125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, April 1
The projectoscope entertainment in Clinton Hall on Friday evening last, under the management of Byram & Sellons, of Sag Harbor, drew out the largest house of the past year. The moving pictures delighted everybody, as did the bell ringing performance. The balance of the entertainment served to amuse the large number of children present.
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Rev. J.D. Stokes preached an exceedingly interesting sermon upon the subject of Cuba and the present relations between the United States and Spain. He cautioned the people to be patient and trust the administration to carry the country safely and honorably through the trouble.
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Everybody seems to think that the bicycle path as being constructed is an improvement to the street. The great objection to the lamps and posts being set on the outside of the path seems to have melted away now that many of the posts and lamps have been so placed.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, March 30
To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his first appearance on the stage at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, on March 22, 1873, a testimonial dinner was given to John Drew at the Biltmore hotel Sunday night. About 500 attended, the bar, the bench and business being represented, as well as the theatrical profession. Charles Dana Gibson presided.
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Griffing Collins, son of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Collins, had the honor of being the first patient operated on at the East Hampton Emergency Hospital, North Main street, which has recently been publicly opened. On Monday Dr. David Edwards operated on four children at the Emergency Hospital for tonsils and adenoids. Each operation is reported to be successful. Dr. Hugh Halsey of Southampton gave the anesthetic, and Mrs. Reiser, district nurse, and Mrs. Verfenstein, welfare worker, gave their services as nurses. Mrs. B.M. Osborne also volunteered her services and was in attendance during the operations.
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The Star is informed by a member of the building committee of the new Maidstone Club that the contract has been given to Rogers & Blydenburgh of Babylon, builders of the old clubhouse, who were the lowest bidder in the competition.
Frank B. Smith, local building contractor, has been given the contract for a tennis house, which is to be erected on the side of the old clubhouse, which was destroyed by fire last summer.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, April 1
Salary increases for a number of employees of the Suffolk Mosquito Extermination Commission, the County Auditor’s office and other departments of the county government were voted Monday by the board of supervisors. Most increases were effective April 1 and went to county workers who hold exempt positions under civil service and do not receive annual increments. In several instances, changes in grade were ordered.
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About 90 representatives of local businesses and professions met at the East Hampton Village Office Monday evening and favored formation of a chamber of commerce. A follow-up meeting to discuss a constitution, bylaws and objectives and elect a board of directors was set for 8:00 o’clock next Monday evening, April 5, at the Village Office.
Acting as temporary chairman Monday night, Edward F. Cook explained that the meeting has been called to determine whether there was sufficient interest to organize some sort of local business men’s group. A small group, interested in such a project, had secured information from the national Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C., and sent out 100 cards notifying business men of the meeting.
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On Tuesday evening, March 30th, St. Philomena’s Catholic Church held a parish party to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the town of East Hampton. The affair was well attended by the parishioners and friends of the parish. The music was furnished by Howard Hovey and his orchestra. Several selections were sung by the junior and senior choirs of St. Philomena’s Church.
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, March 29
State Assembly Speaker Perry B. Duryea Jr. of Montauk announced this week that the proposed amendment to the State Constitution that would eliminate the population requirements standing between the five East End towns and any Legislative consideration of a new “Peconic” County had been reported favorably out of the Assembly judiciary committee and placed on the Assembly calendar.
Despite published reports to the contrary, in which Mr. Duryea was stated to be “taking his first public stand against” the proposed Constitutional amendment, he told the Star yesterday that within the month he had renewed the pledge he made last year, to give his “total effort to have the Constitutional amendment passed this year in the Assembly.”
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Ten lovers of acting, some of whom would have appeared in the ill-fated East Hampton production of “Tobacco Road” (postponed), have formed a dramatic group in Montauk. Anyone interested has been asked to call Mrs. Ann Burruscano, of Foxboro Road.
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An executive from a gas company encountered a biologist from Southampton College last Wednesday night for a diffuse, two-hour discussion of offshore oil drilling. Both spoke as conservationists and both agreed that oil was now perforce only a temporary source of energy.
But the first, Eugene H. Luntey, executive vice president of the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, said that not to drill beneath the Atlantic would be “sheer national suicide,” while his adversary, Dr. William T. Burke, who is also the Democratic candidate for East Hampton Town Supervisor, suggested that there was enough oil available elsewhere to last half a century — enough time to develop an alternate source such as fusion reactors.
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, April 2
A $15 million bicycle and jogging “byway” that would stretch the length of both forks of Long Island is well on the way to reality, according to Representative Michael P. Forbes.
On the South Fork, the road would extend an already-funded, though as yet unbuilt, 15-mile path from Southampton to Amagansett.
The bike route is part of an ambitious plan to bring $28 million worth of highway improvements to the East End.
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Montauk’s most famous beacon of light is undergoing a facelift — the first in its 200-year history.
Last spring the Montauk Point Lighthouse Museum Committee of the Montauk Historical Society commissioned the International Chimney Corporation, which is based in Buffalo, to examine the aging facade of the building, which rises 110 feet on the eastern tip of Long Island.
Based on the firm’s findings, which included an audio and visual presentation that showed rust, gaps, crumbling masonry, loose bricks, cracked mortar, weather-induced bulging, and the mold and mildew that Montauk is famous for, the company was hired to begin a restoration.
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Bella Abzug, Congresswoman, feminist, environmentalist, lawyer, part-time resident of Noyac, and outspoken activist for any number of left-wing causes, died on Tuesday at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan.
She died at the age of 77 of complications following heart surgery, but had been in poor health for some time.
A leader of the feminist and antiwar movements, she represented Manhattan’s Upper West Side in Congress for three terms, beginning in 1970.