Halloween Pasts

Man, I was walking down Main Street, Sag Harbor, this afternoon and there were at least 2000 kids with their parents trick or treating store to store. 40 years ago things were different. First, No Parents. You would go out in groups of 2 to 6. You would go to any house you wanted to. There was no candy available at the stores. You would only go out when it got dark. There was no worries about eating candy received from strange houses. Unless the kids were lazy, and had their parents drive them around, they would walk around town. Once in a while a cheap asshole would give you an apple, which we proceeded to throw through his front window upon exiting their yard. Then to, you could steal pumpkins off porches and smash them in the road. Up until about 1966 Pierson held a Halloween party each year with scavenger hunts and the like. Good to see people still into holiday, although the mischief nowadays is lame.

A typical house I went to trick or treat at

Fixing Up A Dump, Part 2

Man, progress is continuing on the dump on Noyac Road on the outskirts of Sag Harbor. I've removed 50 yards of junk the tenants left behind in the garage and basement. I have another 150 yards of brush I've cut down with a chain saw and piled up with a skid loader. Also got a decent pile of concrete. Haven't even touched the inside of the house yet. So far it looks like about 10 grand going to have this shit taken away. Will keep you posted.

One percent of the junk inside this joint

Pierson High School Renovation

Man, I was driving past Pierson High School and I got to thinking about the renovation they did back in 1981. What happened was the school was built about 1907 and up to 1980 really not much was done on the building. In 1964, a new gym and a elementary wing were built along with metal fire escapes on both sides of the building. Other than that, the building started to fall into disrepair. They did not bother to even paint it. Basically, it looked liked shit. In 81 they finally renovated the inside and outside of the building with a 3 million dollar bond. They did not add any additions other that making the old gym into a theatre. The hill was cut down 3 feet in front so a new front entrance could be installed, much to the dismay of sleigh riders. The school was designed in 1907 to handle 800 students and when I got out of the joint there were 750. This was before the Sacred Heart of Mary school was bought in 1971 and made into the Sag Harbor Elementary School. For some reason after the 81 renovation, the Pierson bell sat in the front of the Whaling Museum for over 2 decades until it was returned to lobby of Pierson where it belongs, and should never have left there. The custodian, Vinny Onisko use to ring the bell, which was located in the clock tower on top of the school, every day at 8 am and 1 pm to signal the start of school. The bell could be heard all over the village. I will post more about Pierson in later posts.

Talk about the building falling into disrepair!

Hamptons Drive-In

Man, I was thumbing through this art book today at Nina Bourne's pad on the ocean in Sagaponack, while getting her house winterized, when I came upon this 1974 painting of the drive-in below. Nina, approaching her mid-90's still works as a editor at Random House. Anyway the Hamptons Drive-In opened about 1955 on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton. The place would be open from May to September and show two movies beginning at sundown. There was a refreshment stand and a playground for the kids. The place was popular with young couples in the 50's and families in the 60's. In the 70's it was a place to go to drink beer and smoke pot. Hurricane Gloria blew down the screen in August 1976. One evening about 1am after a night of drinking, I drove off with the speaker still attached to my van. Should have kept it. I hear they draw good prices these days. Anyway with the price of real estate being what it was, the place closed around 1982 and is now King Kullen shopping center. The screen was located where the Southampton Police sub-station is today. Wish it were still around.


The Hampton's Drive-In as depicted in this 1974 painting

Old Summer Carnivals in Sag Harbor

Man, when I was a kid in the 1960’s, the carnival used to come twice in the summer to Sag Harbor. Once every July was the firemen’s carnival and once every August was the American Legion carnival. The carnival was usually held in the empty lot on lower Main Street where the Laundromat/Bookhampton building is located now. At that time up till 1965 there was a little brick building occupying that spot in which Louie the Shoemaker was located. After he vacated the building, it was last used in the summer of 1964 as a Goldwater campaign headquarters. I visited the headquarters and paid the rip-off fee of 25 cents for a can of Goldwater, which was actually ginger ale. Soda was a dime in those days in cans. The can itself, had I kept it and not opened it, would have been worth a lot more than 25 cents today. When the Laundromat was built, the carnivals moved to the lot now occupied by the Post Office, where they stayed until 1969 when the American Legion carnival was raided by state police for illegal gambling and that ended the carnivals in Sag Harbor for the next several decades, until being resurrected in the 1990’s by the fire department and held annually at Haven’s Beach until 2005. One exception to the lower main street location, they held one carnival in the summer of 1965 in Mashashimuet Park where the cement building housing the restrooms are today, for some reason. In those days the carnivals would open at 7pm on Monday nights and run to 11pm. They would be open 6 nights and closed Sundays when they moved to another town. There was a ticket booth at each ride where you paid 25 cents for a ride. Very inefficient as today one ticket booth can sell tickets to all rides and need only a couple of people to staff it. The rides consisted of the Ferris wheel; the merry go round, the octopus, among others. There were wheels with 36 numbers where you bet a dime and if it came up, you won a prize. These were the ones considered illegal in the 1969 raid. As kids, we use to watch the carnival being assembled on Sundays by a bunch of dirt bags as you would call them today. They had no port-a-potties at the carnival in those days, and if you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to walk over to the Danny McClain’s Shell station. Danny ran a tackle shop out of his gas station until he moved to Bay St and opened the Bayview Tackle Shop at the end of the decade. The Shell station itself stayed around until the early eighties and then became a restaurant. One nice thing, living on Garden Street, I could walk downtown in 5 minutes. The only other place to hold a carnival each summer was St. Andrew’s church, in their parking lot. It was not really a carnival, but more like a fair, as there were no rides, but they did have cotton candy, which every kid liked. The popularity of carnivals has seemed to dwindle somewhat today, but parents still bring their kids to them mainly for the rides. I attend the North Sea carnival once a year on July 4th weekends, but it’s only to let my kids experience the fun. I’m no longer suckered in, by carnies anymore.


The carnival hasn't changed much over the years

Big Fire at St. Andrews

Man, as I stated in my previous post, Steve and I always got back from Left Sagg at 6pm. In August 1965, arriving home on Division Street shortly after 6pm, the fire whistle went off. We were headed down street anyway as usual, and walking pass Cleveland's Superette, could see fire trucks down the road on Hampton and Union Streets. Arriving at the scene, heavy smoke was pouring out of the steeple of St Andrews church. We hung around while the firemen ran around and put out the fire which did extensive damage to the inside of the church. A few years ago I was sitting inside Ken Cullum's office, the village fire Marshall in East Hampton, and he showed me a old 8 x 10 black and white photo taken at the fire scene that night many years ago. There was old fashioned police car parked on Division Street and a large crowd standing in front of Stella Maris school. Unfortunately we were not in the crowd, when the photo was taken. We were probably in the back parking lot. It would have been cool to see ourselves in the old photo though. Oh Well.
St. Andrew's Church in the 1960's

Donkey Baseball at Mashashimuet Park 1965

Man, I was watching the World Series last night, when I was thinking about my cousin Steve who was down here for the summer of 1965 from Far Rockaway, staying at the family homestead on Division Street. Every day was set to the exactly same routine. Sleep until 11am, get up, eat breakfast. At exactly 2pm our aunt drove us to either Left Sagg, AKA Gibson Beach, or to Long Beach. We would stay there until 6pm and then come back home. If it rained, we always went to the Bridgehampton Candy Kitchen. At night were were free to do what we wanted and usually hung out down street. One summer night in 1965 they had a donkey baseball game in Mashashimuet Park. Guys would have to get on a donkey, hit a baseball and get to first base. We watched it from the old grandstand. Kinda stupid. After the game was over we hung around until the man in charge of the donkeys tied them up for the night to a tree in the park and went home. We thought about untying them for a joke but the donkeys were kinda of nasty and we thought the better of it. Stupid game but that was what summer of 1965 had to offer in Sag Harbor

Old grandstand we watched the donkey baseball game from