125 Years Ago 1900
From The East Hampton Star, February 2
The New York and New Jersey Telephone Company has given out the contracts for building an entirely new trunk line through the middle of Long Island from Brooklyn through Riverhead. The line connecting Greenport and Riverhead heretofore has been by means of the line along the south side of the island. The new line will give a direct and greatly improved service to the villages through the middle of the island all the way from Brooklyn and Greenport. The improvements contemplated will cost over $300,000. The reduction in rates and great increase in subscribers has rendered necessary greatly enlarged facilities.
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East Hampton offers for next summer seventy-five cottages to rent, an increase from ten to fifteen over last summer’s list. The houses are all comfortable and conveniently built, many of them the homesteads of East Hampton’s old families. The cottages offered for rent are to be found in any part of the village, and at prices ranging from $200 to $2,500. Within the past year or two many of the cottages have been furnished with modern plumbing, including heating systems, baths, Waring drainage, and what is more important, the most excellent water works from wells ninety feet deep.
100 Years Ago 1925
From The East Hampton Star, January 30
The famous old hostelry, which had been in the Osborne family since 1686, prior to its recent sale to the Hamptons Hotel Corporation, is undergoing extensive alterations. Both buildings have been gutted and the interiors remodeled. Dormer windows have been added in the old part and annex, allowing use of the third floors. Bathrooms have been added until there is a bathroom between every two rooms, making in all twenty rooms with connecting baths.
The ground floor is being remodeled to provide for a comfortable lobby and a large fireplace. The dining room has been enlarged and the kitchen remodeled. There will be a telephone in every room.
An interesting bit of news, in connection with the Osborne House, is that when it is opened in March it will be under a new name, which has not been decided upon, although the owners have several in mind.
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A rather peculiar accident happened at the William Hand home on Newtown lane, Sunday afternoon, when Mr. and Mrs. Hand’s younger daughter, Ruth, suffered a broken leg when the garage door toppled over onto her. The peculiar part of it was that a pail of eggs which the child had just collected checked the weight of the door somewhat but not an egg in the pail was broken.
75 Years Ago 1950
From The East Hampton Star, February 2
In accordance with a directive from the New York State Education Department at Albany, the Southampton Hospital School of Nursing will be discontinued on March 1st and the 58 students transferred to a School of Nursing of one or more of the large city hospitals, thus giving them the benefit of a more comprehensive teaching course and a great deal more clinical experience than can be obtained in a small hospital.
The local School of Nursing was founded in 1924 in order to give young women in the Hamptons an opportunity to receive a nursing education near their homes and to furnish nurses for the Southampton Hospital.
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On Friday the East Hampton basketball team again suffered defeat, this time at the hands of one of the leading teams in the league, the County Seaters, with the score Riverhead 48, East Hampton 29.
At the opening of the game the team showed up very well and it looked to the spectator as though East Hampton might have a chance, but by the end of the first quarter the Bonackers were trailing by 5 points, a lead which they were unable to overcome during the remaining periods. The second quarter started off with a bang, but slowed to a foul-shooting contest, with East Hampton adding only 5 points to Riverhead’s 11. The third quarter was also slow, with Riverhead ploughing ahead to a 29-17 lead.
In the final quarter Eddie Cangiolosi, playing for the first time since his trip to the hospital, helped to bolster East Hampton’s dwindling hopes, but although he and his teammates “put on the steam” they were still trailing by 19 points at the final whistle.
50 Years Ago 1975
From The East Hampton Star, January 30
By April or May the State expects to be “firmly involved” in the purchase of 1,200 acres of dunes, salt marshes, and roughly two miles of unspoiled oceanfront at Napeague, and by summer could conceivably open the land to the public as a park, according to Charles Breuel, a deputy commissioner of the State Parks and Recreation Department.
Mr. Breuel, who is change of the planning and resources development for the Department, indicated from Albany, however, that the State had not yet formally applied for the matching Federal funds that would make the purchase possible. He said application to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Outdoor Recreation would be made in about a month.
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A developer who says he only wants to make the Fort Pond Bay area a “beautiful part of Montauk” is elaborating his plans for “Port Royal,” a tourist complex whose “motif” will be “pirates and buccaneers,” despite what he calls “harassment” by “fanatics” who “just want to stop the whole world.”
Roy Norman, the owner of 12 acres south of the Bay, said Tuesday that he was almost ready to show the Town Planning Board his plans for 80 more motel units; that in six or seven months he will be ready to build a commercial dock; and that he had been negotiating for weeks with a group of entrepreneurs who want to make the Bay a deep-water port for cruise ships.
25 Years Ago 2000
From The East Hampton Star, February 3
United States Commerce Secretary William Daley declared Long Island Sound a Federal disaster area last week in the wake of a lobster die-off that began late last summer. The announcement opens the door to the possibility of Federal relief for lobstermen.
The decline has brought the $100-million-a-year Long Island lobster industry to its knees and has left lobstermen from Glen Cove to Montauk scrambling to save their livelihoods.
Though the impact has been greatest on the North Shore, John German, president of the Long Island Sound Lobstermen’s Association, said yesterday that some East End lobstermen, particularly those in Montauk, have also reported declining catches.
“They’ve been having a problem with shell rot out there,” said Mr. German. Lobsters with shell rot yield less at markets and are often rejected outright.
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Development, clean water, pine barrens, the bays, methyl tertiary butyl ether, pesticides, Jet Skis, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Plum Island were among the items discussed — with great intensity — at a public meeting on East End environmental concerns for the year 2000 held last week by the state legislators who represent the East End.
“The East End is clearly at a critical point,” said Ed Porco, vice president of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society and a board member of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, as the meeting started.
