With Covid-19 beginning to invade the South Fork, the Amagansett Library director closed the doors for the start of an expected two-and-one-half-week shutdown. The library would not reopen to the public for months.

"It was a very different summer," said John Ryan Jr. Covid ensured that there were indeed unprecedented logistical differences, but nothing about the commitment of East Hampton Town's lifeguards had changed.

John Daniels, the head custodian at the Bridgehampton School, is no stranger to the concept of clean. Forty years in the job not only means he knows how to take care of maintenance, but he also knows for whom he is doing it.

"I call them my babies. I get to see them all the way from pre-K to graduation," he said the other day.

The region's post office clerks, mail carriers, foremen, and other employees have been doing some of the heaviest lifting of all: processing and delivering a record-breaking volume of packages and mail for more customers than ever.

Few groups had their worlds upended during the pandemic as much as students and teachers. Put to the test, many teachers became students of new technologies and rose to meet the challenges that distance learning presented.

The photo seen here offers an early look at the general store on Old Stone Highway in Springs around 1900. The store was built in 1844 by David Dimon Parsons (1811-1882), who had purchased the land from Isaac Edwards for $100.

In the pandemic's early days, the owners of two Long Island businesses, Ken Wright of Wright and Company Construction in Bridgehampton, and Matthew Aboff, who has 32 painting supply stores across the Island, stepped up big time when it became known that a severe shortage of personal protective equipment for the Island's health care workers was looming.

When the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center got a call from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office asking if it could open its doors to provide free care to the children of essential workers, the staff made it happen.

For Carolyn Fitzgerald, a lifelong resident of East Hampton and a 30-year employee of the East Hampton School District, working in the school cafeteria every weekday from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. was a way to take her mind off the harsh realities of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Being a school nurse has always been a mixture of care, compassion, and common sense. Now, you can add "contact tracing" to that list.

The annual charity Polar Bear Plunge at Main Beach will not be held this New Year’s Day, leaving East Hampton food pantries without the many thousands of dollars usually generated by participation fees.

There has really never been any question about the right thing to do where the Montauk downtown ocean beach is concerned.

The East Hampton Town Board is considering banning gas-powered leaf blowers during the warm-weather months and placing curfews on them during the off-season.

This week, for the first time, The Star has given over its news section to taking note of the people in the area’s hamlets and villages who have gone above and beyond during a time of crisis.

The foot and automobile traffic was considerable when we set out for a ramble at Barcelona Neck just before sunset on Boxing Day.

Here was television at its best: a short documentary in the CBSN “Originals” series following asylum seekers coming up from Colombia into Panama through the Darien Gap. And then they take their chances at the U.S. border.

The week's real estate transactions.

Oh, what a year it was. If you had written a movie pitch for 2020, few people would have bought it. Too far-fetched, they'd say. Not possible. After a sunny New Year's Day when thousands gathered at East Hampton's Main Beach to dive into the ocean or watch others do so at the annual polar plunge, the year took a decidedly different turn.

Andrew M. Cuomo announced updated quarantine guidelines for New York State on Tuesday, aligning them with those of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The lily of the valley I planted after my husband died took me back to a time and place when my mother and her brood were happiest, and in particular back to a Christmastime shopping trip to the city.