Villages

It’s here, folks, the weekend some of us have been anticipating will pop the hard, cold bubble of winter. The Montauk Friends of Erin will be your hosts for the St. Patrick’s Day parade weekend, which starts tomorrow with a lunch to honor its grand marshal, Paul Monte of Gurney’s Inn.

Reservations for the lunch, which will take place at Gurney’s from noon to 3 p.m., have been requested and can be made by calling John Behan of the grand marshal committee. The cost is $50 per person, payable at the door.

The Maidstone Club’s application to expand and modernize its irrigation system, which has been the subject of multiple meetings of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals, will require a final environmental impact statement before it can proceed.

An award-winning environmental documentary, “Bag It!” will be shown at LTV Studios in East Hampton on Friday, March 28, at 6 p.m. The film follows a character as he travels the world seeking to understand the use of plastic bags in our everyday lives. It addresses the effect of all plastics on the oceans, human health, and the environment.

Those who attend the screening, which is sponsored by the East Hampton Town litter committee, have been asked to donate a nonperishable food item at the door. The foodstuffs will be given to the East Hampton Food Pantry.         

Construction of a rock revetment in front of an oceanfront property at 11 West End Road in East Hampton Village resumed last Thursday after State Supreme Court Justice Andrew Tarantino lifted a temporary restraining order that had blocked the work since November.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation had initially given the property owner, Mollie Zweig, a tidal wetlands permit, and the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals had granted her variances to allow the revetment, or sea wall, as well as the removal of an existing rock groin.

A repaving project on the 8.2-mile stretch between Country Road 39 in Southampton and Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton is slated to begin next Thursday.

After being stung by a venomous stonefish in Puerto Rico, Gina Bradley is working to get the word out to other travelers about what to do if they find themselves in her place.

In the beginning there were four men and it was on St. Patrick’s Day 1947 that they decided to march from one end of Montauk’s main drag to the other. They ended up at what is today the Shagwong Tavern, and an institution came to be.

       East Hampton Town officials have come up with proposed new legislation designed to tighten restrictions on taxis and prevent out-of-town companies from making a quick buck during the 8 to 12 weeks of summer. Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, the East Hampton Town board liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, went over a draft of the legislation at a meeting of the committee on Monday. He warned, however, that it wasn’t simple to limit business in New York State. “We have very few tools to limit commerce,” he said.

       With hearings on new restrictions on parking in East Hampton Village municipal lots and on the commercial use of landscaping equipment scheduled for the village board’s meeting on Friday, March 21, the board considered both topics at its work session last Thursday.

       The hearings will be held at 11 a.m. at the Emergency Services Building.

       The fifth annual Mr. Amagansett pageant, a fund-raiser for the Donald T. Sharkey Memorial Community Fund, happens tonight at 7 at the Stephen Talkhouse.

       The venue will open at 6:30. Admission to the lighthearted pageant is $20. To compete, contestants pay a $150 entry fee.

       Harry Blumenfeld and Martin Falzack, East Hampton residents for over 50 years, were married at City Hall in Manhattan on March 4.

       Mr. Blumenfeld, 86, and Mr. Falzack, 80, were introduced at a dinner party in New York about 60 years ago, when Mr. Blumenfeld had just graduated from Brooklyn College and Mr. Falzack was still a student. They dated briefly, remained friends, and rekindled a relationship nearly 20 years later. After eight months they moved into an apartment on 10th Street and University Place and have been partners ever since.

       Organizers of the sixth annual Am O’Gansett Parade, happening on Saturday at 12:02 p.m., may have outdone themselves in the selection of this year’s grand marshal.

       The grand marshal of what organizers claim to be the world’s shortest parade, a sort of alternate-universe St. Patrick’s Day march, cannot be of Irish heritage. In a way, officials of the Amagansett Chamber of Commerce, who oversee the parade’s planning, have satisfied that requirement: Last week, they named the Amagansett School this year’s grand marshal.

       “The weather for our past month of February has given this weather observer and recorder a very uneasy time,” Richard G. Hendrickson, a United States Cooperative weather observer, wrote from Bridgehampton.

Organizers of the annual March 15 Am O'Gansett Parade, a sort of alternate-universe St. Patrick's Day march, have named the Amagansett School as this year's grand marshal.

       The East Hampton Library’s expansion and renovation is “coming down the final lap,” according to its chairman, with an additional 6,800 square feet set to open to the public in late spring or early summer.

       More than $6 million has been raised to finance the expansion, Tom Twomey, the library’s chairman, said last month, with an additional $250,000 needed. In November, the actor Alec Baldwin donated $1 million to the project.

       An application to install AT&T antennas and ancillary equipment on the ground and an oil tank at P.C. Schenck and Sons continues to draw skepticism from the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals.

       “You’re saying there are so many things going on here, plus you have an oil tank very near the village, which doesn’t make people very happy, and now you want to put something more,” Larry Hillel, a zoning member, said at a board meeting on Friday. “Maybe there’s too much. . . . It raises the question, is this the straw that breaks the camel’s back?”

       As Kathy Nielsen Havlik tells the story, she and Andy Hanson met in 1966 when they were both living in Montauk and they became high school sweethearts. They fell out of touch after Mr. Hanson graduated from East Hampton High School in 1968 and left for the Navy.

       About five years ago, Ms. Havlik said, she asked Richie Nessel, a Montauk resident who had been the best man at Mr. Hanson’s earlier marriage, if he had ever heard from him. Mr. Nessel replied, “I’m pretty sure I heard he died.”

A consent order signed earlier this month has closed a case brought by the state Department of Environmental Conservation against Montauk Shores Condominium and Keith Grimes Inc., which reconstructed a rock revetment on the oceanfront there last year

       After three years reviewing an application to expand the Harbor Heights gas station on Route 114, the Sag Harbor Village Zoning Board of Appeals last week denied the majority of the variances that John Leonard had asked for to expand the gas station and establish a convenience store.

       The figures are both impressive and disheartening. Twenty-and-one-half miles of shoreline and 84 volunteers in the former category. In the latter, 3,510 pounds of mixed debris collected and removed.

       After harsh weather conditions twice postponed Shoreline Sweep 2014, volunteers took advantage of Saturday’s bright sunshine and mild temperatures to clean the ocean coastline between Georgica Beach in East Hampton and Montauk Point.

      Although plans for a deer cull in East Hampton Town and Village were effectively abandoned at the end of last month, it was not until Friday that the village board formally rescinded the resolution it had adopted in December authorizing participation in the program.

While Robbie Badkin recovers from a severe blood infection, his friends and family are planning a renovation project at his house the week of March 10, but they need helping hands.

The Peconic Estuary Program has invited the public to an informative workshop on March 8, at Suffolk County Community College in Riverhead, about protecting and restoring the Peconic waterways. Community members will learn about water quality projects, beach cleaning, native plants, and removing invasive species. There is no charge to attend the 9 a.m. to noon session, but registration in advance has been asked. Questions can be directed to [email protected] or 765-6450.

       The East Hampton School District will begin offering continuing education courses in a range of subjects from Pilates, to drawing, to technology, bridge, and even sewing in early March.

      About half the 3,000 nonresident parking permits for East Hampton Village beaches — which cost $375 for the season — had been sold as of yesterday, about two weeks since Feb. 3, when they went on sale. Permits, which are free for village residents, are available on a first-come-first-served basis for nonresidents. They must be displayed on vehicles that park at Georgica, Main, Wiborg, Egypt, and Two Mile Hollow Beaches between May 15 and Sept. 15.

       Friday’s meeting of the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals was notable mostly for its brevity. Five of seven scheduled hearings were adjourned, and the board’s remaining business was covered in about 30 minutes, a sharp contrast to the crowded agendas and hours-long deliberations that have characterized recent meetings.

       A hearing held open at the board’s Jan. 24 meeting, on an application for 174 Further Lane proposing to construct a 3,600 square-foot accessory structure that was labeled a garage, was resumed Friday.

While nearby Sag Harbor Village was bustling with activity during HarborFrost, scores of firefighters, divers, and emergency medical service personnel descended on Noyac Bay. Onlookers, who had gone to the bay to take photos, called 911 after hearing a dog yelping and then spotting it trying to stay afloat about 150 feet or so out, where there was a break in the ice.

    Paul Monte, the general manager of Gurney’s Inn, has been chosen as the next grand marshal of the Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day parade, to be held this year on March 23 starting at 11:30 a.m.

    The announcement was made at a pub quiz hosted by the Friends on Jan. 24, fittingly at Gurney’s Inn. Cheers filled the room when his name was called.

    Eight of the nine East Hampton Town Trustees voted to approve the repair of a rock revetment on the beach in front of 7 West End Road in East Hampton Village at a special meeting on Tuesday.

    Anthony Manheim, the owner, submitted plans for the proposed revetment to the trustees in August. The proposal had been the subject of some dissent on the board. Deborah Klughers, a trustee, was unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting but asked that her letter opposing  the repair be read into the record.

      A New York State Department of Environmental Conservation representative reported this week that the agency is negotiating with Montauk Shores Condominiums, which runs an oceanfront trailer park at Ditch Plain, in an effort to settle alleged violations in connection with a massive rock revetment built there last spring. The negotiations would determine if any monetary penalties would be applied, Aphrodite Montalvo of the D.E.C. said.