The public has been invited to a groundbreaking ceremony for the Montauk Playhouse Community Center’s new aquatic center on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.
Members of the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation’s board updated the East Hampton Town Board last month, presenting detailed plans for the first-floor center that is to feature two swimming pools. Between a $5 million commitment from the town, private donations, money raised by the foundation, and ongoing fund-raising, the hamlet’s residents will realize the dream of a pool to teach swim instruction and water safety, Sarah Iudicone, the foundation board’s president, told the town board last month.
More than 2,600 people had made donations as of last month, not including some 4,000 who attended more than 450 fund-raising events. Gifts have ranged from $5 to $1 million, the latter given by an anonymous donor in January 2020.
Last Thursday, the town board passed a resolution to accept the donation of plans for the aquatic center. Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez read the resolution in its entirety. “Carl Fisher started out with a clear vision in 1925 when he bought the Montauk peninsula to turn Montauk into the ‘Miami Beach of the North,’ constructing buildings, homes, a yacht club, the Montauk Manor, and a glass-roof 12-court tennis arena, the largest indoor tennis complex in the country at the time, known today as the Montauk Playhouse Community Center,” she read.
In 1999, after a developer’s plans for the structure were opposed by the community, the property was donated to the town and the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation was formed to help the town restore and convert the building into a community center, rescuing it from demolition. Restoration commenced in 2003, and three years later the eastern half of the building was reopened as a community center with day care programs, a fitness center, a senior citizens nutrition program, a town clerk annex, and recreational programs.
Having raised the needed money, the foundation “is now prepared to continue the rebirth of this landmark building into a community resource that welcomes and serves all by donating the architectural and engineering plans developed by Island Structures Engineering P.C. for the entire unfinished western half of the Playhouse building,” Ms. Burke-Gonzalez read. The value of the donated plans is just over $1.15 million, she said.
A second-story multipurpose space will not be completed at this time, but fund-raising for its construction is ongoing.
Also at last Thursday’s meeting, another town-owned historic building in the easternmost hamlet had the board’s attention in the form of a resolution in support of the Montauk Historical Society’s planned application to nominate Second House for placement on the National and New York State Historic Places Registers. The town “is fully supportive of placing this irreplaceable piece of local, regional, and national history into the Historic Places Registers,” the resolution reads.
