Villages

The South Fork's Jewish congregations will come together Wednesday night to rally in solidarity with Israel, mourn the victims of the terrorist attacks, and pray for the safety of those caught up in the violent conflict.

"We're ecstatic that in the three days we've been open the community has shown us more support than we could have ever imagined," said Geary Gubbins, who has run the shop at 53 Park Place since 2013. "It's just been a real shot in the arm to get ourselves back in gear." The shop had been closed since a water line break in February flooded several businesses in the village.

It was a bad year to be a piping plover in East Hampton. In fact, the worst since at least 2008. While 32 pairs of plovers made East Hampton Town beaches their summer homes, only seven of those pairs were successful in fledging 15 young. Plovers in Southampton Town had a more successful summer.

Heading east? You'll have your choice of activities in Montauk from the Montauk Chamber of Commerce’s Fall Festival to an open house at the firehouse and two days of extra fun at the Montauk Lighthouse.

What do Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, Ikaria in Greece, Nicoya in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda in California have in common? They are considered by some health experts to be “blue zones” — places where people are living longer lives with fewer health troubles than in the rest of the world. Dr. David Luu thinks Sag Harbor Village is going to be on that list someday soon.

This photo shows Carlton Davidson, left, with his wife, Helen, accepting a receipt from Edwin L. Sherrill Jr. of the East Hampton Town Marine Museum for the donation of a 6,000-pound cannon from the Culloden shipwreck.

An event that many dog owners look forward to all year, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Stroll to the Sea dog walk, will happen on Sunday morning starting at the East Hampton Historical Society’s Mulford Farm at 9. This will be ARF’s 30th Stroll to the Sea, and the two-mile walk will go from the farm to Main Beach and back. 

From a jaunty new bike path in 1898 to a 100-year-old discussion of the origin of the name “Accabonac,” and more from the Star of yesteryear.

Mansell Ambrose married her longtime beau, Henry Beveridge, on Saturday afternoon at 4:30 in the gardens of Villa des Amis in Bridgehampton.

The grounds of Mulford Farm on James Lane will be host to Revolutionary War re-enactors, costumed interpreters, games, music, historical craft demonstrations, and more on Sunday when the East Hampton Historical Society has a free family history festival celebrating the town’s 375th anniversary.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk has started a petition in support of a project the group pitched to the East Hampton Town Board that would see goats used to remove invasive vegetation in a portion of the roughly 40-acre Arthur Benson Preserve. As of Wednesday morning, it had 210 signatures.

Flu season doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving, right? Wrong. Dr. George Dempsey, the medical director of East Hampton Family Medicine on Pantigo Road, wrote last week to say he’s already had a handful of patients test positive in the office. “Never before last year did we see so many this early,” said Dr. Nadia Persheff, a pediatrician in Southampton.

On Sept. 24, 1815, Abraham M. Smith of East Hampton wrote Henry Packer Dering (1762-1822), Sag Harbor’s customs collector, with news of a shipwreck the day before at Montauk, a brig from Russia carrying hemp and iron.

Mike and Liz McCarron of Montauk have announced the engagement of their son Benjamin Knute McCarron to Colleen Elizabeth Sherlock, whose parents are Kevin and Debbie Sherlock of Montauk and Delray Beach, Fla.

UPDATE: Those wishing to put their rakes to the test for the East Hampton Town Trustees’ Largest Clam Contest will have to wait a bit longer to dig for the winners in Lake Montauk, Napeague Harbor, Accabonac Harbor, Hog Creek, and Three Mile Harbor, as heavy rains have closed many areas to shellfishing and forced a second rescheduling of the annual event.

A 60-ton, combat-ready tank that occupied a prominent location at the Everit Albert Herter V.F.W. Post 550 at the entrance to East Hampton Village was removed last week after a nearly 30-year residence. 

Behold, the Edison Projectoscope! And much more from the Star of yore.

When it arrives at the Bridgehampton Museum on Sunday for display, one particular car, a Lola T70 Eagle, will have come full circle, as race cars tend to do. Fifty-seven years ago, the legendary driver Dan Gurney drove it to win the 1966 Can Am race in Bridgehampton. On Sunday, the historically significant car will be on view for the public for two hours only — 9 to 11 a.m. — during the museum’s annual Cars and Coffee event.

Other than the occasional loud talker in the quiet area, the John Jermain Memorial Library is a pretty chill place. Next Thursday, however, from 2 to 8 p.m., registered voters in the Sag Harbor School District can show up to vote in a contested library board race, in which three candidates are vying for two spots, and weigh in on the budget proposal.

South Fork residents were among an estimated 75,000 people who participated in Sunday’s March to End Fossil Fuels in Manhattan, at the conclusion of the hottest summer since global record-keeping of temperatures began and amid multiple signals around the world that climate change is happening now and getting worse. “I’m here personally because my granddaughter is also here, and I want a livable planet for her and her generation, and, in fact, all living beings,” said Francesca Rheannon of Springs, who is on East Hampton Town’s Energy and Sustainability Advisory Committee.

In this photo, the artists Lee Krasner (1908-1984), Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), and Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) chat in front of one of de Kooning’s paintings at the Fourth Annual Invitational Exhibition at Guild Hall.

On Tuesday, it was decided to postpone the East Hampton Town Trustees’ 33rd annual Largest Clam Contest until Oct. 8 because of a forecast of inclement weather on Sunday. Until then, clams beware! The contest is both a celebration of the town’s maritime heritage and a means for the trustees, who have jurisdiction over many of the town’s beaches, waterways, and bottomlands, to inform the public as to their role in the town’s governing.

How busy was the summer of 2023 on the South Fork? There are some interesting metrics out there. Wastewater is one: The amount treated in Sag Harbor during June, July, and August was up roughly six percent over 2022 levels. On East Hampton Village beaches, lifeguards recorded 376 saves. But summer rentals were down on the real estate market, and certain restaurants experienced less traffic than they'd hoped.

Smoke from distant fires, meditation with a yogi, celebs in Montauk, and giant, ugly houses in the dunes — some things never change.

Gov. Kathy Hochul urged New Yorkers last week to get the new Covid vaccine when it is available, and this week the latest vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, tailored to target the dominant Covid-19 variant, are being delivered to pharmacies and physicians’ offices. The federal Food and Drug Administration approved the new vaccine last week, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone 6 months and older receive it.

If the giant blue globe full of gas were still there, someone would paint a smile on it. Just in time for HarborFest, the so-called "gas ball lot," where the globe once sat, but which has since become a 93-space parking lot of importance, will remain open after the village and Adam Potter, the developer who is to gain control of the lot on Saturday, came to an agreement Thursday evening.

Voters in the East Hampton Library District will cast ballots on the library's $3.725 million spending plan for 2024 on Sept. 23. 

September calls to mind the beginning of the academic year. This East Hampton High School Handbook from 1960 reveals how much has changed in just over 60 years.

HarborFest will take over Sag Harbor Village this weekend, with entertainment on Long Wharf, Windmill Beach, and in Steinbeck Park on Saturday and Sunday.

Back in 2016, the owners of the Wharf Shop in Sag Harbor Village, frustrated by a lack of jigsaw puzzles with a Sag Harbor theme, decided to come up with their own. Eventually, the first puzzle sold out and a second came and went too, which has now led to a third, being offered just in time for HarborFest, a thousand-piecer for $22.95.