Express Sessions: The Crossroads of History and Progress in East Hampton Village

Is East Hampton Village restoring its place as the focal point of the local community, or careening away from its quaint rural character? Is it losing sight of its history, or restoring the canvas and frames that protect it for posterity? Does “responsive to business” mean that residents are being sidelined in the quest for vitality?

Village officials, preservationists, business owners and residents waded throughout these and other questions at the latest Express Sessions panel discussion hosted by The Express News Group last week at Rowdy Hall, just feet from the literal crossroads of the village.

The five panelists harked to some of the potential pitfalls that lurk not far behind the enthusiasm for a buzzing downtown: overdevelopment, the proximity of vitality to over-crowding, the loss of a peaceful village amid the din, the sidelining of history for the future. But all seemed to agree that, at least so far, the village and the Village Board has been able to maintain a balance in the best of the old with the best of the new.

The village’s mayor, Jerry Larsen, and the chairman of the not-for-profit foundation the village created in 2021 to help it raise money from wealthy residents to fund village-sponsored projects, defended the breakneck pace with which they have jointly rolled out events like concerts, festivals, and gatherings like classic car shows and Santa visits with the dual intent of spurring business and boosting the spirit of the village as a communal hub for residents.

The mayor said that with the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce fading from prominence in the wake of the pandemic and changes in its leadership, the East Hampton Village Foundation has been able to step in and marshal community gatherings intended to attract visitors that would have been the chamber’s role in years past — though apparently with vastly different budgetary constraints.

The foundation over the summer hosted 10 concerts at Main Beach that drew thousands, free oceanside yoga classes, a number of festivals and gatherings in Herrick Park — including hosting the East Hampton Library’s famed “Author’s Night” fundraiser for the first time — and has a long list of coming attractions on its conceptual plate.

“We know that on Tuesdays, restaurants actually changed the way they staffed because afterward they saw a huge increase in people coming in after the concert for drinks or food,” said Brad Billet, the chairman and CEO of the East Hampton Village Foundation board of directors, of the Tuesday’s at Main concert series the group organized. He said that 40,000 people attended the concerts across the 10 weeks.

“I had parents come up to me saying, ‘This is great, this is our family night,’” he added. “They have at a very low cost, a wonderful evening of local music — we have local bands that are part of our community — so it really fostered both a sense of community and increased business in and around East Hampton.”

He said the foundation has tallied feedback from other events in Herrick Park — like the flying in of Santa by helicopter in December — that businesses saw a quantifiable boost from each.

“I’m going to tell you very clearly, we want to engage with local businesses here because we believe it’s the lifeblood of the community,” Billet said. “Businesses have to flourish or we’re not going to have a community.”

The mayor said he sees the benefits of drawing crowds to the downtown in almost any way possible as a boon not just to business, but to the sense of community surrounding the village.

“I think, as residents, people want a vibrant downtown,” Larsen said. “Why should people have to go to Sag Harbor … because we have no stores that are open. You can’t even walk around our village at night.

“So, my administration is very responsive to business,” he said. “Our goal is to be friendly to business, help business, and allow businesses to flourish.”

But there have been fears that such an approach could lend itself to acquiescing to business when a little pushback is needed. The mayor’s administration has said it is intent on marshaling the creation of a sewer system — but has been countered with concerns it would allow redevelopment of village properties to burst from the constraints of the past: for better and worse.

Village Historian Hugh King, a member of the panel, said that the key to keeping things in check is to have a village government and citizens groups that have their eyes on both the past and the future.

“You have a Village Board that’s interested in the history of the place; you have the Ladies Village Improvement Society that has been here for over a hundred years caring for the village; you have the Village Preservation Society; you have the East Hampton Historical Society; you have the Garden Club of East Hampton, and now we have the Plain Sight Project all keeping this village’s history alive,” King said. “We just can’t get complacent. You can do two things at the same time. You can go for the future and remember the past.”

Joyce Tuttle of the Ladies Village Improvement Society, the 128-year-old community organization that musters volunteers and raises money for the upkeep of the village’s trees, parks and historic landmarks, said that the key for keeping things in line is cooperation between the village and the local groups focused on maintaining the village’s historical character.

“It’s tradition and progress working together,” Tuttle said. “The progress that has happened in the village has enhanced the works of LVIS, but also they want to adhere to the old mission of trying to work together with the village, with the historical society to continue to maintain the things that attract people to the village in the first place.”

Bob Rattenni, who owns multiple buildings in the downtown with retail tenants recalled a photo that Dreesen’s used to have showing Newtown Lane in the early 20th century and the bustling streets.

“I don’t exactly know what day of the year it was, but there was a parade and, I mean, it almost looked like a parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City. There was that many people, and the people in the picture were all smiling and having fun,” he said.

That sort of bustling village is what his tenants would like to see as much as possible, he said.

The mayor noted some zoning changes that have been made to help businesses — allowing basements to be used for office space and lifting restrictions on historic inns hosting special events — and nodded to the top priority, but also most vexing hurdle, for his administration: the creation of a downtown sewer system.

A sewer is seen by some as an elixir to the need for more restaurants and bars that draw visitors to the downtown, but also a potential catalyst for more aggressive development pressures.

The mayor nodded to two properties on Railroad Avenue that have been purchased by a wealthy investor with what is presumed to be a vision for redevelopment. The mayor himself had once suggested the parcels would be ripe for transformation into dual-use commercial and residential structures.

Rattenni said he thinks zoning codes could be relied on to keep development in check, even with a sewer, and that the financial and logistical hurdles of wholly remaking the village’s century-old downtown buildings would likely prevent them from drastic change.

The mayor said that wholesale change is less of a concern, and one that can be addressed as needed when the time comes, but that stagnation will eventually lead to deterioration of the downtown, which serves no purpose to history. His administration and the ones that follow it should push for improvements dutifully, he said.

“We are respecting our history,” he said. “But we have to move forward.”