125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, June 2
In some portions of the town there seems to be no place to ride wheels except on the sidewalks, but on Main street, from Buells lane to the north end windmill and on Newtown lane, where there are cycle paths, no excuse can be found for the wholesale riding on sidewalks that is now a vogue. When a wheelman leaves a rideable bicycle path to ride on the sidewalk he becomes a law breaker and forfeits his rights upon the highways while so doing.
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Straw hats are seen on many heads.
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The morning mail train from New York has thus far this season proved to be but a slight improvement over the noon mail. The train did not reach here yesterday until about eleven o’clock.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, May 30
The story of a double drowning and a frantic rescue attempt by a lone man in a rowboat was brought to light at Orient Point Sunday. The drowned men are John Wallwork, thirty, of Westerly, R.I., assistant keeper of the Orient Point Light in Plum Gut, and Walter Gill, a mechanic attached to the lighthouse board and living in Staten Island. The man who attempted the rescue was Capt. Manuel Freitas, keeper of the light.
Wallwork put out from the light Friday afternoon in a small boat to go ashore for mail and groceries. Plum Gut is a treacherous body of extremely rough water, but it was calmer than usual at the beginning of the trip. On the mainland Wallwork met Gill, who told him he had been assigned to repair an engine in the light.
The return trip of the two was watched by Captain Freitas with glasses from the top of the light tower. When he saw that the boat had become unmanageable, he went to the foot of the tower and launched another rowboat. Before he reached the other craft it overturned and sank.
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Discouraged at the return of hundreds of starlings after attempts to rid the town of the birds had failed, H.W. Irving has asked the Town Council of West Hartford, Conn., to install a huge electric siren in the trees on his property to frighten his winged tormentors away.
Town Manager Benjamin Miller recalled that two years ago he headed a posse of a dozen men armed with shotguns and about 1,000 starlings were slain. But still the birds come in increasing numbers each year. They do great damage by eating young, green crops.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, June 2
Harold Seifried, 43, of Southampton, a lineman employed by the New York Telephone Company, was electrocuted Tuesday while at work atop a pole in Mashashimuet Park, Sag Harbor. Sixtus Sandula, of North Sea, another lineman, was working on another pole when Seifried fell to the ground after he came into contact with a telephone wire that had been accidentally charged with electricity.
Seifried was given artificial respiration but failed to revive. He died at the Southampton Hospital at 10:40 a.m., about an hour after the accident.
He had been with the company for twenty years, and was married and the father of five children.
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Maurice Lester, miller at the Old Hook Mill owned by the Village of East Hampton, is on the job as usual but the damage done by a windstorm on May 20 has not yet been repaired. One of the stocks which hold the windmill arms broke, letting two of the arms fall on the ground. This stock should be made of locust. The last one, which broke, was of fir — a soft wood. Local lumbermen tell Mayor Judson Banister that there is no possibility of getting a locust tree that would cut 40 feet long and 8 by 10 inches in thickness. There is no telling when the white sails of the Old Hook Mill will revolve in the breeze again. One of East Hampton’s most picturesque spots is, temporarily, out of the running.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, May 30
Eastern Long Island’s advertising campaign to persuade New Yorkers and western Long Islanders to sample this area’s recreational charms seem to be working, if Memorial Day weekend was an example of what’s to come.
There was, however, an ominous note in Montauk. By mid-afternoon Monday the four Route 27 gasoline service stations there had run out of gas. Also, though he didn’t run out over the weekend, Frank Saskas of Frank’s Service Station in Springs said that he would close Tuesday until Mobil delivered his June allotment on Saturday.
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The East Hampton Town Police Department had a rather busy Memorial Day weekend, making a total of 22 arrests, 18 of them alleging violations of the Town’s ordinance prohibiting camping under most circumstances. Other weekend statistics: 12 accidents, six ambulance calls, 34 parking summonses, and 14 traffic tickets.
At about 7:30 p.m. last Saturday, Town Police were notified by the Montauk Air Force Station’s security guard that a girl had been ejected from the N.C.O. Club on the Base, and had fled on a stolen bicycle.
Police said that the girl struck with the bicycle a 1967 Chevrolet sedan owned by James Cantaregello near the entrance to the Station and that when arrested by Patrolman Kenneth Neuhaus she was running west on Route 27 in the nude.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, June 3
A party in Sagaponack on Saturday night, hosted by a Manhattan couple renting a house for the summer, was deflated in alarming fashion just before 10:30 as a second-story outdoor deck collapsed, injuring an estimated 12 people.
“It sounded like a bomb exploded,” said Pamela Allardice, a neighbor. It looked like a “disaster area,” she added. “Mayhem — people screaming, crying, some were sitting on the side of the road.”
Police and two ambulances from the Bridgehampton Fire Department rushed to the scene at 359 Parsonage Lane. Two more ambulances from Sag Harbor followed.
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Hoping to avoid a repeat of the summer of 1997, which saw a monthly parade of exhausted and exasperated residents coming before it to complain about loud noise and rowdy behavior spilling out of nightclubs and bars, the Sag Harbor Village Board promised a swift and firm crackdown Tuesday.
The latest object of the village’s wrath is Sugar Reef, a club that occupies the former Boom Bistro space on Water Street and opened for the Memorial Day weekend.
“As of last weekend, our ordinance doesn’t mean a thing,” said Pam Kern, a neighbor, who complained that she had been kept awake for much of it. She was referring to a series of code changes the board adopted in late 1997 to limit noise and live music and tighten parking restrictions.
Ms. Kern said the club had posted a listing of upcoming live shows, including several “arena” acts, despite restrictions against them. “10,000 Maniacs are going to be there,” she said of a popular rock band, “as will be the 10,000 maniacs who will be there to watch.”
