125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, August 11
East Hampton will commemorate its 250th anniversary. The preliminary arrangements for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the settlement of this town are now well under way, and it is safe to say that August 24 next will be a day long to be remembered.
The committee of arrangements has been active from the moment it was appointed, and much has already been accomplished toward making the celebrations a great event, and after the working committees meet on Saturday afternoon, everything will be well organized for the carrying out of the plan laid out by the original committee.
As the time is so short the flagpole committee concluded not to wait until the meeting tomorrow before acting, but has been securing estimates from different parts of the country, and it is quite likely that an order will be for a pole 150 feet high within a few days.
—
Many people hereabouts, summer residents and natives, are asking: When is this section going to receive some benefit from the bicycle license law? We understand that the plan of Commissioner Reiman is to build paths on the main highways running from the western to the eastern sections of his district, and that he has already received an appropriations of over $500 to begin the construction of a path from Shinnecock to Bridgehampton, thence to Sag Harbor. Of course it is proper to provide paths along the main lines before laying out money within villages where in most cases there are already paths of some kind.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, August 8
The historical pageant to celebrate East Hampton’s 275th anniversary took place after two or three days of unnaturally sultry weather, and a storm of Thursday evening. Last Friday dawned a glorious sunny day, with a cool breeze blowing. Our guests saw East Hampton in a smiling mood, at her loveliest.
On arrival, they were presented by the Lions’ club with a general information card, about our churches, schools, and so forth. Then came a visit to the Academy and its exhibit of antiques, which by general request has been kept open a second week.
The whole day went off beautifully. Every committee, every participant, may well be pleased and proud. Only one small disappointment marred the day — the grandstand, intended to provide the best seats of all, did not live up to specifications. When this was realized, however, the committee made haste to find extra chairs, and the audience was very good-natured about it. Altogether, it was a great success, a happy day, something to live in memory always, and to tell the next generation.
One thing, however, was left out at the very end — the grand finale should have been three rousing, standing cheers for Mr. E.T. Dayton, the untiring, tactful, all-round splendid chairman who kept all the lesser committees going.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, August 11
A Southampton policeman, Patrolman Harold Winters, 44, was shot to death last Friday night in the home of Mrs. Frank Zieman of 65 Pulaski Street in Southampton.
The murderer, Mrs. Zieman told police, was her recently divorced husband, Frank Zieman, 45, of Islip Terrace, who drove to Bridgehampton after the murder and shot and killed himself with a .33 caliber rifle. His body was found in his car at the beach early Saturday morning.
According to police reports, Winters, also recently divorced, had stopped at Mrs. Zieman’s about 10 p.m. for a cup of coffee. He was shot through the head by Zieman when standing with his arms around Zieman’s ex-wife.
—
Another step towards nation-wide enjoyment of television programs was taken recently with the opening of a new coaxial telephone cable connecting Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The new Bell System route, now handling long distance telephone calls, will also be available for television in January, linking the East Coast and Mid-West video networks which have hitherto functioned separately.
It is expected that the Presidential inauguration in Washington on January 20 will be one of the first major events to be televised simultaneously to television audiences from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, August 8
The State Labor Department’s safety division, inspecting East Hampton Village’s “places of public assembly” for the first time in 12 years, has decreed that Arnold Hoffmann Jr.’s Screen Print Workshop may not be in the same building as the Old Post Office Cinema, that the Cinema’s ceiling is too low, and that Moon, a discotheque, should have more exits, among other things.
Flammable liquids, for example, are not allowed in theater buildings. “I understand that,” said Mr. Hoffmann, who uses them in his silkscreening process. “It’s one of those things, I just wish I had known earlier on.”
—
“A report of nude persons” on Main Street in Amagansett was investigated at 3 a.m. Saturday by East Hampton Patrolman Van Quick, Town Police reported this week. Patrolman Quick, police said, “observed several nudes jump in a car and drive west so he chased and stopped the car.” Six persons were inside it, and the patrolman arrested them all on charges of disorderly conduct.
—
Michael and Elizabeth Bonaventure of Dix Hills tripped gaily along the beach at Two Mile Hollow, East Hampton, little knowing the grim message they were about to receive. Looming ahead on the strand was an empty Scotch bottle, a dead soldier killed by some heedless adult.
Idly, they picked it up. There was . . . yes, there was . . . a message within, scrawled in pencil upon brown paper burnt around the edges:
“To whom it may concern, help! We are stranded on an island off Montauk Point. Please notify the Coast Guard or call me collect! 20 miles southeast of Montauk Point.” They called collect; there was no answer.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, August 12
Sag Harbor, where there are already two Superfund hazardous waste sites, has learned that it is home to yet a third: the property under the big blue gas ball at Bridge Street and Long Island Avenue.
The owner of the lot, KeySpan Energy, announced this week that it had signed an order of consent with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which has listed the property as a state Superfund site, to investigate the extent of the pollution and clean it up.
KeySpan was formed and took over the property when the Long Island Lighting Company merged its gas operations with Brooklyn Union a year ago. According to Andrea Staub, a KeySpan spokeswoman, the property was the site of a gas manufacturing plant from 1859 until 1927.
—
Julie Marcley of the Montauk Litter Task Force reported this week that a plot to put “butt kits” outside businesses for extinguished cigarettes had not succeeded. “The project failed,” she said Monday.
Unfortunately, visitors were using the small, sand-filled cans to throw away dirty diapers, bottles, candy wrappers, and other garbage, something the Task Force and the East Hampton Town Parks Department had never anticipated.
