Villages

Dustin Reynolds has traversed much of the world alone in his 1983 Bristol 35.5c sailboat and arrived in Montauk for the first time on Friday. To say he has made the journey single-handedly is at once literal and figurative. Mr. Reynolds lost his left arm and his left foot in a 2008 motorcycle accident, caused by a drunken driver, that nearly claimed his life.

In another year, the lawn of the Lamb Building in Amagansett would have been filled with East Hampton Town residents enjoying free clams on the half shell and clam chowder on Sunday, courtesy of the town trustees. But though the 30th Largest Clam Contest could not happen in its typical form this year, the trustees found a creative solution for the annual celebration of the town's maritime heritage and informal seminar on that body's role in town government.

Following the Sept. 15 elections for mayor and two seats on the East Hampton Village Board, Mayor Jerry Larsen and his NewTown Party running mates Chris Minardi and Sandra Melendez, the newly-elected trustees, were sworn in at the village board meeting on Friday.

East Enders gathered this weekend to remember and celebrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the trailblazing United States Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon, who died on Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer at the age of 87.

A recent round of water quality testing in Montauk shows that harmful algal blooms in Fort Pond and Big Reed Pond are dissipating while many other water bodies in Montauk, East Hampton, Springs, and Amagansett have low bacteria counts.

What happened when Covid turned summer frosty? What did people do instead? The pandemic kept many people apart, but it also brought some back together. Some pulled up stakes, some finally put down new roots, and some found the resolve to tackle the next stage of life.

As the humid heat of summer finally starts to give way to crisp autumn mornings, the health care community in general starts to think ahead to the coming winter months when respiratory viruses begin to run amok. 

The Peconic Land Trust has acquired a 1.4-acre commercially developed property on Georgica Pond in Wainscott and plans to restore it to its natural state.

Making his first bid for elective office in East Hampton Village, Jerry Larsen, the village's former police chief, was the high vote-getter in the three-person race for mayor on Tuesday, winning in a landslide against Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor, who has been a member of the village board since 2000, and Arthur Graham, a trustee since 2017. 

The East Hampton Housing Authority held a lottery on Friday to help determine who will be the first residents of a 37-unit affordable housing complex under construction at 531 Montauk Highway in Amagansett. There were 543 applicants.

The East Hampton Town Trustees will hold their 30th annual Largest Clam Contest on Sunday, a scaled-back, virtual event in light of the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” a one-day exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, will be at the East Hampton Historical Society’s Clinton Academy museum on Saturday.

A restoration and preservation project taking place at Third House at Montauk County Park got a financial boost this week from the Suffolk County Legislature, which approved $500,000 in bond money to help usher the project to completion.

"It was too nice of a day, and too good of a band," Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy said of the WLNG-sponsored event on Saturday that was to feature sets by the HooDoo Loungers and Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks. At one point Sag Harbor police counted 175 people in attendance, more than triple the number allowed at outdoor gatherings under an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

With hours to go before the polls close, Jerry Larsen, a candidate for East Hampton Village mayor in Tuesday's election, has signaled that he intends to contest the results of the election and ask that all ballots, voting machines, and objections to ballots be impounded.

I hope that if any of you know anyone who may be struggling with addiction during the pandemic, you might find a quiet moment to offer encouragement, to ask if there's anything you can do to help. Sometimes that's all it takes to get someone headed in the right direction.

Padma Borrego and her son, Mateo, started a new life in California in 2018 after leaving the East End, where Ms. Borrego had been a yoga teacher and bodywork practitioner and Mateo was a student at the Hayground School. Just as they were getting on their feet in a new home, life threw a wrench in their plans in the form of a raging wildfire that claimed their home and their possessions.

"We're okay. It's up and down," Ms. Borrego said in an interview last week. "It's challenging. We're safe; we have good friends. But it's definitely intense."

With an influx of vacationers, migrant Manhattanites, and day trippers who ventured east this summer, restaurateurs worked tirelessly to apply the state's health guidelines in ways that could fit their new business models, but even the most prepared in the restaurant industry sometimes struggled to keep up.

This has been a summer of consternation and intense debate for Jewish communities worldwide. How to bring people together for the High Holy Days, which begin on the evening of Friday, Sept. 18, while keeping them safely apart in the midst of a pandemic? On the South Fork, with a single exception, the answer, in the main, was Zoom.

After discovering their employees had tested positive for Covid-19, a handful of restaurants in Montauk temporarily closed up shop late last month and early this month to deep clean and retest employees before reopening for business.

East Hampton Library item of the week: On July 12, 1765, Thomas Dering (1720-1785) created this inventory of his personal effects, along with their value, listed as £700.48.

The village plans to develop an affordable housing program that will be overseen by East Hampton Housing Authority, the village board announced at a meeting last Thursday.

The course of true love never did run smooth: Book lovers with devoted book clubs are doing everything in their power, even mastering new technology, to keep up with meetings in the age of coronavirus. What Zoom lacks in dimension, dimensional conversation makes up for.

The Montauk Fire Department has been awarded $106,371 in Federal Emergency Management Agency Assistance to Firefighters grants that will be used for power-assisted stretchers.

Fifty years ago this month, the Free Life balloon took off from George Sid Miller's field in Springs to attempt the first trans-Atlantic balloon voyage. The balloon appears in the photograph seen here, from the collection of the Springs Library. Pamela Brown and her husband, Rodney Anderson, hired a balloon pilot, Malcolm Brighton, to navigate the 52-foot-diameter balloon.

The Y.M.C.A. of Long Island has announced that it will open the doors of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter on Tuesday.

Kilian Ruckriegel, 12, and Sophia Cosmina Ruckriegel, 14, brother and sister surfers from Springs, made waves as organizers of a paddle-out held on Aug. 26 at from the beach at Napeague Lane in Amagansett in support of inclusion and solidarity in surfing and the Black Lives Matter movement. "Bring your voice! Bring positive vibes. Spread the word," an Instagram post said. "Let's come together as a community."

In 1923, more than 100 donors, including such notables as Childe Hassam, P.G. Wodehouse, and Lion Gardiner, contributed to a fund to buy a portrait of the actor John Drew to be presented to East Hampton Village. Days after it was presented, the painting was loaned to the artist, never to be seen again. At least so far as anyone can tell.

Five candidates are vying for two open East Hampton Village Board seats in the Sept. 15 election: Richard Lawler, the appointed mayor, and Ray Harden an appointed trustee, on the Elms Party line; David Driscoll on the Fish Hooks line, and Chris Minardi of the villages zoning board of appeals and Sandra Melendez on the NewTown line.

Arthur Graham, an East Hampton Village trustee who is running for mayor in the Sept. 15 election, has questioned the authenticity of 200 voter registrations, and is formally challenging them with the Suffolk County Board of Elections.