Sidewalk Grates

Man. if you ever have walked down Main Street in Sag Harbor, you may have noticed one or two sidewalk grates on the sidewalk. One is in front of Schiavoni's Market. Beneath the grate are a set of stairs leading into a basement of a particular store. Most are cemented over now, but up to the mid-sixties they were used by delivery men to bring food or other products into the basement of the store, from a truck parked on Main Street. I remember as a kid, the grates being up and delivery guys going in and out. Also a favorite past time was trying to hook onto a coin that had fallen down the grate. Nowadays the trucks park in the back of the stores, and the grates have been unused for many decades. Next time your downstreet check them out!
A old grate still remaining by Schiavoni's IGA

The Night it Rained Fish

An unusual event happened on downtown Main Street in Sag Harbor in the summer of 1968. On a Sunday night during that summer, there had been a thunder storm. Not that being unusual in itself. However, early the next morning it was discovered that on the roof and in the driveway of Rocco's Antique Shop across from the Civil War monument, tons of small fish about two inches long were deposited to a depth of about an inch deep. And it was just on the roof and in Rocco's driveway, no where else. So how did all these fish end up there? What apparently happened was that during the thunder storm, a small twister or waterspout developed over the bay, sucked the fish up into a cloud and then deposited the fish about a quarter of a mile ashore, directly on Rocco's property. Although a rare event it does happen, frogs and toads being next on line after small fish, to being sucked up and dumped from a cloud someplace ashore. No word how he cleaned the mess up, but it did make the local papers at the time!
Rocco's Driveway where the fish ended up that summer

The Phantom Airplane

Man, I was watching the ditching of Flight 1549 the other day in the Hudson River, and it reminded me of an incident that happen in Sag Harbor about 20 years ago.
I was working late one afternoon when I got a call from a nun at Cora Maria, a Catholic Retreat house located on the waterfront on Bay Street and used by the nuns, some of whom work at the Stella Maris School among other duties.
Anyway, they were all excited and explained to me that they had just witnessed a plane crash into the bay in front of their building. They were close enough to see that it was a white plane and they could actually see the prop throwing up spray as it cut into the water and disappeared below the surface. One nun was watching with binoculars. So, of course I sent out search and rescue and a extensive search was conducted of the area. Nothing was ever found, not even an oil slick,nor was a plane ever reported missing. Normally I would white this off as a flock of seagulls or something else. However speaking personally to the nuns, most of whom, while not trained observers, are college educated people of high respect. They were certain of what they saw.
After doing some research, I found this occurrence actually happens once in a while, in which a plane is seen by many witnesses on shore crashing into the water and no trace is ever found and no planes are reported missing. I know a couple of guys who were working in a power plant one night, trying to get a generator up to it's proper 60 hz frequency, when a image of a sitting woman holding a baby appeared briefly over the generator. Weird shit to say the least.
So, my own opinion of what happened in this plane crash, is there was some sort of rare "time slip" that appears to affect planes in particular for some reason. Then observers on the ground, the nuns in this case are actually observing something that happened in the past, or will happen in the future. Just my opinion. I know nothing about the paranormal. Then of course, that white plane could still be sitting at the bottom of Sag Harbor bay, a artificial reef, now enjoyed by the local fish population!

Cora Maria on Bay Street where incident happened.