Villages

Cold, still, quiet, and clear conditions marked the morning of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Montauk on Dec. 14. The cold proved challenging, if not for the groups of birders in search of birds, then certainly for the birds.

The water was 24 degrees at Clearwater Beach in Springs at 8 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 13, when around a dozen people gathered to jump into Gardiner’s Bay for their weekly cold-water swim. The group is called the Clearwater Coldwater Club, and it began meeting in September, after Suzanne Sandbank, who moved to Springs three years ago, got everybody together.

The Huntting Inn, stung after the East Hampton Village Z.B.A. declined to approve its application for a pool, spa, and patio, is asking the Suffolk County Supreme Court to overturn the decision and looking to be awarded $5 million.

This photo from The Star’s archive once belonged to Catherine Osterberg Kelsey Richard. It shows a Christmas party for children on Dec. 19, 1948, at the Star of the East Masonic Lodge downtown.

Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s freestanding emergency department on Pantigo Road in East Hampton is almost ready to open its doors to the South Fork’s easternmost residents in need of immediate care.

Plungers will be “freezin’ for a reason” at ocean beaches in East Hampton Village and Wainscott on New Year’s Day, their mad dashes into the frigid surf arguably motivated by desires for personal renewal and for their fellow citizens’ well-being, inasmuch as the proceeds from the usually very well-attended events go to food pantries in Sag Harbor and East Hampton Town.

For Serge Pierro of Shelter Island, a teacher of guitar lessons and designer of original tabletop games, his latest project speaks to his appreciation for his home of 19 years and counting. Called Shelter Island Experience, it’s a card game that showcases the “nuances of what makes life on Shelter Island so special and unique.”

“It’s an issue that we continually have to manage and rethink,” Sag Harbor Village Mayor Thomas Gardella said at a parking workshop on Dec. 16. “We also have to consider the overall character of our village as we move forward with this.”

Golf’s popularity, stone revetments, and Plum Island — ’twas ever thus, Starlings.

Pitch Your Peers, a charitable effort launched here in 2023 by Brooke Bohnsack, has awarded a $35,000 grant to the Springs Food Pantry and a $10,000 grant to Project Most, the organization announced on Dec. 1.

It’s fitting that the winner of East Hampton’s first Holiday Spirit storefront-decorating contest should be a business known for having fascinating windows: The Monogram Shop on Newtown Lane has made national headlines not for its holiday décor but for the tally of political cup sales that, in election cycles past, has been a notoriously accurate predictor of presidential outcomes. The window cup count was wrong in November, but the window display in December is, according to a panel of judges, oh so right.

Bridgehampton’s Ernestine Rose, an important figure in the history of the New York Public Library, championed preserving Black culture through the Schomburg Collection.

“It’s not like I went to the moon or anything, but it’s something I did that was pretty cool when I was 10 years old,” Billy Strong said, before objecting to someone else “taking credit” for a 1976 "Jaws"-inspired prank at Town Pond.

From 1949 water worries on the eve of massive Long Island development to the small triumph of halting gun sales at the Bridgehampton Kmart, it happened here, news junkies.

Georgia Bennett and Evan Fox were married on Sept. 28 at the Hedges Inn in East Hampton, with one of the bride’s uncles officiating and another performing on trumpet.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre’s $323 million settlement in the bankruptcy case connected to a flood of lawsuits concerning child sexual abuse in its parishes stretching as far back as the 1950s was approved yesterday by Judge Martin Glenn of the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court.

Stephen Deckoff, the billionaire founder of the private equity firm Black Diamond Capital Management, and his son, Stephen E. Deckoff, are no longer simply longtime visitors to Montauk aboard their yacht. They are officially the new owners of Gosman’s Dock and several surrounding properties, acquiring the set for just over $34.35 million in October.

This photograph, taken in 1996, shows the ice house on the grounds of the L.V.I.S. after its rehabilitation.

The real estate developer Jeremy Morton discussed his plans for the commercial buildings at 2 Main Street and 22 Long Island Avenue in Sag Harbor at a village planning board hearing on Nov. 26.

It’s not the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade yet, but what is now dubbed Santafest seems to be growing year by year in East Hampton Village. This year it will take place on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the parade will feature its first grand marshal, John Ryan Sr.

The spotted lanternfly, after making its first appearance on the South Fork last fall, continued its eastward march in 2024, with the fancy-looking insects showing up in every trap placed here by the Town of East Hampton.

Kirby Marcantonio doesn’t always read East magazine, but he happened to pick up the Thanksgiving issue last week. Flipping through the pages, he found an illustration that looked familiar: a shark flopping around in Town Pond.

A historian’s frank comment from 1924 on the distinct lack of piety in Sag Harbor’s founders. And more from The Star’s pages of yore.

Want something nice to talk about on Thanksgiving? Allow yourself to indulge in a little schadenfreude and take joy in the struggles of the hated, the feared, the disgusting, and yes, the misunderstood tick.

The owner of the Huntting Inn, spurned by an October decision of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals that a pool and other improvements it had planned for its historic property could not be considered, filed papers last week to sue the board and the village.

By 1971, after almost 200 years of use, Clinton Academy was finally starting to show some wear. In this Star photo, the tulip-shaped cupola gets freshly clad in shingles.

PSEG Long Island unveiled its final plan last week for a 69-kilovolt underground transmission circuit that will pass through Sag Harbor, and not the Long Pond Greenbelt.

“Market hardening” is the insurance industry buzzword of the day. It refers to insurance companies taking steps to preserve their profitability, often by hiking premiums and imposing stricter terms for customers. And when it comes to home insurance, it’s happening right here and right now.

Once more unto the liquor smuggling and running wars of the 1920s. And note that Suffolk County expressed interest in acquiring Plum Island way back in 1949. Plus much more from our past pages.

The Ladies Village Improvement Society, whose website tagline reads, "Keeping East Hampton beautiful since 1895," will have a new executive director, Rachel Cooper, starting Jan. 1.