Sunday school picnics at Maidstone Park, evening trips to the general store for beer or ice cream sodas, and dancing to the jukebox were among the memories rekindled by those who attended a recent Springs Historical Society session designed to recapture the old days at Maidstone in Springs.

There were mostly fond memories, and each person's offering helped fill in the picture of bygone days at East Hampton's first official park and the neighborhood surrounding it.

For some, visions of the most delicious potato salad or three-flavor ice cream sliced in bricks stood out from those days when boys and girls from Sunday school classes would converge on the bathhouses, pavilion, and picnic areas at Maidstone Park.

"I Remember It Well"

"The boys would get wild there," said Norma Edwards of the outings.

"You weren't supposed to leave the church picnic, but we used to head off on the 'Indian Trail,'" chuckled Trevor Kelsall.

There were several bathhouses on the bluff near the ballfield with cabanas for changing into swimming costumes, two shade arbors covered with branches and leaves, with seats to rest on, four outhouses, and, to traverse the rocky beach, either a boardwalk or sandbag steppingstones, depending on who was recollecting and what year was being recalled.

Everyone at the meeting agreed about the big rocks in the water, rocks that are no longer there, though it's unclear what happened to them. A dock extended out from the shore so swimmers could jump into a clear spot, though some swimmers still got hurt - "I broke my ankle there," one person recalled - and some remembered the day around 1916 when a boy, Mike Meyers, dived in and drowned.

Shorefront Playground

The East Hampton Neighborhood Association sponsored weekly swimming classes there, with East Hampton children transported to the park in the back of a town truck.

There was a pavilion with a screened-in porch overlooking the bay, and fireplaces there and down on the sand. Lemonade was served up from big ceramic containers "tall as the couple who tended it." There were recollections of Gilbert Lester, a custodian at the park who also kept the youngsters' behavior in check.

Heather Anderson, the Springs Historical Society president, read an excerpt from a 1912 issue of The East Hampton Star, in which the park was called "East Hampton's new shorefront playground."

Park Cost $1

Indeed, Maidstone Park was the first park taken over by the Town of East Hampton, according to Hugh King, a local historian. Land for the park was donated by Frederic Gallatin, a wealthy East Hampton resident who reportedly was a descendant of Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury in Thomas Jefferson's Cabinet.

Mr. Gallatin and his wife, Almy, kept their horses at Maidstone until they acquired an automobile, then deeded the land to the town, for $1, in 1911. Conditions of the deed require that the premises be "held as a public park forever," that it should "bear the name of 'Maidstone Park,' " and that ownership would revert to the grantors or their heirs if the premises should "at any time in the future cease to be used as a public park or to be used for any other purpose than as a public park."

The 26.6-acre park was immediately popular. John Field, the area's caretaker, reported an attendance in July, August, and September of 1923 of 11,540 people, with a climb to a total of 14,999 in the summer of 1924.

"Each year about $500 is expended by the town in maintenance and hiring a keeper at the grounds . . . which amount is never begrudged by anyone, we will venture to add," said a 1923 report in The Star.

Weekly Bath

An old barn on the property was converted into more bathhouses, making 28 in all, in the early '20s. "Often there was a waiting list [with people] ready to use the houses when the bathers came out of the water," said an article in a 1924 edition of The Star, calling the new park a "wonderful play spot on the bay."

The town continued to make improvements at the park over the years, even proposing, in 1937, that some of the work be done as a Works Progress Administration project.

Mary Louise Dodge of Fireplace Road recalled, "When I was a child, we'd go to Maidstone Beach on Saturdays, and that was your bath for the week. You didn't wash off that salt. If you were really bad, you'd bring a cake of soap."

On Thursdays and Sundays, said Mrs. Dodge, chauffeurs of well-to-do families in the village would bring the servants to use the park.

Baseball And Burgers

John Tilley, who now lives on Woodbine Drive, recalled the dirt roads and quiet winters of his childhood. His parents owned the Maidstone general store, in the building that now houses Michael's restaurant.

Herb Fields had a farm with a cornfield and a couple of cows down there, Mr. Tilley said, but the area consisted mostly of summer houses in the woods. He recalled the lonely wait for the school bus, being the only student from the neighborhood heading to the Springs School.

In the summertime, parents and kids would play ball every night and then go to his parents' store for hot dogs and hamburgers, "a beer or two, or ice cream sodas, or whatever," he said. The store was open from Memorial Day until the week after Labor Day.

It was sometimes a hangout for young boys "out on the town." Mr. Tilley recalled with a laugh that "some of the guys would be raising hell and Harry Steele [then Chief of Police] would come down the store to look for them - my mother would put them in the beer cooler till he was gone."

Many of the participants recalled stocking up with 10 cents worth of bait for fishing at the Maidstone breakwater. On Three Mile Harbor Road lived Skimer Adams, who sold bait.

Mr. Adams had misspelled the word "skimmers" on his bait sign, and so was forever called Skimer. The group erupted in laughter over a reminiscence of Skimer Adams resting in bed clothed in a hat and overcoat, with chickens roosting on the bedpost.

Tapes Made

Audiotapes were made of the meeting, which brought to life, at least for this relative newcomer, sweet days of yesteryear.

The society intends to hold more meetings focusing on memories of different areas of Springs such as Accabonac Harbor, Fireplace, and Gerard and Louse Points, as well as the school. It would like to hear from people with long memories or mementos, especially photos, who can help to bring to life the days of old. The society is considering compiling the material it gathers into a brochure.

How often do we stop to think about what is going on in the kitchens of our favorite restaurants? Just how clean is it back there? Is the food being handled properly? Are the plates, flatware, and glasses really clean? Was the chicken cooked enough? Was the fish properly refrigerated?

Violations of one form or another, from minor "maintenance" deficiencies to others with the potential to cause illness, occur at virtually every restaurant on the South Fork, from the poshest of the Hamptons dining spots to the inexpensive Chinese take-outs.

The Star recently obtained copies of the latest inspection reports for 150 South Fork restaurants (not including delis or pizza places) and found some surprising revelations. Not that there is reason to cause alarm - it is generally safe to eat out, and many food-borne illnesses can come from one's own kitchen at home just as easily as from that of a restaurant. Still, the reports do give one, well, food for thought.

Annual Inspections

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services inspects restaurants and other food preparation establishments at least once a year, including the many fund-raising tasting events the East End sees each year. Sometimes more than one inspection is done each year if the department receives complaints or is checking on repeated violations that have not been fixed.

South Fork restaurants are inspected primarily by one person, Terry O'Riordan. With each inspection of a food establishment, a report is completed, distinguishing between "red critical" and "blue maintenance" violations.

These reports by law must be available on site at each restaurant and it is every diner's right to be able to see the current report and the restaurant's Health Department certificate. But, of course, very few diners do so.

No Major Violations

From the reports The Star pored over, for restaurants from Montauk to Southampton, 60 had no red critical violations, the kind that can cause food-borne illnesses.

However, a number of the eateries did not have food preparation going on when the inspection took place, and it is these violations that can cause illness and thus are the most important for the inspector to find. Only 18 places had no violations of any kind in the reports reviewed.

Tongs On The Trash

The mere existence and number of violations should not deter patrons. Many are simple maintenance violations, such as not having a Heimlich maneuver poster visible to diners, not adhering to the county's smoking regulations, or having a broken faucet or no soap and paper towels at the kitchen sink.

Inspectors often find that food items, perhaps boxes or cans, are stored underneath sewer lines. That's a violation. So is having cans or bottles of beer and soda submerged in water or in drink ice at the bar. And so, too, is storing clean pans and trays upright and uncovered directly on the kitchen floor.

Other maintenance violations include finding mouse droppings, or dead roaches in the case of another restaurant, on shelving where food, spices, and condiments are stored. At several spots corkboards with pushpins were found above a display of cake or over the hatch to an ice maker bin.

During one inspection chef's tongs were spotted stored on the lip of a trash barrel. Bare lamps overhead in the kitchen and decrepit floors in walk-in refrigerators were also found.

Truth In Menus

And, not surprisingly, several inspection reports reminded restaurant workers that menu claims must be truthful. One Chinese take-out claimed no M.S.G. was used, but in fact it was being used. Another restaurant's menu touted a flounder dish, but another fish was being used in its place.

At a third spot, the Health Department followed up a complaint that shrimp was being used in the lobster salad of a lobster roll. The complainant was allergic to shrimp. Lobster salad must use only lobster, the inspector reminded the chef.

It is the "red violations," however, that have the ability to turn one's stomach and have second thoughts when ordering a meal out. Improper storage, handling, cooking, cooling, and heating of food create the potential for illnesses.

Storing Meats, Fish

One of the most commonly cited red violations found among the reports was the storage of raw meats and fish among or over ready-to-eat foods, like salad greens, salad dressings, tubs of sour cream, et cetera. This raises the possibility of contamination of other foods that will not be cooked, which usually kills bacteria.

In one restaurant, raw salmon and meats were found among leafy garnishes. Raw foods should be stored at the bottom of refrigerators and not mixed with foods otherwise ready to be served.

Similarly, ready-to-eat foods like salads and cold sandwiches, even lemon garnishes for drinks, are not supposed to be handled with bare hands by a food worker. Rather, gloves should be donned and/or tongs used.

During one inspection a bartender was seen barehandedly dredging an unclean five-gallon pail through the drink ice in a cellar ice maker, thus contaminating all of the cubes. All of the ice had to be dumped.

Cooking Eggs

Chefs are also not at liberty to sample foods with their fingers while working in the kitchen; utensils should be used. One cook was spotted working with a bandaged finger without a finger cot or glove over it, another no-no.

Foods must be stored below or above certain temperatures, too, and incorrect temperatures were fairly common among the red violations The Star saw. At one eatery on an August afternoon, incorrect storage temperatures caused sliced fresh ham, three pounds of cooked meatloaf, 15 pounds of whole smoked ham, three pounds of pork loin, five pounds of pate, five pounds of truffle pate, seven pounds of maple glazed honey ham, and seven pounds of breast of turkey to be thrown out.

Eggs, the chief culprit in causing salmonella, are a tricky thing for chefs to deal with. Fresh eggs must be cooked at 145 degrees for 15 seconds; otherwise liquid pasteurized eggs and egg products must be used.

Runny At Your Own Risk

A patron can request that his or her eggs be undercooked, however. "The customer can take that risk onto themselves," said Bruce Williamson, the supervisor of the Food Control Program for Suffolk County.

Chefs are required, by state law, to use liquid pasteurized eggs in recipes that involve "pooling" multiple eggs, like a mix for French toast or scrambled eggs, Caesar salad dressing, or Hollandaise sauce. He has seen illness outbreaks from batches of French toast made with fresh eggs more than once, Mr. Williamson said.

Like eggs, hamburger meat must be cooked to a certain temperature, although the diners have the liberty of requesting their meat be undercooked, even rare. Be forewarned, however, that with any rare meat, like sushi, steak tartar, and seared tuna, "there's a potential for parasites," according to Mr. Williamson.

Most Go Unreported

Illnesses from such parasites, Mr. Williamson added, are "not real common. When it happens to you though, it becomes real important."

The Health Department received 229 complaints of food-borne illnesses in 1995 for all of Suffolk, though Mr. Williamson was quick to point out that not all of these were legitimate. In many cases, there were other causes for the illness.

On the other hand, Mr. Williamson said, most people do not report food-borne illnesses. Some experts say only about 1 percent get reported. People often do not realize their illness is caused by what they consumed; they are more likely to realize it when groups of people discover that they all got sick after eating together.

Certified Manager

Since 1975, Suffolk County has required that each restaurant always have at least one certified food manager on duty during food preparation and service. Classes leading to these certificates, which must be renewed every three years, are offered throughout the county, including on the East End, and more than 30,000 people have been certified in the county since the program started.

The program may have something to do with the fact that there has been a general decrease in food-borne illnesses in Suffolk County. And that's good news for diners.

One local chef, Kevin Penner of Della Femina in East Hampton, credited the Health Department and its inspectors with being "really concerned about public health." He added, "That's on our minds, too."

"Common Sense"

"To a large degree it's common sense," Mr. Penner added, saying a basic understanding of food chemistry, concern, and no laziness is all one needs to be up to snuff with county health regulations.

One might wonder whether Mr. Williamson, the county inspector, so knowledgeable and familiar with health violations and their consequences, frequents restaurants himself.

"Not often, but I do go out to eat on occasion," he said.

The Christmas bird counts begin on Saturday. Veteran bird watchers who would like to volunteer for the three South Fork counts - Montauk to East Hampton, Sagaponack and Hook Ponds, and Water Mill to Quogue - can call, respectively, Hugh McGuiness at Friends World College at Southampton College, Mary Laura Lamont of Riverhead, and Barbara Scherzer of Hampton Bays.

Less experienced birders can still feel a part of the National Audubon Society counts by watching their bird feeders; that is, by counting the number and species of birds that visit during the duration of each 24-hour count.

The Group for the South Fork has scheduled an "edge of winter" walk on WHICHDAY through the newly acquired Smithers County Park in Hampton Bays. Vikki Hilles, the leader, will instruct hikers about the importance of ecological "edges."

For reservations and instructions on where to meet, hikers should call the Group at its headquarters in Bridgehampton.

"What do women want?" has become so repetitive in men's magazines, women's magazines now copy with "What do men want?" On and on it goes - as if gender alone determined such a thing.

In my experience, different people want a lot of different things totally unrelated to their sex, gender, whichever term pleases you. But advertising still seems to be cemented into pitches to male or female audiences. And this, I rather think, is why so much stuff gets returned to the stores after Christmas.

Who is to know that Iron John wouldn't really rather have a new Cuisinart than a chainsaw? Or Darling Jenny a little electric hand-sander/drill combo to work on her yardsale furniture coups?

Harking back to "in my experience," the guys I know are getting to be a lot more familiar with the kitchen layout than their good wives. (As one of them recently commented, "in self-defense.") Though in fact, more and more men are taking to the kitchen range simply because they like cooking with a greater range of imagination than slamming a steak on the barby.

True, outdoor grills did permit men to retain their macho image while fussing around with the cooking, and a lot of women who had abdicated the traditional role had the good sense to let them do it.

I do wonder, though, if in 20 years or so women will be complaining that they've been left out of the dinner-decision-making process. (My own dream is to be totally excluded from the plumber, electrician, pool guy, yard-maintenance, appliance, TV, and telephone-repairman selection and arranging-for process.)

I actually enjoy shopping for food - what to cook for dinner will never bore me; hardware stores and housewares shops are places that fascinate me, and despite my panoply of kitchen equipment, there's always some gadget or pan or new book that beguiles me.

All this is by way of leading into A Cook's Christmas Wish-list, be the cook male or female, young or old. Dedicated cooks will want to try out almost anything they haven't tried before, and the hesitant but wannabe-good cooks will be inspired by things they might never have bought for themselves.

Cook's Garden of Wishes

An imported (German or Swiss) V-slicer: This has four blades that make thin or thick slices, julienne slivers, or french-fry shapes for vegetables, and an optional extra shredder for cooked potatoes (or raw ones) or semi-soft cheeses. This shredder makes the best potato pancakes or roesti ever. Costs about $30.

A professional meat-slicing knife (German or French) with a blade about 12 inches long, indented but not serrated, for slicing ham and large roasts. Prices range from $40 to $60.

Full tang, stainless steel serrated knife (German or French) with 10-inch blade that cuts through tough things like heads of cabbage, artichokes, rough country breads, and almost any foodstuff.

Serving platters: Old ones, new ones, decorated or white, especially a long (23-inch) narrow, white porcelain one for fish, pork loins, or a series of roasted game hens. Porcelain or ceramic, to withstand oven heat up to 350 degrees.

More Wishes

Willow basket for storage, containing a selection of Oxo kitchen gadgets with big, soft-grip handles, especially the vegetable peeler, ice cream scoop, and four-inch pizza wheel (which is useful for much more than pizza).

Heavy-gauge steel cake molds, or a Charlotte mold with non-stick finish from France - $15 to $20. These will make any cake-mix look professional and elegant.

Ingredients: Fine bittersweet chocolate, Callebaut or Valrhona; vanilla beans or vanilla extract from Madagascar, glaceed and dried fruits and berries, French flageolet or green lentils or exotic dried beans, fine olive oils, best quality white and red wine vinegars (unflavored), truffle oil, truffles!

Whole roasted French chestnuts in jars, orange and rose flower water, first-quality spices and herbs (try Kalyustan on Lexington Avenue) from high-turnover specialty shops, a whole side of smoked salmon, cheeses, special flours for pasta, pastry, and bread and the pans to bake them in, sea salt from France and England, very concentrated meat glazes (glace de viande) to facilitate sauce-making, a basket of heirloom apples or a basket of different kinds of fresh pears, French mustards, imported honeys, sugars like Demarara, or very coarse white crystals for sprinkling on cookies.

The Makings, Not The Made

In short: give cooks stuff to cook with, not cakes, cookies, jams, and candies that someone else has already made!

Of course, few discerning cooks would be displeased with a mousse of foie gras, a tin of truffles or a fresh one, a little pot of caviar, or a gift certificate for some of the goodies at D'Artagnan in Jersey City, purveyors of game and fresh magrets and goose livers, wild turkeys and ducks (duck fat and demiglace are a cook's delight).

If your cooking friend is really adventurous, he or she might like a gift certificate for kangaroo, ostrich, 'gator, rattlesnake, or caribou from Game Sales International in Loveland, Colo.

For Wine-Lovers

For wine mavens:

A metal wine bucket and stand. Most of those tricky terracotta or insulated plastic coolers don't work - the wine is never cold enough and you can't put a champagne bottle in them - tragic.

Wine bottle coasters. These are pretty and practical. You can find them in antique shops as well as new in housewares stores - give with a fine bottle of wine, perhaps an after-dinner port or Sauternes. Wine coasters save table linens from the kind of stains that make hosts' chins tremble when they say, "Oh, it's all right."

Decanters and wine pitchers for informal meals don't have to be crystal, or even clear glass. Many of the ceramics are amusing and/or pretty for wine.

One can never have too many glasses. Best are wine glasses that can go into the dishwasher, double old-fashioned-size tumblers, and, with the resurgence of the martini, some proper martini glasses (which can, in fact, be used for other things if they're the large size).

Cookery Books

Books: These are some of my favorites, some new, some old that will take a bit of digging to find. What's not available at local bookshops, like Book Hampton and Canio's, can probably be located at Kitchen Arts & Letters, 1435 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Nach Waxman, the owner, knows all there is to know about cookbooks new and old.

Julia Child's "The Way To Cook" (Knopf) explains how to do just about everything, and the recipes are infallible. I'm on my second copy of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and "In Julia's Kitchen," both of which I've bought for gifts too many times. "Baking With Julia" is the new book that bears her name, though it is really a compilation of work by the chefs who appeared on her TV show - the master baker Nick Malgieri, with whom my daughter studied, is foremost among them.

Patricia Wells's "At Home in Provence" (Scribners) is a new favorite. This American expatriate has truly grasped the essence of French cooking and eating, and her warm and direct style makes the book a pleasure to read. No silly stuff here; just great simple traditional cooking, sensibly updated and presented for modern tastes. Lovely but not overdone photographs.

"Simple French Food"

Richard Olney's "Simple French Food" is a classic and still in print, thank heaven. His latest book, "Lulu's Provencale Table," was published by Harper's a couple of years ago and is also readily available and also a prize.

Shirley King's new book, "Pampille's Table," is a translation and adaptation of the recipes in the French classic written under the pseudonym "Pampille" by Mme. Marthe Daudet in 1919 and called "Le Bon Plat de France," which can still be found if one wanted to give both as a set for French-speaking American cooks.

John Thorne, author of the terrific "Outlaw Cook," has a new book written with his wife, Matt, called "Serious Pig" (North Point Press). This is a collection of essays and recipes with gastronomical writing to appeal to anyone with an interest in the table, cook or not.

Madeleine Kamman, cooking in structor and restaurateur extraordinaire, wrote several marvelous cookbooks, of which my favorite, falling-to-pieces, edition is "When Frenchwomen Cook" (Atheneum).

David's Legacy

Elizabeth David, the grand dame of British food writers who died two years ago, left a legacy of splendid books and I recommend them all. Her last one, "An Omelette and a Glass of Wine" (Penguin), is my favorite. Filled with anecdotes and essays as well as recipes, it's a bedside book to enjoy forever.

Deborah Madison, former chef at the Greens restaurant in San Francisco, wrote "The Greens" cookbook, possibly the best vegetarian cookbook ever and one I consult often for new ideas in vegetable cookery.

Cook's Magazine: any of their bound editions of the year's magazine in hard covers. Also, any serious cook would be happy with a subscription to the magazine. Bon Appetit is better than ever and Food & Wine seems to have a felicitous new look and viewpoint with a change of editors.

Eating Well: this magazine publishes cookbooks, too. The one I use most is "Recipe Rescue," which updates and lightens traditional dishes without ruining them.

Mangia: a witty and useful computer program for cooks, it organizes your recipes, provides a format to create your own cookbook, and offers several cookbooks on separate disks as well. I have to admit, my own newly revised "Good Cheap Food" is among them, as well as that '60s hippie classic, "The Tassajara Cookbook" and a good selection from the former Cook's magazine, resuscitated as Cook's Illustrated.

Under Pressure

Lorna Sass, a cookbook author who used to specialize in historical cookbooks, is a fairly recent convert to the pressure cooker. Her well-received "Cooking Under Pressure" has been followed by the drearily titled "Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure." Her taste runs to more brown rice, pine nuts, and weird versions of chili and gumbo than suit me, but the directions are sterling.

However, this is a book well worth having for the accuracy of its cooking times in the so-called "New Generation" pressure cookers, more of a boon to hurry-up cooks than the microwave can ever be.

Microwave ovens will not produce a decent stew or braise a pot roast or make a good bean casserole - pressure cookers will do a two-hour job in 15 or 20 minutes.

The late Roy Andries deGroot wrote the best pressure-cooker book of its era a number of years ago, and I still use it. However, it was tested with the old-fashioned jiggle-top American cookers, so times have to be monitored and adjusted.

Short-Order World

A pressure cooker. I don't know when I'll ever be able to convince people that the sleek new European pressure cookers present no threat to the safety of the cook and turn out beautiful food in a fraction of the time normally required for the kind of home-cooking we seem to be losing.

In a short-order world (as most restaurant cooking seems to be these days, too) of reheating take-out junk, the new pressure cookers like the Belgian DeMeyere, the Swiss Kuhn Rikon, Italian Magefesa, and the beautiful Fagor from Spain would make a great present for cooks who care about real food. A 6-liter or 8-liter size is best because no pressure cooker may be filled more than three-quarters full.

Most of these cookers cost $100 or more and Zabar's has a huge selection. Williams-Sonoma carries the Fagor. The new cookers can have the pressure released right on the stove via a top-mounted valve that is not removable (therefore losable).

The new pressure cookers are great for canning small batches of jars, useful as plain soup pots, and not in the least bit dangerous. I can't think of a greater boon to cooks who don't get home from work until dinnertime.

Unfortunately, the cookbooks that come with these wonderful pots are terribly unimaginative - written by the engineer's grandmother, no doubt. So one has to adapt favorite recipes to the short cooking times in pressure cookers, but this isn't too hard to figure out once you get the hang of it.

Give some cook a merry little Christmas!

The demand for public water at Lazy Point in Amagansett has officials scratching their heads about how to insure that a water main from the hills of Devon eastward will not encourage development or increase the demand for water.

At the same time, local officials are eyeing neighborhoods elsewhere in town whose residents could someday make the same demand. Sammy's Beach in East Hampton, Gerard Drive and Louse Point in Springs, East Lake Drive in Montauk, and Napeague Meadow Road in Amagansett, which leads to Lazy Point, have similar problems with their water - shallow private wells which often have high iron content and can be expected to draw saltwater or become contaminated when houses put a strain on the natural water supply.

The areas consist of low-lying dunelands or tidal wetlands at the edge of bays or harbors.

Warn Against Growth

East Hampton Town, the Suffolk Water Authority, and the County Health Department agree that bringing in public water is the obvious and immediate solution where there is a shortage of potable water. They also warn, however, that these neighborhoods cannot sustain further growth.

Deep water recharge areas in parts of East Hampton Town already are being tapped to supply water to the Napeague stretch and to parts of Sag Harbor, Noyac, and North Haven. But the quantity is limited.

"It is a well-known, undisputed planning fact that . . . infrastructure extensions, including but not limited to the extension of public water, cause an increase in growth. It is one of the few points on which the town and the Water Authority have agreed," said Lisa Liquori, the town planning director.

Ways To Go

Restrictions prohibiting swimming pools and limiting the size of houses or number of bathrooms in water-poor areas, and a ban on further subdivision of vacant land are among the ways the town could control development after public water is put in, suggested Larry Penny, director of the Town Natural Resources Department.

But government has rarely been able to fend off the demand for residences in these areas, which are on or near the water.

Ms. Liquori said a water main to Lazy Point, like any water main extension in town, would go through extensive environmental review before being constructed. And, she said, recent meetings with authority officials had resulted in a consensus on the concept of controlling development.

Landfall Precedent

She and Mr. Penny also agreed that the town should soon update its water resource management plan, a part of the Comprehensive Plan that is more than 10 years old. It does not recommend water mains through Promised Land to Lazy Point.

With the swift extension of a water main to the Landfall subdivision in Northwest Woods, East Hampton, earlier this year and the extension of mains along Napeague as precedent, the Lazy Point peninsula is starting to look like the third domino in a line that runs from one end of town to the other.

Although groundwater contamination at Landfall was chemical, the apparent result of an illegal cocaine operation, Mr. Penny said it "begged the question for Lazy Point. Because the town responded so quickly at Landfall and a water main was the only real solution that was considered seriously, well, that may have encouraged the residents of Lazy Point to come forward."

Signing Up

It took less than two years for public water to reach Landfall after the county went public with the news that its groundwater contained toxic chemicals. Two months later the homeowners' association on Mulford Lane at Lazy Point began circulating petitions for a main there as well.

More than 100 residents of the area between Cranberry Hole Road and Shore Road at the tip of Lazy Point have signed petitions asking the town to help them replace individual wells with water from the Suffolk Water Authority.

Mr. Penny predicted the owners of houses at Sammy's Beach, a barrier beach at the mouth of Three Mile Harbor, or at Gerard Drive and Louse Point, on either side of the mouth of Accabonac Harbor, would be next.

Critical Problem

"We weren't saying that they got theirs, so now we want ours. We feel we have a critical problem. . . . The older people cannot afford to keep buying bottled water any more, and why should they compromise their health anyway?" asked Maureen Veprek, the Mulford Lane resident who led the petition drive.

Year-Rounders

Ms. Veprek, who works at the State University at Stony Brook, is among a growing number of year-round residents at Lazy Point.

In addition, substantial second homes have cropped up in recent years along Cranberry Hole Road, especially on the south side abutting Napeague State Park, and many of the owners of what once were fishing shanties on Town Trustee land at Lazy Point have made considerable investments in improvements.

Deep Wells Needed

In those places where potable water is scant, most of the wells are driven no more than 50 feet below grade. In comparison the prime aquifers at the Town Airport in East Hampton and in Hither Woods in Montauk, for example, which are tapped by the Water Authority, are 400 feet deep.

"One of our concerns is that we have spots all over town that ultimately will need public water, including much of Springs. These places will need water as much as Montauk and maybe more so; we're eager for the Water Authority to develop those wells in Hither Woods," said Mr. Penny.

An environmental study of the authority's plan to sink three new wells in Hither Woods and to link its Napeague water main to Montauk is nearing completion. The project was prompted by Montauk's water problems, including a deteriorating public water system and a supply that is overtaxed by heavy summertime demand.

Montauk Warning

Two years ago, Michael LoGrande, the authority chairman, warned the town against any further development on Montauk and for each of the two summers since the authority has put the entire isthmus on a water alert, threatening stronger measures if home and motel owners continued to use water indiscriminately.

The County Health Department, which has the responsibility of assessing the safety of the water that would come from every private well being installed, does not consider the future effect of these wells. It now confirms that the situation at Lazy Point is hopeless, that saltwater from too much demand on the supply and coliform from sewage and animal wastes make the water undrinkable.

In addition, the Amagansett Fire Department has joined the call for public water, warning that low pressure of water that comes from the fire wells it has installed makes the job of firefighting difficult.

House Tally

Among those who will be asked to determine the best route for a pipe line, counting along the way the number of taxpayers who will pay for it and trying to assess the long-term consequences, are Mr. Penny, Ms. Liquori, Town Councilman Thomas Knobel, and Vincent Gaudiello Jr., the town engineer.

Mr. Gaudiello had counted 336 houses and 22 vacant lots, some of them eligible under zoning to be divided, along the route of the Landfall main and estimated that as many as 675 houses could hook up to it eventually. He said he would come up with a similar tally for the area from Ocean View Lane in the Devon Colony, through Promised Land, to Lazy Point.

Although the Town Trustees, who own a lot of land at Lazy Point and lease some of it to private homeowners, voted in November for a ban on new houses, many of the existing ones already have been turned into multi-bathroom year-round residences. Councilman Knobel, a former fisherman, owns a small house, and has asked for a legal opinion on his own "possible conflict of interest."

Lot Subdivisions?

Mulford Lane is a narrow road that leads to the bay from Lazy Point Road. It is bordered by modest houses which are becoming year-round residences, although most of the lots, which predate zoning, are tiny.

Ms. Veprek noted that the older lots are only 50 by 128 feet, but added that there are vacant tracts that are privately owned in the vicinty whose owners are eyeing subdivision.

"At Cranberry Hole Road, the question [of what will happen to large undivided tracts of land] is even more pertinent," said Councilman Knobel, observing that public water ends at the corner of Ocean View Lane.

Most Thorough Job

Sag Harbor

December 12, 1996

Dear Helen,

I just want to thank you, heartily, for that lovely - and lengthy! - review of my book in this week's Star. I don't know who David Muhlbaum is, but he did the most thorough job of anyone who's reviewed it - and that includes The Los Angeles Times, whose writer has been covering electric vehicles from Detroit for years.

With real care, he wove in all the various strands of the story and - happily - made it sound worth reading. If you can, please convey my thanks to him as well.

Best,

MICHAEL SHNAYERSON

Known In The Field

Sarasota, Fla.

December 8, 1996

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

Several years ago, the late Alden Whitman, an obituary writer, wrote a letter to The Star in defense of Alger Hiss, which demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the true nature of the Hiss case.

Now we have The Star's editor providing us with an opinion that Mr. Hiss was wrongly convicted of his spying for the Soviet Union.

During my 25 years of service in the covert intelligence field, including some of the time frame in which Mr. Hiss operated for the U.S.S.R., it was commonly known in the counter-espionage field that Mr. Hiss was a recruited agent of the Soviet intelligence service. It was also known that he was one of several penetrations of the U.S. Government which included Harry Dexter White at the Treasury and Laughlin Currie, a Presidential adviser, among others.

Spies can be cultured, kindly-appearing, and self-effacing. A good example was the British traitor Kim Philby, whom I met in the early '50s. This does not make them less guilty of treason.

I never met Hiss, but I have always had the same disgust and dismay at his actions as I did over Philby's. We will never know how much damage these traitors have caused their countries. They deserve no apologies.

Another subject. I enclose a copy of an article about coastal erosion and the role of the U.S. Army Engineer Corps in attempting to control it. I thought you might find it interesting because of its application to our Wainscott and East Hampton beaches.

Being a property owner in Wainscott for over 70 years, and being very familiar with what the Juan Trippe/Army Corps of Engineers groins have done to damage the beach areas west of them, let's hope we are spared more of the same.

Sincerely,

LAWRENCE GOURLAY

Drowned Out

Amagansett

December 14, 1996

Dear Editor:

I was greatly troubled by this week's "Guestwords" by Roger Rosenblatt, "The Silence of the Liberals." Liberals aren't silent; they are being drowned out.

They are being drowned out by the greedy and those who lust for power, people and interests who regard liberals as the enemy, people who have made the word "liberal" a curse.

We have a cacophony of bought politicians. We have countless highly paid "spin doctors," "political consultants," and other media manipulators. We have an increasingly monopolized media run by interests that are hostile toward liberals.

And, we have a public whose attention span has been reduced through remote control TV clicking to the point where it is measurable only in nanoseconds, a public so besotted by TV that it reads less and less of the fewer and fewer newspapers that still exist. Is it any wonder then that many think that liberals are silent?

But they are not. Last I looked, the Progressive Caucus of the House had over 50 members, none of whom can be accused of silence. Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone, and other liberals in the Senate cannot be accused of silence. The Nation, The Progressive, Dissent, The American Prospect, a few of the liberal magazines that come quickly to mind, all appear regularly.

No, liberals are not silent. But those who would like them silenced do everything they can to make liberals difficult to hear. And, they must love it when good people think liberals are silent so liberals can be blamed for that too.

Liberals are not silent. They can be heard if you are willing to listen.

Sincerely,

ARTHUR H. ROSENFELD

Injustice In Silence

New York City

December 14, 1996

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

Thank you for publishing the excerpt from Roger Rosenblatt's lecture "The Silence of the Liberals" ("Guestwords," Dec. 12). Once again Mr. Rosenblatt's elegant humanity confronts evils that imperil our country - in this case, censorship and the silence of liberals who no longer express the compassionate intentions of American democracy.

Thinking back to a recent "Connections" column on the tragedy of Alger Hiss, as well as to your general forthrightness on social issues, I feel grateful that you do not accept injustice in silence.

On a personal note (perhaps somewhat connected to the above), I wish you the best with Bonnie and Clyde. You have given them the second chance at life most mortals need.

With warmest holiday wishes,

D.H. MELHEM, Ph.D.

Please address all correspondence to [email protected]

The Bay Street Theatre's High School Playwrights Festival, written about elsewhere in this section, ended with performances on Saturday. The theater has announced a further involvement with East End schools - the possible creation of a master's degree program in theater arts at Southampton College.

Now under discussion, the new program would aim to prepare committed student actors, designers, producers, directors, and technicians with the knowledge and experience for a career in contemporary theater. Just how the collaboration would work has not yet been ironed out, but presumably Bay Street would lend technical support and perhaps its facilities.

In other news, Bay Street is taking reservations for a tour to London and Florence in May that will include seeing five plays in London and staying six nights there, and spending five nights at the Bernini Palace Hotel, next to the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, at the time of the Maggio Musicale, the most prestigious Italian festival of the performing arts. Norman Kline can be called at the theater for more information about the tour, which will accommodate about 24 people.

Bay Street will celebrate the holidays with a cabaret performance by Mary Cleere Haran on Dec. 28 at 7 p.m. and with a gala New Year's Eve party with champagne, cabaret, a buffet dinner, and dancing. Early reservations have been recommended for this usually sold-out event.

Keeping a longstanding holiday tradition alive, Guild Hall will again invite the community to attend its annual Messiah Sing-In, at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

Guests can add their voices to the notes of an all-volunteer community orchestra, which includes members of the Chamber Orchestra of the East End and college musicians. Edward Liotta, the founder of the orchestra, will conduct. The soloists who will perform include the soprano Elisa Spiotto, the alto Sheila Wolman, Seamas Ryan, a tenor, and Eric Holte, a baritone.

Those who wish to follow along will be able to purchase vocal scores of Schirmer's edition of Handel's "Messiah" at the door. When the singing is through, participants will be welcomed at a holiday reception in the museum's lobby.

With her long dark hair and gentle manner, the sculptor Monica Banks, whose 164-foot "Faces: Times Square" was installed in the heart of Manhattan's theater district in May, seems to belong more in the formal gardens of some Merchant-Ivory film than in a muddy Springs backyard strewn with mangled dog toys.

More, certainly, than on the streets of New York's busiest intersection, where her gaudy red and black steel sculpture occupies the traffic median running from 45th to 46th Streets between Broadway and Seventh Avenue.

The cup of jasmine tea she served a visitor last week seemed more fitting, too, than the formidable oxyacetylene torch and welding mask in her studio, but it's this couching of the delicate and whimsical in the tough that drives her creative spirit.

Street Smarts

Take the story behind the Times Square piece, seen by over a million people a day, and stopping jaywalkers in their tracks - part of its function.

The 14-ton site-specific work comprises 40 three to five-foot-high line drawings of faces, forged of one-and-a-half-inch steel bars painted red, and welded to a jagged black fence that snakes between the lanes of honking cabs and trucks.

It's a witty, street-smart sculpture with an attitude, brash enough to dominate its garish surroundings, yet sprung from the most fragile of origins.

It all began with slender strands of wire.

Gravity's Curtain

Early in her career, when she was still a free-lance designer, Ms. Banks got an idea for a space divider made of resin-stiffened drapery material that would pool on the floor and rise into the air-an eerie curtain standing on its own, defying gravity.

The creative director of Barney's New York was so excited by the concept he commissioned her to design the windows for the chic department store forthwith.

"Do all 12 windows. We'll be showing rainwear; have them ready in a week. I'm off to the Bahamas, bye!" he said, and was gone.

With the help of many assistants, a resin contractor in Asbury Park, N.J., and a fancy moving company, she got the installations done on time: different kinds of curtains billowing up and blowing open, as in a storm.

Mysterious Leftovers

"They looked very cool and surreal at first," Ms. Banks said. "Then, overnight, half of them collapsed. They hadn't hardened properly."

A desperate trip to the hardware store for dowels, fishline, wire, tape, etc., saved the day, but her goal of defying gravity had been compromised. She went home to regroup, toting leftover lengths of very thin wire.

What to do with them? And with the assorted tiny plastic fish, toy boats, dead insects, and dried hydrangeas she'd somehow accumulated?

She "drew faces with the wire, glued on the boats and fish and insects for eyes and mouths, and topped them with the hydrangeas for kind of 'I Love Lucy' hair."

Serendipity

"I hung them all around the walls of my one-room apartment. They made nice shadows, and nodded and trembled slightly, very comforting after the trauma of Barney's. I thought of them as my friends."

"I also filled my little graphics studio with them. An architect friend took Polaroids and showed them to a friend of his, who just happened to be the director of the art gallery at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst."

"She loved them, and offered to give me my first show in 1991. I did hundreds of pieces for the show, at which point it turned into something else - and that's how I became a sculptor. Like most of my career, it was totally serendipitous."

Slides On File

The problems of shipping, installing, and even storing these extremely fragile pieces were not lost on Ms. Banks; her thoughts turned to working in a sturdier medium.

After the show, she sent copies of her slides to the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, which maintains a huge slide file called Percent for Art. A percentage of the cost of every public building must go to art; the file is for the perusal of architects and designers.

Inclusion also makes artists eligible for city-licensed artist-in-residence lofts, Ms. Banks's only, and quite ulterior, motive for registering.

When no affordable loft appeared, she forgot about the slides, went back to graphic designing by day, and began taking classes at Pratt Institute's School of Continuing Education at night.

The Art of Welding

"I signed up for the same courses every semester, Metalworking I and Metalworking II," she said.

"My teacher understood that you only need to learn what you want to know, so he taught me welding and let me use the facilities - the tanks and torches I was afraid of - in this big, safe room."

"I began drawing larger faces with heavier and heavier steel, and welding steel dogs, sculptures of Gus, my dog [a feisty smooth-haired fox terrier], and Benya, my husband's [a huge black Lab-Great Dane mix]."

Ms. Banks met her future husband, the poet Philip Schultz, in the dog run under her apartment window. They were married in January of 1995 and have a 5-month old son, Eli.

City Liked Her Design

Then, out of the blue, she got a call from the Department of Cultural Affairs about her slides, asking if she'd like to do a proposal for a permanent sculpture in a fairly public space.

It turned out to be the Times Square installation and, again quite serendipitously, she just happened to have the training to tackle such a monumental project. Her proposal was selected.

"I've been truly lucky," she said. "It's quite a jump from my little wire friends to the huge Times Square piece."

Ms. Banks was born in New York City in 1959 and moved to Short Hills, N. J., at age 7. Her father was a manufacturer, her mother a traditional sculptor who worked in stone.

Graphic Design

"The suburbs were dull," she said. "Shopping was the only culture, and I knew at an early age that I wanted to pursue art in some way."

After attending various summer camps and a summer session at the Rhode Island School of Design, she decided against art school in favor of a broader education at Vassar, where she took studio art classes but majored in philosophy.

"Out in the world, it became clear there were very few job openings for a 22-year-old philosopher from New Jersey," she said. "So I decided to exploit my art background."

An unpaid internship with the prominent graphic designer Milton Glaser led to a five-year job with his firm, after which Ms. Banks studied industrial design at the Domus Academy in Milan.

Still Personal

Recognizing that new car or chair styles were not on her creative agenda, she returned to New York to work as a freelancer for businesses and restaurants, drawing and doing her own art at home, and subconsciously preparing herself for her daunting public work.

"Every cliche about the actual installation of 'Faces' is true," she said. "It was thrilling. All the traffic was detoured, and six flatbed trucks and these huge cranes arrived. My heart stopped, watching this tremendous personal statement go up out there - it's such an honor."

"But the Times Square piece is really not so different from my earlier work, just bigger. It's still very personal. My friends' faces are in it, and Phil's, and Gus's and Benya's."

Faces Of The Square

"There's one of me getting ready to go to a party, and one of when I got there and saw the dreaded X, who's also in it. There's even one of how I look when I wake up in the middle of the night - I hope it's not sending anyone into therapy." Ms. Banks hung out in the area for weeks while working on her sculpture, studying the people going to the theater, the actors and waitresses and messengers and tourists and the down-and-out: all the faces of Times Square are in it.

"I wanted a big vocabulary, the range of humanity that passes through," she said. "Some are schematic and some cartoony. For me, it's like having friends in the neighborhood now, and I hope pedestrians will come to think of them that way, too."

What to do for an encore? "I'm a whole different person today," Ms. Banks said. "I'm a mother, and the sculptor who made 'Faces Times Square.' I think I'll take a year off to just experiment and have fun playing with metal. I feel a calmness now it would be nice to explore."

The whistling, stamping enthusiasm at Friday's dress rehearsal for the fourth annual High School Playwrights Festival, together with a plea from the Bay Street Theatre's producer, Murphy Davis, not to stick gum on the seats, gave a hint that it was a student audience. But given the high level of writing, acting, and production, the adult spectators on Saturday were no doubt just as vociferous.

All the plays addressed pretty heavy topics: pregnancy and abortion, physical abuse, family stress and responsibility, the demands of friendship, interracial relationships. It may be a sign of the times, or perhaps that the teenage years are when children are suddenly catapulted into the minefield of adult life.

As Mr. Davis put it, "These plays are from their hearts and guts, and it takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there."

"Violent Mercies"

The lights went up on a simple stage set: red rectangular units of different sizes, which were rearranged for each play by the efficient stage crew. The audience was immediately swept up into the energy of the first play, "Violent Mercies."

Written by Michelle Stachecki of Southampton High School and directed by Jacqui Leader, it was a disturbing and effective demonstration of how domestic violence can be passed from one generation to another.

An angry teenager, played with an alarming, coiled violence by Nick Clapp, is repeating the abuse he suffered from his father by hitting his girlfriend. His sister, played by Amanda Crocker, who was also abused, desperately tries to get him to seek help before it is too late.

Teenage Pregnancy

In "Decisions," written by Melissa Tiska of Bridgehampton High School and directed by Laura Lee Bruce, two girls, acted by Ms. Tiska and LaShanna Hopson (a theater natural), address the problems of teenage pregnancy, unwanted children, and the pros and cons of abortion while waiting for the results of a pregnancy test.

But, as it reads negative, we are left in the dark about what decision the worried girl would ultimately have made.

"Only communicate" seemed to be the message of Pierson High School's "Temporary Reality," written by Jennifer Lazar, acted by Justin Grimbol and Gwen Levinson, and directed by Norman Kline.

It dealt movingly with the problems of friendship and the need to recognize that pain and anguish are part of the human condition.

Sister And Brother

"The Trip," a second play from Southampton High School, was perhaps the best constructed of all, with a tight plot line and snappy action.

Written by Kathryn Murphy and directed by Mindy Washington, it presented a resolution of conflict between a straight-A student, played by Christine Hauck, and her brother, Brian Cancellieri, who is failing his classes as a result of the death of their father.

Among the students, the most popular offering was "Ever Since That Day," written by Raishawn Harris of the Frederick Douglass Academy during an intensive three-day playwriting course held at Boys Harbor - the first time Bay Street has offered that program - and directed by Karole Turner-Stevens.

One of the playwriting program's most gratifying surprises was that some students doing less well academically turned out to be its brightest stars.

The play, involving a mixed-race relationship and dealing with the concept that good friends should understand and support each other even under difficult circumstances, was acted by two consummate hams, William Terry and Ohene Cornelius. The pair, particularly Ohene, would seem to have bigger and brighter lights in their futures.

"Mauled By A Bear"

There was one hilarious black comedy, "Mauled by a Bear," written by Daniel Fokine of Shelter Island High School and directed by Helene Leonard.

To the roars of a raging bear, two campers, a father and son, stagger on stage. The father, played by an adult actor, Tom Gustin, has been mortally wounded but seems to find the situation riotously funny. They are lost, without shelter, food, or water, and the father is of no help to his sanctimonious son, played by Nick Hamblet, who wants to go for help but doesn't know which way to go.

"There's nothing out there," the son complains, "except the remains of Uncle Frankie and the guide." After whining on about his feckless father's shortcomings, the son leaves - and gets eaten by the bear amid plenty of screams. The father collapses. End of play.

I'm not quite sure what the message was here, but it was a barrel of laughs. All six plays, in fact, were good, gripping theater.

Playwriting Course

Mary Spitzer and John Martin Green taught the seven-week program, sponsored by the Bay Street Theatre, that culminated in the weekend's performances.

At the start, she explained, students were given writing assignments concentrating on character development and how to build tension. They were told to concentrate on what they knew and always to keep in mind five key questions - who the characters are, what they want, and where, when, and how they will get it.

In the last two or three weeks of the course, the students, from Bridgehampton, Southampton, Pierson, and Shelter Island High Schools, started to work on their plays. Each cast was restricted to two characters. A panel of judges chose the six finalists whose plays would be produced.

A Gratifying Surprise

One of the program's most gratifying surprises, said Ms. Spitzer, was that some students who weren't doing so well academically turned out to be its brightest stars.

"It's great for them to see that while they may not have succeeded in one area, they can do so in another," she said.

The students were involved in every stage of production: acting, lighting, costuming, stage management, scene shifting, even ticket sales.

In addition to the local schools, Bay Street invited the Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, an alternative school within the New York City public school system (recently featured on "60 Minutes"), to take part in the experimental crash course at Boys Harbor.

One Day To Write A Play

Ten students and a teacher from the academy attended the intensive program, and Raishawn Harris's "Ever Since That Day" was ultimately chosen for performance.

The intensity and concentration of the workshop was inspiring, said Ms. Spitzer. The students had only one day to write their plays, and on that day "there was an intense silence," she said. "The only sound was that of pen on paper."

The Playwrights Festival is a fine example of interaction between schools and community groups.