Careful observers may have noticed the removal of 1,600 square feet of phragmites along Hook Pond in East Hampton Village, only feet from the Main Beach parking lot, as well as 300 feet of hedgerow that ran along Ocean Avenue and blocked the view of the pond. Here's what's happening.

Thanks to a wide base of community support that its leaders say has allowed it to grow into a strong local nonprofit, Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island is marking its 20th anniversary this year.

This letter, written on July 7, 1803, by John Lyon Gardiner (1770-1816), proprietor of Gardiner’s Island, was sent to his younger brother, David Gardiner (1772-1815), a lawyer and farmer in Flushing, Queens.

“This is exactly the type of project we hoped would come forward,” Ed Haye, a Sag Harbor Village trustee, said at Friday’s special meeting to discuss a 79-unit proposal for affordable housing in Sag Harbor’s downtown office district that was pitched to the village by Adam Potter and Conifer Developers.