Relay: A Hyper-Local Perspective

Whenever I call my mom at our home in Portland, Ore., she always gives me the latest news happening on our block, which for the last several years has included a controversy after a permanent unisex bathroom (the cleverly designed “Portland Loo”) was installed in the neighboring public square. The metal stall has drawn drug addicts and campers at night. The Loo advocates argued that the city needed to install a public restroom because so many visitors come to the park — which is really just a city block filled with a grassy patch and a chlorinated fountain that attracts a crowd of toddler-size bathers on hot summer days. To try and appease the anti-Loo residents, a lock system was put in place for after-dark hours. This didn’t stop the irate neighbors though from complaining and trying to get the bathroom dismantled. The Loo is still there.

Much of my love for Portland lies in these hyper-local gripes, issues that only people living in the surrounding area would even notice. I hardly think the parents and children who frequent the fountain realize a whole uproar has been caused by the bathroom they, probably thankfully, stand in line to use throughout the summer months.

Before coming to East Hampton as a seasonal reporter, I had not spent time on the East End other than a few weekends with my parents in Montauk, which included enjoying the beach, shopping, and eating in other hamlets. I picked up The Star before Memorial Day this year and read through the Letters to the Editor section. It is my favorite part of the newspaper because the letters often entail the kind of tales, objections, and applause that only come from attentive residents in a small town.

One I remember in particular rehashed a conversation the writer had with a woman standing in a designated nonsmoking area by the train station. She asked the woman why she was smoking, and she replied, “Because I want to.” The letter writer then wrote, “Sums up the summer attitude neatly, no?” I found it a precise illustration of the difference between locals and out-of-towners.

After only two months here, it is obvious how much the locals care about the East End. I’ve seen uproars around overwhelming partying in Montauk and the withdrawal of Uber, among other smaller, more personal issues that my sources have been just as passionate to expound upon. These are the types of stories that make news many places, including metropolises like New York City. But I feel there’s a greater sense of importance here somehow, a need to protect something precious that is in danger of destruction or change by outsiders, which is also a perceived threat in Portland as more people find out about its attractions and flock there.

One reason I became a journalist was to understand from the inside communities and the people who inhabit them. Each day, I see more through the eyes of locals than when I first arrived. I’ve started to understand problems, like share houses, that I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. My time here has turned me into a local, however brief my stay, and whenever I return next I will see the East End for the people who live here and the place they’re constantly striving to make better.

Now when I call my mom, I’m the one telling her about the neighborhood gripes. I talk about the people who disagree with what I write, and how I’ve learned that they usually have a point. I talk about the people who stop by the office grumbling about or praising an article. And much of my love for the East End has blossomed from these experiences. Affection for a city or town, like Portland and the South Fork, is revealed through the people who persevere to put pressure on officials or show up at board meetings to voice their concerns.

Had I not called this place home for the past two months, I probably would have never realized the kind of pains and efforts locals go through to defend their home. I would have been like those people obliviously standing in line for the Loo in Portland, unaware that the luxury they enjoy is a result from many hard-fought compromises by the community.

Britta Lokting, a seasonal reporter at The Star, will be moving on to report on a different community after Labor Day.