Villages

Many people know by now that Southampton Town has “opted in” to open cannabis dispensaries and consumption lounges one of these days, but less known is that the town is now hosting the East End’s only psychedelic healing center.

The crowd of children and adults early on Friday afternoon, hours before its official reopening, were a clear indication that the renovated Lars Simenson Skatepark in Montauk is a hit. "What happened was a very organic process of people just building enthusiasm, community coming together . . . until we ended up with something that is world class," said a member of the Montauk Skatepark Coalition.

An informational meeting about emergency and personal wireless communications in Springs is scheduled for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Springs Firehouse.

On Aug. 22, Surfrider’s Blue Water Task Force tested the water off Windmill Beach in Sag Harbor and recorded its highest level of enterococcus, a “fecal indicator,” in a year. It was 150 times the number used by the Suffolk Health Department to close a beach, but the beach remained open, with no signs alerting parents or casual tourists that the water should be avoided.

Forget the gold rush, in 1897 an East Hamptoner went north with hens to make money selling eggs in the Yukon. Fifty years later, T.W.A.’s Juan Trippe dressed up as Carmen Miranda at a Maidstone Club costume ball. And much more.

When David Plotkin collapsed while biking on Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, bystanders and lifeguards jumped into action, helping to perform CPR for 15 minutes as they waited for an ambulance. That Mr. Plotkin survived is thanks to their quick action.

The Chair of Hope Project, an art installation at St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Amagansett, is a cry against gun violence, featuring a chair for each child and teacher who died in the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., plus one more to represent hope.

The subcontractor that will perform the onshore cable installation for the South Fork Wind farm plans to use an approximately one-acre area at the end of an abandoned East Hampton Airport runway, adjacent to Industrial Road in Wainscott, as a laydown area. 

Sophie Chahinian, founder of the Artist Profile Archive, and Robert Longo, an artist, filmmaker, and musician, were joined by 100 guests on May 21 for a traditional Armenian wedding ceremony followed by a reception and seated dinner at the Sunset Tower Hotel in Los Angeles.  

The 46th weeklong Hampton Classic Horse Show, one of just nine five-star-rated shows in the country, is to begin at the 60-acre Snake Hollow Road, Bridgehampton, showgrounds on Sunday at 8 a.m. with leadline classes for children judged by Joe Fargis, an Olympic gold medalist, in the Grand Prix ring.

This invitation to the 1973 Ladies Village Improvement Society Horse Show feels particularly timely considering this year's Hampton Classic Horse Show starts Sunday.

Regular East Hampton Town beachgoers may notice a big change this week: the closure of many lifeguard stands.

The Lars Simenson Skatepark, on South Essex Street in Montauk, will reopen Friday after an extensive renovation made possible through a public-private partnership.

While much of the South Fork of Long Island is now in a severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, many East End residents have not changed their watering habits despite warnings from the Suffolk County Water Authority. Not so for East End farmers. For them, water is a factor in every decision they make about which crops to plant, and which to forgo.

"We joke and say it's the world's second oldest profession," said Ike Birdsall, owner of Birdsall's Hotshoe, a farrier based in Sag Harbor. Farriers, who tend to horse hooves, are an essential but unheralded segment of the $122 billion horse industry, and the job hasn't changed substantially since 400 B.C. when the earliest horseshoes were made.

Ripped from the somewhat exciting pages of old issues of The Star . . .

A seemingly routine request for a new crosswalk at the Amber Waves market, the hugely popular farm market just west of the Amagansett Firehouse, set off a series of increasingly testy exchanges at the August meeting of the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee.

On Saturday night well after hours, when most lifeguards are home and dry, Thomas Casse was at a dinner party at the Montauk Shores Condominiums just east of Ditch Plain when another attendee, Sophie Walton, first heard a faint cry for help.

“It was Black gold and soul all in one place,” said Suzan Johnson-Cook, one of several honorees at a Saturday gala at the Bridgehampton Community House to celebrate 75 years of Azurest, a historically Black resort community in Sag Harbor. Her sentiments were echoed by many and highlighted the rich and resonant history of Azurest, one of three communities that comprise the so-called “SANS” enclave that also includes Sag Harbor Hills and Ninevah Beach.

This early photograph shows a group of people in the surf, identified as “Maidstone Club Bathers,” with the esteemed Dr. Everett Herrick in the middle of it all.

It's news that neither a commercial bayman nor those who enjoy bay scallops wanted to hear: For the fourth summer in a row, there has been a significant die-off of mature bay scallops in local waters.

Despite the confusion and tragedy of American life in 2022, they somehow return each spring; like flying foil-wrapped gifts come to life. And now, as early as this week, the males will depart from our area to begin their largely daytime migrations south. This is one of the most entertaining weeks to “feeder watch,” as they defend their last sips.

From an 1897 sidewalk outrage to a 1997 conflict between beachgoers and beach drivers, the news of yore rivets.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk, which monitors enterococcus bacteria and blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, levels in local waters, has issued a warning about rising levels of the latter in Fort Pond in Montauk, which the group has been monitoring since June.

A recent water-quality report from Concerned Citizens of Montauk identified dangerously high levels of the enterococcus bacteria at the East Creek area of Lake Montauk — but the cause remains a mystery.

Peter Gundersen, a son of Martha and Peter Gundersen of Amagansett, married Samantha Haney, a California native and daughter of Jane and Keith Haney of Gulf Breeze, Fla., on April 16 in Pensacola, Fla. 

This engaging, relatable photograph shows a group of young adults posed in front of a tent, presumably camping at Montauk.

Just because there is flat water doesn’t mean lifeguards can relax. It was a green-flag day up at Maidstone Park last Thursday when lifeguards needed to call in a Jet Ski for assistance for a father and son who were swimming in the calm waters but got too close to the jetty on an incoming tide, according to John Ryan Jr., chief of the East Hampton Town’s lifeguards.

“Trees at Sunset,” a 1931 painting by Renwick Taylor, has returned to Long Island after many years and will be temporarily exhibited at the Amagansett Library. The painting is a decorative landscape created during Taylor’s residence at Laurelton Hall, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s estate near Oyster Bay.

A complaint over an inundation of bicycles in 1897, a 1922 film shoot that had the dunes of Napeague substitute for a Middle East desert, and more from the old-time pages of The Star.