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The Way It Was for January 16, 2025

Thu, 01/16/2025 - 11:11

125 Years Ago    1900

From The East Hampton Star, January 19

The government has issued orders to have a search made at once for the wrecked coal schooners Howard Hanscom and James Pace, which are thought to have collided and sunk off Montauk Point in the blizzard of November 1898. Capt. Albert Earl, of the government tug “Castle,” has been instructed by Major Leach, of the local engineer corps, to gather information regarding their location. If Captain Earl can locate the vessels on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean within a radius of ten miles, divers and wreckers will be sent. When the hulks are located they will be removed. It is the opinion of mariners that the wrecks are about five miles south-southwest of the light on Montauk Point.

Observing citizens have noticed with evident satisfaction the good work that has been done in rebuilding a portion of Main Street, covering the section from Newtown lane to Huntting lane. The work there is not finished, but has gone far enough to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan adopted for the improvement of the street; far enough to show that at last material has been found in East Hampton that is good for road building.

The Ladies’ Village Improvement Society started out to raise one thousand dollars with which to start the work on Main street, and it was expected that that sum would be sufficient to complete the short section of road above mentioned.

 

100 Years Ago    1925

From The East Hampton Star, January 16

A representative of Scientific American was here yesterday looking for locations for a temporary observatory to be used in studying the eclipse of the sun Saturday morning, January 24. It is expected that about thirty scientists, with all kinds of equipment for registering the actions of the eclipse on radio, will come to East Hampton purposely to study this phenomenon. East Hampton will be directly in the path of the total eclipse.

The school children of a large section of New York State will have a rare opportunity on Saturday, January 24, 1925, of seeing a total eclipse of the sun. The sun will then be hidden from us by the dark body of the moon, and instead of the brilliant orb of day in the heavens, we shall see a black circle surrounded by a pearly halo of light, called the corona.

The recent endorsement by the County Supervisors of the proposed bill which provided a tax of one cent per gallon on all the gasoline sold in New York State, the tax to be collected by the companies distributing the gasoline and the money raised to be used for the maintenance of the highways, has raised a storm of protest from the fishermen and the baymen. Both groups use great quantities of gasoline and they contend that motor boats and stationary engines should not be included in this proposed bill.

 

75 Years Ago    1950

From The East Hampton Star, January 19

Legislation to curb eastern Long Island’s expanding deer herd and to compensate farmers for crop damage caused by the animals was advocated Monday before the Suffolk Board of Supervisors by Amherst W. Davis, chairman of the Suffolk Farm Bureau and a leading potato grower and dairyman of Mt. Sinai.

Pointing out that farmers of the county are virtually helpless in their endeavors to project their growing corps under existing conservation laws, Mr. Davis requested the board to second the Farm Bureau’s representations to State Senator S. Wentworth Horton and Assemblyman Edmund R. Lupton, who have been asked to sponsor remedial legislation at the 1950 session of the New York State Legislature. The matter was referred to Shelter Island Supervisor Everett C. Tuthill for investigation and report at a later meeting.

An elaborate control and inspection system set up by the federal and state officials charged with the duty of enforcing the golden nematode quarantine in Nassau County and a small borderline area of western Suffolk makes it very unlikely that the microscopic sap-sucker will spread into eastern Long Island potato country, the Suffolk Board of Supervisors was informed Monday. Brookhaven farmers are worried over the nematode situation, especially since the pest has bobbed up in Huntington Town, only a few miles to the west.

 

50 Years Ago    1975

From The East Hampton Star, January 16

A speed-limit sign is missing from a short stretch of Old West Lake Drive in Montauk, and as a consequence the neighbors are probably delighted, the East Hampton Town Highway Department is chagrined, the State Traffic Department is relieved, the Star is relieved, East Hampton Town Councilman Dick White is somewhat puzzled and a little sheepish, and the person who filched the sign is undoubtedly oblivious to the fine civic deed he’s performed.

The residents of Old West Lake Drive never liked the sign, which put a 55-m.p.h. limit on a 9/10-of-a-mile stretch of the drive with no less than nine blind curves and a daily migration of children. So, from time to time, they’ve filed petitions with the East Hampton Town Board to get the limit down to 35.

Perhaps, an indignant contractor suggested Thursday night, after nearly three hours of furor, politicians should be licensed too. Perhaps, one politician had mused several minutes earlier, even a “total licensing of all people” might not be a bad idea: “Maybe we should go through a period of reform,” said County Legislator Norton Daniels. “Maybe we should study all of them.”

Another politician, Bromley Hall, spoke similarly of “our times.” A legislator from Huntington, he has written — perpetrated, a hundred contractors seemed ready to insist — the “Local Law to License Home Improvement Contractors in the County of Suffolk.”

“We’d be better off,” he observed, “if our times didn’t dictate that . . . everybody dealt with each other the way they should.”

 

25 Years Ago    2000

From The East Hampton Star, January 20

According to the script being prepared for them by the masters of the digital universe, travel agents will go quietly into the sunset, their former clients happily staying home to find the best airfares online.

To give them an extra nudge, the major airlines, which all have their own Web sites, have cut commissions to travel agents by half. The standard 10 percent of the ticket price became 8 percent in 1996, then dropped to 5 percent last October. And, except for a few small carriers, the airlines have also capped commissions at $50 per round-trip ticket.

Local travel agents say they’re far from giving up — not least, they say, because people still depend on their independent expertise. But the cutbacks have done significant harm to their bottom lines, and all express concern about survival in the long term.

Since the State Department of Transportation’s decision on Jan. 3 to close the Sag Harbor-North Haven bridge, people living along Noyac Road have experienced a dramatic surge of traffic. The bridge will be closed until July 4, by which time a temporary bridge is to be installed to handle the summer load. After Labor Day, the bridge will again be closed, so that crews can complete the work. D.O.T. officials project a Dec. 1 completion date.

 

Villages

If a Tree Falls In East Hampton, Who Hears It?

A tree once grew in East Hampton. A big tree. A “perfectly healthy tree” that was likely “a couple of lifetimes” old, according to Dave Collins, the East Hampton Village superintendent of public works. Then, a homeowner decided it needed to go and in a spasm of governmental efficiency, it was promptly removed by the state. The tree seems to have fallen victim to a cross-jurisdictional communication gap.

Feb 13, 2025

It’s a Bird Count Weekend

This weekend, as bad weather blows across the East End and you’re staring out the window, why not count the birds that you see at your feeder for the Great Backyard Bird Count?

Feb 13, 2025

A Push for Historic Status in Wainscott

The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee voted unanimously to write a letter to the East Hampton Town Board calling for the historic preservation of the entire 30-acre property at 66 Main Street, which the town purchased for $56 million last year with community preservation money.

Feb 13, 2025

 

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