Villages

Friends and community members lined the sides of Springs-Fireplace Road last week to greet Kayla Kearney and her family as they made their way home from the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey. The last eight months have been filled with surgeries, treatments, and physical therapy for Ms. Kearney, who in January was diagnosed with a type of neuroendocrine tumor that attaches to the blood vessels.

If 2023 was the year of the shark on the South Fork, with multiple sightings leading to frequent temporary beach closings, 2024 seems to be the year of the whale. Last week, for the first time ever, “we had to pull people out of the water to let a whale pass. It was only 20 feet offshore,” said Drew Smith, the head lifeguard for East Hampton Village.

The first $15,000 scholarship from East Hampton Village’s new paramedic scholarship program has been awarded to Ariel Engebretson, an emergency medical technician with the village for four years who recently started the Stony Brook University paramedic certificate program.

In March, a dead bald eagle was found below a nest in Montauk County Park, a victim of rodenticide. Another nest at the edge of Georgica Pond in East Hampton was lost when the pitch pine it was built in was removed because it had been killed by a southern pine beetle infestation.

Back to the Bays is spearheading a project to build an oyster reef in Sag Harbor, which is bringing together local government and private citizens, as well as children.

“This has been a longtime problem on the South Fork,” Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in reference to a universal truth about Long Island: that gas prices generally get higher the farther east you go. The change in gas prices between UpIsland and the South Fork can be startling, and the change from just Southampton to Montauk even more so.

When Ken Lustbader and Jay Kidd first saw Casey, a female husky mix with special needs, at the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons adoption center 10 years ago, they were struck by her “sweet energy and intrinsic kindness.” Mr. Lustbader remembers Mr. Kidd saying, “that’s the dog we need.”

What appeared at first to be a quirky but heartwarming story about a friendly mute swan that had taken to roaming the streets of Sag Harbor, often stopping traffic and interacting with people, ended tragically just a few weeks after the bird had become a summertime character on the north end of Main Street.

A hundred years ago, a car came barreling onto a Maidstone Club green, to the astonishment of golfers and a caddy, who had to scramble to avoid being hit. And more adventures from the pages of The Star of yore.

On Sept. 6, 1898, Col. Theodore Roosevelt paid a visit to the Montauk Lighthouse, signing this guestbook owned by Capt. J.G. Scott, the Lighthouse keeper.

The trails are mapped today, but when two former college classmates began their horseback rides on them decades ago, without maps or smartphones to guide them, the goal was to find a path that stretched through the woods and reached the edge of the ocean. With an expanded group of women, they are still exploring the trails today.

The "cup count," now a popular community attraction at the Monogram Shop in East Hampton, has accurately predicted four out of five winners of presidential races since its inception in 2004.

From an epic 1920s dog show to the dawn of the lobster pirate at the end of the 1940s, it happened here.

This card from the photographer Kathryn McLaughlin Abbe to Enez Whipple, the Guild Hall director at the time, is from the Local Artist Research Archive.

On Friday, in a unanimous decision, the village board terminated two easements and renegotiated the use of the Osborn-Jackson House on Main Street. It will no longer have to be a museum.

After heavy rain and flash flooding on Sunday, Concerned Citizens of Montauk’s weekly tests of water samples collected at sites in Montauk, Napeague, Amagansett, Springs, and East Hampton “revealed through-the-roof dangerous bacteria levels,” at all but two spots, including test spots on the ocean.

Tensions ran high on Monday at East Hampton Town Hall, where the Springs Park Committee met to go over plans for the future of the park.

Working to rekindle a sense of community among people with a deep history here, an old group with a new name — the Sons and Daughters of East Hampton — got together this week at the East Hampton Historical Farm Museum to reminisce and reconnect.

The Fire Department-sponsored fireworks show scheduled for Saturday night at East Hampton Village's Main Beach has been canceled, with a potential new date to be announced in the next two weeks. Main Beach has also been closed to swimming for the time being.

The Montauk Historical Society, Eastville Community Historical Society, and the Southampton African American Museum have come together to organize Amistad Week, a series of educational and commemorative events beginning next Thursday, centered around the 128-foot schooner Amistad, a replica of a vessel that held an infamous place in world history.

Traffic was in the sights of the Sag Harbor Village Board Tuesday night, as members rejected two proposals to stem the incessant flow and issued a request for more, hoping to bring in some new engineering voices.

While an earlier meeting in July addressed residents’ most immediate concern — frequent and long-lasting electrical outages at the East Hampton Village Manufactured Home Community — a follow-up meeting last week addressed issues with septic tanks, roads, and general safety, in addition to the electrical issues.

The Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons will host its annual Bow Wow Meow Ball on Saturday to commemorate its 50th anniversary with a night of cocktails, dinner, and dancing the proceeds of which support ARF’s work to help animals in need.

A tale of two artists: This Star photo by Helen Harrison shows the 8-foot-by-20-foot mural Jimmy Ernst painted on David Shaw’s Amagansett house.

In June, when Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Jerry Garguilo ordered the dissolution of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, the only question left unanswered was what would happen with the nearly $400,000 in the association’s bank account.

Strikes hit the Fahys Watchcase Factory in Sag Harbor 100 years ago and the A&P here 50 years ago. Plus a hair-raising airplane crash over North Haven.

With a recent surge in demand from hospitals, the New York Blood Center is in urgent need of type O+ and O- donors. The organization is seeing the lowest levels of donated blood since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, according to a release.

A Sag Harbor woman took down two trees and is now facing two charges: One for removing a tree of over 12 inches in diameter without a permit, and one for removing a tree that was on village property.

The Flying Point Foundation for Autism has two goals in announcing its new Crush It! campaign: challenge people to reach personal health goals while raising money for the organization.

In collaboration with OLA of Eastern Long Island, three local Latino youths have begun building a professional network and affinity group for their peers. The ambitious project will kick off on Saturday night at LTV Studios in Wainscott.