NY Breakup Plan: Shades of ‘Peconic’

In states dominated by one party, especially when that dominance emanates from a giant metropolitan area, you get periodic efforts to break up the state so as to allow the dissident regions to have their own way. Often this is about ideology, although it can also reflect urban vs. rural concerns. California sees this. And

16 Lucky Homeowners Coming to East Hampton

The trickle of new “affordable” or workforce housing on the South Fork of Long Island continues–16 units (with a name!) being built in East Hampton, as this article from the local Star explains. This project predates the imposition of a new transfer tax on million-dollar–meaning nearly all–home purchases. That levy will raise maybe $50 million

When Suffolk County Got Its Foothold on Open Space

A big contributor to the preservation of open space on eastern Long Island during the critical early boom years of luxury development—1967 to 1999—was the Suffolk County, N.Y., parks department. It was no coincidence that this happened then: the parks authority had only recently been created.  It is a reflection of the era that was

An Excise Tax That Fortifies Long-Island Wine

Some milestone anniversaries on the East End of Long Island have been easy to overlook but not so its start as a wine region. Fifty years ago, as the “Hamptons” south fork of the island was consumed with some of its earliest development battles, the north fork saw the planting of its first commercial vineyard

Will Half a Billion Buy a B.A. in the Hamptons?

Word this week of a $500 million gift to Stony Brook University (a State University of New York branch on Long Island) can’t help but have East End residents wondering: Will this bring sustained academic life to town? For all its riches, the Hamptons does not have higher ed. The main Stony Brook campus is

Summer Swells, Circa Hamptons 1957

The conceit of a series of posts here about the Hamptons is that, after a first rush of summer “colonies” that culminated in the Roaring Twenties, the East End of Long Island went through sleepy decades until a new wave of city money began to stir development again in the late 1960s. That is generally

Why Only a Few Fly to the Hamptons

If in 2023 we are commemorating notable anniversaries in the preservation of Long Island’s East End—the 40th of the Peconic Land Trust and the 30th of Southampton Town’s wetlands building restrictions—it may be time to look farther back, 75 years, to another pivotal sequence of events. These speak to why there is no commercial jetport

A Tale of Montauk’s Camp Hero

This personalized recollection from the retired Hamptons publisher Dan Rattiner in the current issue of his old magazine, Dan’s Papers, sets the historical scene for one of eastern Long Island’s most unusual preserves: Camp Hero near Montauk Point. Now an ocean-facing state park on nearly 280 acres, it was a secretive military base during the

Hamptons Hint: Bigger Is No Longer Better

Even in places that like to think they “live and let live,” it’s possible to get too much in other people’s faces. That’s basically where we are on the East End of Long Island, where the McMansion binge is leading to many new homes being built to the legal limits of size and footprint, often

Across the Peconic, It’s Not Just a Wine Story

Most of my reporting on the recent history of land preservation on the East End of Long Island has dealt with the South Fork, or “The Hamptons.” But on the other side of Peconic Bay, similar if somewhat later stories could be told. This item from Patch spotlights one man’s efforts in New Suffolk that