In the past year, Mr. Hockey and I have been to four weddings. There was a post-covidian explosion of love. And because I hadn’t been to a wedding since 2018,... more
As Suffolk County residents will say, should we take the ferries between Suffolk and New England, or should we “drive around”? The “drive around” involves navigating the web of roads and bridges to our far west. And that can be quite a trip, as I learned last week, with that ferocious nor’easter hitting us and causing cancellations of service on both the Cross Sound Ferry between Orient Point and New London, and the Port Jefferson-Bridgeport ferry. We were taking a little vacation in southern Vermont — in the lovely town of Landgrove, a kind of Brigadoon in Vermont — and ...
20 Oct 2025 by Karl Grossman
Some readers might be old enough to have experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis. It began 63 years ago this week, when President John F. Kennedy announced a blockade of Cuba in response to the Soviet Union building ballistic missile sites on the island. One would think such a close brush with nuclear war would have been the inspiration for the hotline between Washington, D.C., and Moscow. Yes, sort of. Such a system was used for the first time only 10 months after the crisis, on August 30, 1963, a call between Kennedy and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. With Presidents ...
by Tom Clavin
On old maps, one circa 1700, the geography of Sagaponack is differently portrayed. The bodies of water are the most significant features on the map. Poxabogue Pond, Sagg Swamp, now owned and with trails maintained by The Nature Conservancy, is dominant, etched large, drawn like an expanding spider web across the yellowed page. Sagaponack Pond, too, looks impressively large, its northern boundary marked “Forest” and, at its edge, by 1750, the dam for the adjacent mill. This place is now called White Walls, and few of us crossing there can imagine this former, former time. There is also a dotted ...
14 Oct 2025 by Marilee Foster
With the passing of Columbus Day weekend, summer is now well behind us. This has always been my favorite time of year on the East End. While “Tumbleweed Tuesday” no longer provides the line of demarcation between summer and fall that it once did, there is an undeniable change in the pace of life and the character of this very special place in the fall. Despite the weekend’s nor’easter, there is no better weather here than September and October. There is a crispness in air and a special quality to the light that explains the attraction of artists to this ...
by Fred W. Thiele Jr.
This month marks a new era in medicine on Long Island, in the state and beyond. On October 1, Michael Dowling stepped down as the CEO and president of Northwell Health. In his more than 23 years at the helm of Northwell, he led it to becoming the largest health care provider and private employer in New York State. Under Dowling, Long Island-based Northwell has grown to 28 hospitals, more than 1,000 outpatient facilities, and 104,000 employees, including over 20,000 physicians and 22,000 nurses — and this not only in New York but in five states. He will remain with ...
by Karl Grossman
When I’m in my car in the morning on the way to Hampton Coffee, I switch on WLNG. I have hundreds of music choices in my car: Spotify, SiriusXM, with hundreds of channels of music, sports, news, and even my own created playlists. Yet, when I’m on the East End, I want my WLNG. In an era of robotic computerized digital music, WLNG is oddly fresh and modern. They do local better than anyone. I like to hear what’s happening in the community. It’s fun to listen to Sag Harborites selling used leaf blowers and fishing rods to those in ...
13 Oct 2025 by Edward Adler
By Linda Euell Upon hearing about actress Diane Keaton’s recent passing, I felt like I lost a dear friend — one whom I had the honor of “imitating” for three magical movie days on a Water Mill beach. Back in 2003, I had the incredible experience of being Ms. Keaton’s stand-in during the filming of the “Something’s Gotta Give” scenes shot at Flying Point Beach in Water Mill, just a short distance from my home. One evening, several weeks later, after my husband and I went to a casting call in East Hampton with our daughters, I received a call ...
by Linda Euell
When September ends and daytime temperatures are still those of summer, my brother and I will tell each other how happy we are that we do not have potato acreage to put in storage. Here, our old barns were dug into the earth, true cellars, whose cooling capacity was wrought from clever and observant design, not refrigerant. These barns, like almost everything else, are too warm now. Farmers are not known for their nuanced language, and so “happy” is probably not the right word for it. Happy connotes joy. We are, plainly, merely relieved not to be fighting the weather ...
7 Oct 2025 by Marilee Foster
Tracy Grathwohl on Sep 5, 2022