in Springs and East Hampton), was documented in a steady stream of slides, mass-produced for all the university students in art departments all over the country.

Sitting in well-stocked libraries, like baby chicks in artificially lit incubators, art students were nourished on the latest reproductions, rather than on the real thing in museums which were generally out of their reach.

The world was ready for the reality of reproduction aesthetics. It was ready for Roy Lichtenstein.

Leo Castelli, whose gallery was the bastion of Abstract Expressionism, was able to turn in a new direction and give America what it wanted, the next new thing. Ultimately, however, after the art historian Robert Rosenblum brought the two men together, it was the charismatic pull of Lichtenstein's intellect that clinched the deal.

He was the spokesman of objects, the ordinary, the everyday, the mundane cartoon image, the narrative icon. At the same time, throughout his work, he makes reference to every phase of art history - to Monet, Picasso, German expressionists.

He calls attention to American Indian surrealism even as he underscores the direct visuality of American low populist culture - the comic strip, in all its Ben Day dots and lines, stripes, dashes and densities, unmodulated opaqueness, and flat consistency.

Roy Lichtenstein is undoubtedly one of the most original artists of our time. He resisted "museum ization," yet was comfortable within its grasp. He was the first to make art as the history of itself and to record his own role in it: the artist who himself has been created by art history.

An Original

He worked, however, at a critical distance, as in his memorable brushstroke series of 1965, a theme, more like an insignia, that reappears throughout the years.

It is his comment on Abstract Expressionism, the tradition of Van Gogh, the prejudice that if it's paint applied with a brush and brushstroke it has to be art.

Meant For Reproduction

His prints were created at the very outset for reproduction - it is and was the original purpose - and they are true to that goal in any size. They do not lose impact in the excellent "The Prints of Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonne 1948-1993," as compared with seeing them on museum walls.

The exclusivity of museum art is exactly what this artist contradicts. The museum show, furthermore, becomes a contamination of the print, rather than the other way around.

In the '60s, as the edges between art-as-history and art-as-making began to flow into each other, it encouraged new, mass-production industrial techniques, particularly of lithography and silkscreen printing. Formerly considered "commercial art," these techniques became, in the hands of Andy Warhol and in the brilliant screenprinting-versus-handpainting dialogues of Roy Lichtenstein, the tools of fine art.

Art's Brain

Lichtenstein eliminated the line between high and low, between fine and commercial art. As Larry Rivers, his friend and neighbor in Southampton, said, he took the hand out of art and put in the brain.

The "excesses of Abstract Expressionism," as some art historians put it - its gut action, non-intellectual gusto for handwork and materials, the need to make it up as it went along, to risk and even invite failure for authenticity - became odious to the new generation of university-trained artists.

To make a name for yourself in the America of the '60s, you didn't have to be Picasso any more and you didn't have to be dead. It was the decade that saw the creation of an American market for American art and American artists, and Roy Lichtenstein was the crucial factor.

Lichtenstein is, in fact, to be understood not only as the aftermath of Abstract Expressionism, but as the beginning of a new American art history.

The East Hampton Town Board took a careful look at land use and zoning changes recommended in the Amagansett Corridor Study Tuesday and decided to do away with one of the most controversial of them - the creation of a new "planned commercial district" to the east of the hamlet. The study was commissioned by the board with the intent of making its recommendations a part of the Town Comprehensive Plan.

The district eliminated would have allowed large supermarkets, retail stores, fast food restaurants, drug- stores, and filling stations to call Amagansett home. The new district would have stretched along the north side of the Montauk Highway from Abram's Landing Road east to Bunker Hill Road.

Nowhere But There

In this area, the study suggested permitting retail stores of up to 15,000 square feet and superstores as large as 25,000 square feet by a special permit. At the same time the study recommended against allowing stores larger than 10,000 square feet in Amagansett's central business district.

Taken together, the suggestions left larger stores and supermarkets nowhere to go but in planned commercial districts. The problem as the board saw it was that the only planned commercial district in the town would, at least at first, be in Amagansett.

"It was an ill-advised recommendation," Town Councilman Len Bernard said. Mr. Bernard, the Town Board's liaison to the hamlet's Citizens Advisory Committee and an Amagansett resident himself, also pointed out that the new zone seemed at odds with other goals of the corridor study, mainly that the village be "pedestrian oriented."

A highly intense commercial district outside the village center would promote sprawl, he said. He also asked whether anyone would realistically walk from the village center to do shopping near Bunker Hill Road.

"I don't think this is what anybody wants," he said.

Inconsistencies Seen

"It seems to me like we're restarting Amagansett with this," Councilman Thomas Knobel said at Tuesday's meeting. He foresaw big traffic problems going to and coming from Montauk, if the new zone were created.

Supervisor Cathy Lester suggested instead that land at the east end of Amagansett be developed with senior housing and few small shops.

Eliminating this portion of the study will have a trickle-down effect on other proposed land use and zone changes contained in it, but the Town Board seemed confident that doing so would reflect the wants of residents.

"There are a lot of inconsistencies that really need to be ironed out," Mr. Bernard said.

Bipartisan Decision

The decision was a bipartisan one, something that has become increasingly rare for the Town Board. It also was in line with an editorial in The Star on June 12.

The corridor study, a hefty document completed in the spring by two firms, Land Ethics Inc. and Abeles Philips Preiss and Shapiro, contains nearly 300 pages of observations and suggestions for how the hamlet might best deal with future pressures without sacrificing the qualities that the majority agrees are appealing.

"There's an agreement as to the type of future development we want for Amagansett," the town planning director, Lisa Liquori, said yesterday. East Hampton and Sag Harbor, of $179.71 per $1,000 of assessed value. Eighty percent of taxable properties are not in a village.

Eight Dollars More?

Properties inside the villages, which levy their own taxes for police, highway, and other services, would pay the town $83.71 for each $1,000 of assessed value.

Specifically, a house with an assessment of $7,000 would pay about $1,258 in town taxes next year in the unlikely event that Supervisor Lester's budget were approved as is. This year, that same house paid about $8 less. A village resident with the same assessment would pay $586 next year under the same scenario, about $2 more than this year.

Those rates represent increases over this year's rates of 58 cents and 29 cents.

The preliminary budget calls for a $22.52 trash tax, a 3.3-percent drop from this year's rate of $23.28 per $1,000. The townwide trash district was created in 1992, and the tax rate has increased each year since then. A nearly 40-percent jump between 1996 and 1997 resulted in partisan and unpleasant debate.

Trash Deficit

Mr. Haran, the budget officer, said the proposed tax decrease resulted from a halving of the Solid Waste and Recycling District's budget deficit. At the end of 1996, the town faced a $400,000 deficit in that account, and had to borrow the money to balance the budget. Mr. Haran said this year's deficit financing would come to no more than $200,000.

"And it will be zero next year," he added optimistically.

He blamed the financial difficulties of Timothy Volk, the owner of the town's two largest carting companies, for a good portion of the deficits. In the first case, a 1995 settlement in bankruptcy court had town officials expecting "a humongous receivable" from installment payments totaling roughly $400,000 in fees Mr. Volk's firms had accumulated by using the town recycling plant. Just a few of the installment payments materialized.

Conservative Projections

Last year, the settlement was renegotiated with the town accepting 50 cents for every $1 of debt. Mr. Haran said the town had no choice then but to write off about $160,000, a major factor in this year's expected $200,000 shortfall.

The revenue projections in the trash budget are now "very conservative" and no change in the stagnant commodities market for recyclables is expected, he said. The Supervisor's budget shows $50,000 in projected revenues, the same as last year's.

Elsewhere in the budget, the town highway tax would drop 8.5 percent. Levied against properties outside the villages, that tax would generate $2.85 million of the Highway Fund's $3.2 million budget for next year. State and Federal aid make up nearly all of the rest.

New Employees

In her budget message, also released Tuesday, Supervisor Lester said she had recommended adding just three new employees to the payroll. A purchasing agent, who would earn $25,000, could save the town even more by buying equipment and supplies in bulk, and an additional social worker, who would be paid in part by a grant from Suffolk County, she said.

The third new employee would be a police officer, a $32,700 addition to the Police Department's proposed $5.4-million budget. Comprising a larger segment of the overall operating budget than the garbage or highway funds, the department is expected to have a $4.7-million payroll next year for 50 officers, eight dispatchers, and seven others.

A neighbor of the Amagansett School wants to buy a vacant lot the school is eyeing for future expansion, "just to keep it empty," and is willing to pay far more, he said on Monday, than the price agreed to by the school.

The district had envisioned a bus turnaround and a parking lot on the property, at least initially. The neighbor, Murray Smith of Meeting House Lane, told the school's long-range planning committee he had no objections to the district's using a portion of the land for the bus loop, and would be willing to grant the school an easement for that purpose.

A parking lot, however, would not be acceptable, said Mr. Smith, whose house is next to the vacant tract.

Option To Buy

The district has an option, expiring in late December, to purchase the property for $165,000 from the heirs of the late State Senator MacNeil Mitchell, contingent upon taxpayer approval. A referendum is expected to be held later this fall.

The Mitchell family has promised to sell him the land if the district purchase falls through, Mr. Smith said. He offered $225,000, he said.

"I just want to keep the residential area - an area which has been considered as an historic area - residential, without a yellow bus route," the neighbor said. A parking lot will bring traffic and noise, he said, as well as affect the aesthetics of the lane.

Opposition

The school's plan has raised concerns not only from neighbors but also from the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee.

"We are very opposed to having a parking lot there," Sylvia Overby, a representative of the group, told committee members Monday.

A parking lot, she said, even gated, as proposed, would eventually be discovered and used by beachgoers and, perhaps, Amagansett Farmers Market customers.

"I don't want to feel that I'm living in an area where we pave everything because our cars are more important to us than the people who live here," said Ms. Overby.

Bus Loop

Mr. Smith had gone to a board meeting on Sept. 2 to express his dismay. He said then he had been trying to buy the property for a year and a half.

"What if I bought it and gave you an easement so you could put a loop in there, so we don't have buses going out onto a residential street?" he asked.

Mr. Smith attended the meeting with his wife, Susan, and a friend, Mike Raffel, who lives on the Smith property and who offered committee members a rough sketch showing how a bus loop could be fit into space toward the rear of the school. An existing handball wall, fuel tank, and two small storage buildings would have to be moved.

The Smiths, said Mr. Raffel, were already affected by noise from nighttime and weekend use of the school's basketball and racquetball courts, as well as occasional vandalism.

Future Needs

Committee members agreed to review the plan, while insisting that the district should own the property itself. What it might be needed for in the future - for example, a new library, a basketball court, more classrooms - is the real question.

"I think the school has to control its own destiny at this point," said Rick Slater, a School Board member and co-chair of the committee.

"I think it's inexcusable for us not to control that property even if we don't do a thing with it for 10 years," said Jon Edelbaum, another committee member. He noted the steady growth rate of the district, the lack of adjoining open space, and the opportunity to obtain the vacant property at a "reasonable" cost.

Phase Three

"You don't understand," said Mr. Smith, a special events coordinator who ran the Vuitton Classic Car festival that was scheduled to be held in Sag Harbor last year until protests canceled it. "I'm not in this for the money. . . . I live here and I love it. You're wrecking my environment."

The property purchase is considered phase three of a five-phase long-range plan, which includes building an addition onto the school for classes. Two modular classrooms accommodate the overflow right now.

"It's not as if I'm being anti-school," said Mr. Smith yesterday. "I'd like to work this out. But they're not prepared at the moment to give any guarantees, therefore I have to oppose it."

He added that if he owned the lot, he would give the district the right of first refusal if he ever sold it.

Traffic Problems

In a six-page letter sent to the School Board last week, Mr. Smith offered to help the school achieve such goals as building a library. But, he said, in the case of a "car park or bus depot . . . it will be all of our duties to try to protect ourselves from such an insensitive intrusion on our lives."

The next meeting of the committee, which is open to the public, will be at 9 a.m. on Monday at the school's Miankoma Lane house.

A summer-rental deal gone sour ended over the weekend in the arrest of an East Hampton man on a grand larceny charge. The arrest wrapped up a case that had been open since June.

According to East Hampton Town police, Andrew Barnet, 48, listed his house at 1 Albertine's Lane with brokers for summer rental, then allowed it to be rented twice over.

He kept both payments, police said, although only one lessee was able to take possession of the house, which is in the Hampton Waters neighborhood near Three Mile Harbor.

In Residence

The other, Edward Costello of Manhattan, called police on June 29. He said he had signed a contract and put down the full payment, $14,480, to rent the two-bedroom, two-bathroom house with a pool until mid-September. Mr. Costello had found the rental through Blue Bay Realty.

When Mr. Costello attempted to move in, he told police, he found the house occupied. It had been rented earlier through East Hampton Village Realty, police said, and the other tenant was in residence.

Mr. Costello attempted to pursue the matter, police said, but his efforts resulted only in a letter from an attorney telling him to stay away from the property.

Police "Stonewalled"

The incident was first classified by police as a civil matter, but after investigating and speaking with the Suffolk District Attorney's office, police pursued it as a criminal case.

Police attempted to get in touch with Mr. Barnet, but he had already left for the season - "somewhere in New Mexico," said Det. Lieut. Edward Ecker.

Detectives were "stonewalled" in trying to contact him there, said Mr. Ecker, "and we really didn't know if he was coming back or not."

Impossible To Research

Mr. Barnet did return, however, and was arrested Saturday at his house, after police were alerted he was home. He was charged with third-degree grand larceny, a felony.

Bail was set at $3,000, and Mr. Barnet was released after paying it.

Neither of the real estate firms was at fault in what occurred, according to police.

Wyman Eckhardt, a broker with Devlin-McNiff Real Estate in the village, said that when a rental property is listed with more than one real estate office, it is the owner's responsibility to let the offices know if the property has been rented.

"With rentals, there's no way for us as realtors to research these things other than to call the landlord himself and ask if it's been rented," Mr. Eckhardt said.

Say Couple Shoplifted

In other police activity, a Glen Cove couple was arrested for allegedly shoplifting at the CVS pharmacy on Pantigo Road Friday night. Patricio N.M. Hernandez, 33, and Alison L.S. Hernandez, 25, were charged with petty larceny, a misdemeanor.

According to East Hampton Village police, a store employee spotted the couple stealing.

Police said the husband took a Prymatene Mist refill valued at $14.79 and one container of Gynsana, valued at $19.99, while his wife allegedly took a $28.99 package of Nicotrol and a Lady's Speedstick deodorant valued at $1.99.

They were released later that night on $100 bail apiece and will appear in court at a later date.

An alleged paint-pellet culprit was arrested in the Village of East Hampton last week, and police said they believe there was at least one other youth involved in two paint attacks in the village last month. More arrests are expected.

Meanwhile, East Hampton Town police are looking into whether the same youths may be connected to a paint-pellet breakout in other parts of town. There was one incident in Montauk last week, reported elsewhere on this page.

James R. Byrnes, 17, of Indian Hill Road, East Hampton, was charged Sunday with two misdemeanor counts of criminal tampering. Police believe he was driving a dark-colored pickup truck seen at one of the incidents, but said they do not think he was the owner of the paint-pellet gun.

The attacks targeted Elizabeth Gerschel's Hither Lane house with orange paint on Sept. 7 and eight cars in the Huntting Lane parking lot of the Palm restaurant with pink paint on Sept. 13. There was no lasting damage.

The Byrnes youth was released on his own recognizance and given a court date.

Town police also arrested a Montauk man over the weekend for allegedly harassing his wife, despite an order of protection prohibiting him from contacting her.

Edward Koza, 80, of South Dorset Road was picked up Sunday and charged with second-degree criminal contempt after his wife, Gloria Koza, complained he had been "harassing, threatening, and intimidating" her, police said.

Mr. Koza was turned over to the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department.

Felony Assault Charge

A Selden man turned himself in to Sag Harbor Village police last Thursday on a warrant charging him with second-degree assault, a felony.

According to a police press release, on Aug. 31 Joseph K. Leo, 27, "allegedly punched a male in the face and head and then kicked the male in the head as the victim lay on the ground unconscious."

The incident occurred inside the Harbor House bar on Bridge Street, according to police, who would not provide any other details or the name of the victim this week.

Mr. Leo was arraigned in Southampton Town Justice Court and released on his own recognizance.