In 1976, when this image was snapped, Sag Harbor was still down at its heels, a bedraggled former industrial village with a whiff of booze and disrepute that lingered like stale beer. Many of the quaint historical houses on its leafy streets were cloaked behind vinyl siding, and most of the inhabitants were working or lower-to-mid middle class.
Notice how everyone and their mother was wearing stripes in that bicentennial summer? Striped shirts, striped tube socks, side-striped sweatsuits — stripes were “bichen” that year, when the Stars and Stripes flew on every flagpole in celebration of America’s birthday, kids wore felt tricorn hats to the beach, and WLNG radio broadcast live updates from the harpoon contest on the Long Wharf.
The Old Whaler’s Fastival was a rather more bumptious and gung-ho affair than the the HarborFests and HarborFrosts of today. Its organizers actually had to cancel it in 1971 due to “noise, rowdiness, and honky-tonkism,” The Star reported, but it was brought back with bells on for the bicentennial. Teams from Norway and Denmark came to compete in the whaleboat races, a 42-foot-long imitation whale was paraded down Main Street, there were water-skiing presentations offshore and Jacques Cousteau movies at the cinema.
The tug-of-war boys, here, didn’t come to play; they were really putting their back into it. This is the sandy strip beside the windmill, at the foot of Sag Harbor’s Long Wharf. It’s still there, 48 years later, but the wharf itself certainly looks different, doesn’t it? No mega-yachts in sight, no landscaping, no mood lighting. Would you go back and pull, if you could? We sure would. Heave, ho!