Villages

Impressive selections of used, rare, and collectible books can be found in local shops like Black Cat Books on Shelter Island, Sag Harbor Books and Southampton Books, and Canio's Books in Sag Harbor, and some of these are also tapping the internet to redirect the world’s flow of used books from extinction (and landfills) to readers who truly care for and appreciate them.

This will, part of the Isaac Edwards Deed Collection donated by Bess Rattray, is the perfect example of how one will can give genealogists a lot of material to work with.

In discussions with patients about whether to get vaccinated against Covid-19, the people who express hesitation worry that the risks of the vaccinations outweigh either the risk from being infected with Covid-19 or the risk to communities by allowing continued spread of the virus. Yet there are plenty of things we do everyday without a second thought that are far riskier.

Love birds? Love someone who loves birds? These gift ideas from The Star's "On the Wing" columnist will help to nurture that passion, support bird habitat, and perhaps spark a deeper understanding of our avian neighbors.

The Star in the days of yore . . .

Capt. Walter R. Elflein Jr., a decorated reconnaissance pilot, will be honored with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 63 years after being lost at sea during a training mission, an honor due in part to the efforts initiated by his only granddaughter, Madison Elflein, a junior at East Hampton High School.

In New York State as of Monday, Dec. 13, masks will be required in all indoor public places unless businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement. The action comes amid yet another surge in Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, with Suffolk County's seven-day average of positive tests reaching 6.5 percent on Dec. 8.

A Saturday morning rally organized by East End YIMBY, for Yes in My Back Yard, brought out about 100 people, who gathered by the Long Wharf windmill in Sag Harbor in a show of support for the group’s ongoing campaign for affordable housing in the village.

Even though Stony Brook Southampton Hospital has the largest number of admitted Covid-19 patients it has seen in about two months — 11 people as of Tuesday afternoon, none in the intensive care unit — there is good news to be had, the hospital’s chief medical officer said this week.

A patron wrote us about this photograph, which has often caught my attention. The image, titled “The Hut Gang,” is part of a collection of early glass plate negatives. Luckily, in the case of this one, from 1884, a photographic print accompanied the negative

The Carolina wren, not six inches in length, is a skulky bird that wants to hide out in a log or a pile of sticks, but its song distinguishes it immediately, and can be heard all year long.

From the pages of Stars of yore.

With demand for Covid-19 vaccinations continuing to be high, East Hampton Town has added several additional vaccination clinics to its calendar this month. 

Arielle Hessler, the new director of the Amagansett Library arrives in Amagansett having spent the last three years at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor, first as an emerging-technologies librarian and then as program and outreach coordinator.

People seeking Covid-19 vaccines have two new upcoming opportunities at East Hampton Town Hall: on Monday and Wednesday. Appointments for clinics later in the month are already spoken for.

It’s not uncommon after a holiday break like the Thanksgiving one we just enjoyed for patients to mention to me that they gained five or six pounds thanks to hefty holiday meals. Indeed, New Year’s resolutions being just around the corner occupy a significant place in the American health psyche as people scramble to get back on track with regard to healthful food and exercise choices.

In a new column about birds, The Star's Christopher Gangemi discusses the "spark bird," that bird that first makes you notice birds in general, sparking a deeper curiosity about the many birds around you. His, in December of 2001, was the tufted titmouse.

“Soldiers, Sailors From Here On Duty in War-Hit Hawaii” was how the Pearl Harbor attack, 80 years ago next week, was reported in The Star. Nineteen men and three women from East Hampton were believed to have been stationed in or near Honolulu, Hawaii, when the bombing began.

This week’s item features the Garden Club of East Hampton’s program from its first season, 1915. It lists the club’s officers and their planned events, including the club’s first flower show.

Once upon a time in The Star . . .

Sag Harbor’s John Jermain Memorial Library announced that Kelly Harris, for many years the director of the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton, would take over as its new executive director, effective Jan. 3.

From pediatric vaccine clinics to booster shots for everyone 18 and up to information sessions held in people’s homes, efforts are ongoing on the East End to increase vaccination rates locally and across the state.

The page will be turned in another chapter in old-time Bonacker history soon, when Capt. Harvey Bennett, who has spent a good part of the past 70 years on the water catching fish and shellfish and in the field pursuing deer, turkey, ducks, and other fowl, closes his popular bait and tackle store in Amagansett.

Many residents of East Hampton Town know, or know of, Lenny Ackerman. A successful attorney and longtime principal of the Ackerman, Pachman, Brown, & Goldstein firm on Pantigo Road, he is often seen representing a client before one of the town or village planning or zoning boards. But Mr. Ackerman is a man of many talents, and interests.

The supply chain, like the Matrix, is everywhere. It’s the Baldor truck stuck at the light, the double-parked UPS guy, the trade parade streaming eastward toward the rising morning sun, and then westward toward the setting sun. How are the recent supply chain woes affecting business on the South Fork? In conversations with local retailers and tradespeople, a few cross-industry themes stood out.

One of our best resources for traditional local recipes is our collection of cookbooks compiled by the Ladies Village Improvement Society, something its members have been doing for 125 years now.

Having spent most of my life in small towns, I’m used to hearing gossip almost anywhere I go. Since the pandemic started, and particularly because most folks in my town know that I’m a doctor, much of what people talk to me about has touched on Covid-19.

While the headlines about the miserable state of American retail continued to mount postsummer, something extraordinary was happening at the Bridgehampton Commons. The Retreat Boutique, the thrift store offshoot of the Retreat, an East Hampton domestic violence shelter, posted end-of-summer takings of over $200,000 — its largest to date.

Notes from the Star's archives

An anonymous donor has stepped forward with a $30,000 grant for Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island to continue its education and advocacy efforts to prevent homelessness and illegal evictions.