The owner and the manager of a single-family house on Railroad Avenue in East Hampton at which 32 unrelated people were found to be living in hazardous conditions last July have pleaded guilty to 13 charges and will pay fines totaling $21,000. 

What was I thinking? 

This column, penned for so many decades by various writers in this long-established newspaper, has been aptly named “On the Water.” It’s a pretty clear and accurate description of its intended content and hopefully the audience appreciates its narrative for better or worse. 

All of a sudden it’s July and the traffic is more ferocious than ever. One of the silly things I have indulged myself in is counting the vehicles that whiz by my front window on Noyac Road, the second busiest road on the South Fork. I’ve been doing it since the mid-1980s. The protocol I used is the number of vehicles going east and west during two consecutive four-minute periods. I was anxious to see if the AAA’s projection for travel during the holidays of more than 40 million vehicle trippers had any basis in fact. At any rate, on July 3 shortly after 3 p.m., I counted the most vehicles ever. Based on the number going east and west in eight minutes, the projected hourly rate was 1,575 vehicles per hour, the kind of count one might expect for the Long Island Expressway at a point where Suffolk County and Nassau County meet.

For the record: If the reason some people are grumpy cats about Ed's Lobster Bar is that they miss the old Bay Burger, would it make them feel better to know that Joe Tremblay, an owner of the old joint, tried their lobster roll and loved it? I read that on the internet.

“Ballpark” is an architecture critic’s paean to the idiosyncrasies of old beauties like Fenway Park and the smart city-integrating design of new stadiums like Camden Yards. But hold the “concrete doughnuts,” please.

The Fridays at Five author series at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton for July 19 brings Chris Babu with his dystopian Y.A. novel “The Initiation” and its sequel, “The Expedition.”

Looking up from a long dining table in Ms. Bracco’s Bridgehampton great room, there are two framed photographs of her and the full “Sopranos” cast and two drawings by her grandchildren. “Yes, that sums up my life a bit. It really does,” she said with a laugh last week.

Villa Italian Specialties was up and running again by Tuesday morning after an oven caught fire there on Sunday afternoon.

A terrific new play, “Safe Space,” is getting its world premiere at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Undoubtedly bound for larger theaters, it’s about as can’t-miss as local theater gets.

Maria Bacardi left Cuba in 1961, when she was 4 years old, but, as she has said, “I am not in Cuba, Cuba is in me.” Her immersion in the history and culture of her native country is reflected in the music of her new album, “Duele (It Hurts),” released in May.

The Choral Society of the Hamptons and the South Fork Chamber Orchestra recently performed some of Mozart’s lesser-known choral works, composed before he was 24 years old. The ensemble, under the spirited direction of its music director, Mark Mangini, performed with professionalism and enthusiasm.

“East Enders,” a two-part music festival organized by Peter Watrous, a guitarist and former music critic for The New York Times, will launch this weekend at the Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs with three performances that explore the relationship among jazz musicians, artists, and writers during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism.

“Three Perspectives on the Decorative Arts,” a lecture series at the Southampton History Museum organized by Tom Edmonds, its executive director, will kick off Saturday with “Roaring Into the Future: Art Deco and Early Modernism in New York, 1925-1935,” a talk by Lori Zabar.

The fifth year of the Southampton Jewish Film Festival is now underway with weekly screenings on Tuesday evenings through August at the Southampton Arts Center.

The earliest morning ferries operated by Shelter Island's North Ferry Company are departing even earlier now in a change that was made with commuters in mind, the general manager of the business said Friday.

Philharmonic and dance at Guild Hall, "Mental Illness and Artistic Genius," an Eco-Musical, a Halston Documentary, and more.

Kabakovs speak at Art Barge, Marcus Brutus at Harper's, Eastville's historical photographs, Maynard Morrow and Material Lust at Fireplace Project, and more

Nancy Goroff, chairwoman of the university's chemistry department, aims to face Representative Lee Zeldin next year on the Democratic ticket.

All of Three Mile Harbor, including its inlet and tributaries, will be closed to shellfishing from sunrise on Saturday through July 17 out of concern for public health related to the Clamshell Foundation's annual Great Bonac fireworks show, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Division of Marine Resources announced Monday.

Villa Italian Specialties in East Hampton Village is temporarily closed following a fire in the store on Sunday afternoon.