It’s unclear how many will attend, but sympathizers with the Occupy Wall Street movement will be occupying the Hamptons this weekend. Or, perhaps more specifically, they will be occupying Long Wharf in Sag Harbor.

To date there are about 30 “followers” to the Occupy the Hamptons Meet Up page, and about 16 “occupiers going” to attend Saturday’s event, scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Unlike the four-week-old sit-in in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, no one is actually expected to camp overnight, and according to one correspondent the entire event is supposed to wrap up by 7 p.m.

When it occurs, Sag Harbor will be one of dozens (possibly hundreds) of similar demonstrations happening in the United States and around the world.

“We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore,” said Sag Harbor’s Jim Monaco, who is one of the organizers of Saturday’s event, paraphrasing the line from the movie “Network.”

Monaco, an author and publisher, initiated the local movement just last weekend, after observing the protests in New York. In fact, he said, he passed by a demonstration two weeks ago on his way to the Manhattan apartment he maintains, and witnessed New York City Police corraling and macing demonstrators.

“I once wrote a book called ‘The Shell Game Economy,’” Monaco said in an interview, “and in the eight years since I wrote it, I’ve just seen the problems intensify.”

While the book was never published, Monaco remains concerned about the nature of banking and the world economy, and believes it is the underlying reason so many are demonstrating today.

There is reason, he believes, to be suspicious about how money is being handled in the country, and Monaco, echoing many in the Occupy Wall Street movement, points to the shoring up banks received two years ago in the wake of the financial collapse.

“Nobody benefited from that except the banks,” he said.

And while the banks continue to be stingy in their lending, and continue to reap profits, he observed, they also continue to charge what he believes are exorbitant rates to their customers.

“How does it happen you have to pay a $40 late fee with a credit card,” he asked.

According to the Meet Up page, the group expects to limit the attendance to Occupy the Hamptons to no more than 50 people. Commenters on the page also suggested organizing a bus to participate in the Manhattan protest, and suggested staging “occupations” at other East End locations, including Meadow Lane in Southampton “where several big Wall Street traders and billionaire polluter David Koch all live…”

“The message is,” said Monaco, “the Tea Party wanted to take the country back. We need to take the country forward.”

Image above from the Meet up page for Occupy the Hamptons.

For some time, we thought the rest of the world had gotten past the idea that the East End was the poor stepchild to the rest of Long Island. Apparently congressional candidate Randy Altschuler didn’t get the memo.

As it has done for years, the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons has invited the candidates for public office to meet and debate on the South Fork for the benefit of local voters. These are consistently well attended events, regularly televised and in many cases the only time some candidates get to meet face to face in front of East End residents to discuss local issues.

Such is the case with the race for U.S. Congress here this year, between Mr. Altschuler and incumbent Tim Bishop. It is arguably one of the most competitive, controversial and closely watched races on Long Island, if not the country.

Late last week Mr. Altschuler declined to appear, citing scheduling conflicts, long after League volunteers had requested him to save the date. His decision means that, for the first time in many years, Hamptons residents will not be able to see their congressional candidates face off.  It is, we think, a wasted opportunity on Mr. Altschuler’s part, and a disservice to the voters of East Hampton and Southampton towns.

As we have done for about ten years, the editors of the East Hampton Star, the Southampton Press and the Sag Harbor Express were invited by the League to prepare and ask questions during the debate (we will do so for the candidates for state assembly and senate on October 25). Instead we will draft a letter to Mr. Altschuler expressing our disapointment. For some, apparently, we will always just be the poor stepchild.

Both Hurricane Igor and Tropical Storm Julia are still spinning in the Atlantic Ocean this weekend, far away from Long Island and not forecast to make landfall anywhere along the east coast of North America.

The pair produced a meteorological phenomenon unseen since the 1920s by simultaneously recording 131-mile-an-hour-plus winds earlier this week, each reaching what is described as “Category Four Hurricane” status; only Category Five storms with winds of 155-miles-an-hour-plus rate higher.

While the two storms have stirred up the mid-Atlantic, at more than 1700 nautical miles south-southeast of Montauk, both have been at enough of a distance to have little effect here.

That will change this weekend, waves from Igor rolling in today and staying on through Tuesday as the storm tracks towards the North Atlantic while Julia continues to fade well out at sea.

Waves, Sweeps and Swells

On Friday, Atlantic-facing locales from the Delmarva Peninsula through Cape Cod saw the ocean disturbed by a frontal system that moved off the East Coast Thursday evening.

That fast-moving energetic low-pressure system, which spawned tornado-like conditions in Queens Thursday night, created a powerful east-to-west sand-chewing sweep along our local ocean beaches yesterday and steep, erratic waves for local surfers.

Swellinfo.com, an online weather and surf-forecasting site, reported Friday, Hurricane Igor wave energy “had not yet propagated north of the Outer Banks, although Mid-Atlantic buoys north of the Outer Banks were starting to picking up long period swells.”

Those are the swells to be on the rise locally the next few days.

Ocean-goers will see the energy from Igor in a distinct pattern of line-like waves appearing in somewhat far-apart intervals and moving through the water from the southeast in discernable groupings, or “sets”.

Those swells will start to fill in today, but the greatest rise in surf heights is likely to be most noticeable Sunday morning before finally peaking out late afternoon Monday and dropping off quickly Tuesday afternoon.

Igor to Stay Off Shore

As of 5 a.m. this morning, Igor was a churning Category 2 powerhouse, packing sustained winds of 109 miles-per-hour and in-storm waves topping 40 feet, 510 nautical miles south-southeast of Bermuda and over 1100 nautical miles south-southeast of Montauk.

Igor is expected to gain strength later today and become a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained 120-mile-an-hour winds, before dropping off in intensity during the day on Monday.

According to swellinfo, Igor’s projected path is likely to be close to that of Hurricane Danielle, an August storm running an arcing course parallel the Atlantic seaboard and never making landfall.

Danielle, which came within 840 nautical miles southeast of Montauk as a Category 1 storm, produced rip currents and storm surges that cut into East End ocean beaches and spiraled out sets that kept surfers busy for a four-day stretch.

Igor is forecast to come as close as 620 nautical miles as a Category 2 Monday morning before turning northeast towards the Grand Banks and diminishing Wednesday and Thursday off Newfoundland.

Anyone going to ocean beaches the next four days to watch the surf should be careful along the water’s edge and be aware that hurricanes produce irregular surges and forceful undertow.

By Raun Norquist

World-class equitation, hunter and show jumper competition returns to Bridgehampton with the 35^th Hampton Classic Horse Show, opening August 29 thru September 5. Long-time Hampton Classic course designer, Olympic Gold Medalist, Conrad Homfeld, has stepped aside this year, handing off design of the jumping courses in the Grand Prix Ring to internationally renowned course designer Guilherme Jorge of Brazil. Jorge is one of the most sought after course designers in the world and his special creativity and technical acumen along with the designers of the other four rings, including Steve Stephan, Allen Rheinheimer and Philip J. DeVita, form one of the sports most impressive course designing teams.

Olympians, World Cup and World Championship riders, emerging riders, Leadline class with riders as young as three years of age, many of our own local talent and riders from around the world will be showcasing top horses and riding skills, competing for up to $250,000 in prize money. New this year, in the hunter division, will be a 3’3” amateur-owner division as an option for amateur hunter riders.

The 60-acre showground on Snake Hollow Road, in Bridgehampton, offers VIPs and spectators alike five show rings from which to enjoy the competitions. There will be a boutique garden with more than 70 vendors including many unique shops, souvenirs and an international food court. For the younger set there will be exotic zoo animals and pony rides along with hands-on demonstrations by local kids for kids on the grooming and care of ponies. Monday, August 30, will feature the ASPCA Adoption Day, a sponsor of the Hampton Classic since 2006 and there will be finals for the Riders with Disabilities. Saturday will be Kids Day with special activities and the Pony Hunter competition.

Since its inception, Southampton Hospital has been the official community partner of the Hampton Classic and has contributed over one and a half million dollars to the hospital. The Hampton Classic also supports many other causes, local and equestrian related, with generous contributions.

Competition is daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., rain or shine. Entrance fees are $10 per person or $20 per carload, children under 6 years of age are free daily. On September 4 children under 12 are admitted free. Seniors are admitted free Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Reserved grandstand seats for Grand Prix Sunday, are available for $30 per person. There is no charge on Monday, August 30. Parking is included with entrance fee. Week long passes are available. Tickets are available at the gate or online at www.hamptonclassic.com where you can also preview the entire daily schedule of events.

Unable to attend? Up to five hours of competition and highlights each day can be seen on the official Long Island television station of the Hampton Classic WVVH-TV and on line at www.wvvh.tv.

The noise of Hamptons helicopters overhead continues unabated. The choppers that run between Manhattan and the Hamptons still are flying low and loud. And now the Federal Aviation Administration, which earlier this year said, at long last, it would impose rules to try to reduce the racket made by the Hamptons helicopters says it will delay that for an unknown number of months. It says it needs to study further the 1,000 public comments it received.

The reaction last week to the FAA move was strong. “The FAA has failed in its duty to protect the public,” declared Suffolk County Legislator Edward Romaine.

State Assemblyman Marc Alessi, at a press conference interrupted multiple times by chopper noise, announced the creation of a website—www.quietskiesli.com—where information can be submitted on noisy chopper flights.

And Shelter Island Supervisor James Dougherty questioned the FAA’s concern for noise-tormented Long Islanders. “I don’t have a high degree of confidence,” he said. “They seem to be very sympathetic to the pilots and their concerns.”

That’s at the crux of the issue. In 1968 Congress “vested in FAA’s administrator the power to prescribe aircraft noise standards,” acknowledges the FAA’s website. In 1976, it issued an “Aviation Noise Abatement Policy” which stated: “The federal government has the authority and responsibility to control aircraft noise by the regulation of source emissions, by flight operational procedures, and by management of the air traffic control system and navigable airspace in ways that minimize noise impact on residential areas.”

But the FAA is chartered to both promote and regulate aviation. This conflict is emphasized by those who have tried to deal with the FAA on noise. As the Vermont-based Noise Pollution Clearinghouse declares on its website (www.noise.org): “The FAA makes no secret of its role as aviation cheerleader.” It notes an FAA publication “with the headline, ‘Two Years of Traffic Growth and Profits Too!’” The FAA is “out of balance” when it comes to noise, says the organization.

The “logical solution,” it says, is “dividing FAA’s roles between more appropriate entities. The FAA should remain the regulator of passenger and aircraft safety. The EPA should be the regulator of environmental quality…The multi-billion dollar airline industry should be the cheerleader of aviation. And local communities should control development of local airports.”

Long Island, as the Hamptons helicopter racket unfortunately continues, can play a part in the needed break-up of the FAA—as it did earlier with another federal agency, the Atomic Energy Commission.

In the early 1970s, testifying at and observing AEC hearings on licensing construction of the Shoreham nuclear plant, Congressman Lester Wolff of Kensington was irate at what he saw: an atomic kangaroo court. The AEC was foremost a nuclear cheerleader, Mr. Wolff concluded. He became a leader in the fight that succeeded in 1975 to abolish the AEC and establish in its place a Nuclear Regulatory Commission and have another government entity, now the Department of Energy, take a promotional role.

In the months ahead, as Long Islanders continue the battle against the noisy Hamptons helicopters and prod the FAA to take firm action, there should be an associated effort: to break up the FAA. This might also help spur the FAA to do what is needed.

As Legislator Romaine again called for last week, the Hamptons choppers “must fly no less than a mile off the north shore” and at a “minimum altitude of 3,000 feet.” They must be “prohibited from traversing land except in designated sparsely populated areas.” And choppers “bound for the East Hampton Airport”—the main landing and take-off point for the Hamptons helicopters—“must fly around Orient Point.”

Further, said Mr. Romaine, “the FAA must open up” Kennedy Airport airspace so that the helicopters “can more easily access the south shore route,” cruising over the ocean and making the short hop over Georgica Pond to and from the East Hampton field.

By Karl Grossman

It was supposed to happen to the south of Long Island and was scuttled because of skyrocketing costs, public opposition and a lack of need. But the concept of floating nuclear power plants is back, demonstrating that some bad ideas never go away.

I ran into the scheme driving down Dune Road in Hampton Bays in 1974. On the oceanfront was what looked like a weather station, but on the chain link fence surrounding the various meteorological devices was the sign: “U.S. Atomic Energy Commission—Brookhaven National Laboratory.” What was this about? I called BNL and was told that the government set up the station to study the impact of radioactive discharges from floating nuclear power plants to be placed off New Jersey. The first four plants were to go 11 miles northeast of Atlantic City, 100 miles south of Long Island.

BNL was using a 75-foot landing craft on loan from the Navy, a chartered Cessna plane and a trawler. Clouds of smoke were sent up at sea. Because prevailing winds on Long Island are from the southwest, the recipient of the discharges was mostly Long Island.

I pursued the floating nuclear plant story for years. The scheme was hatched, interestingly, while a vice president of Public Service Electric and Gas Co. of New Jersey, Richard Eckert, was taking a shower. Company literature spoke of Mr. Eckert having a revelation of the sea supplying the massive amounts of water nuclear plants need as coolant. The utility convinced Westinghouse to build floating nuclear plants. A huge facility was constructed on an island off Jacksonville, Florida with the plants to be towed into position. The project was cancelled in 1984 after $180 million was blown.

Well, the notion is back. Six weeks ago, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, launched a barge in St. Petersburg to be the base for the first of what Rosatom says will be many floating nuclear power plants to go off Russia and also sold to nations around the world.

 David Lochbaum, senior safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, is highly critical. He describes an accident at a floating nuclear power plant as “worse” than at a land-based one. “In a meltdown, a China syndrome accident, the molten mass of what had been the core would burrow into the ground and some of the radioactive material held there. But with a floating nuclear plant, all the molten mass would drop into the water and there would be a steam explosion and the release of a tremendous amount of energy and radioactive material,” he explained from Washington. “It would be like a bomb going off.” A large plume of radioactive poisons would form and “many more people would be put in harm’s way,” said Mr. Lochbaum, for 18 years an engineer in the nuclear industry and an instructor for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Nuclear experts in Europe—including Russia—are as disapproving. Other issues raised include the floating plants being sources of fuel for nuclear weapons and easy targets for terrorists. The fuel the plants are to use is weapons-grade uranium. And Rosatom has been negotiating to sell them to nations including Malaysia, Algeria and Indonesia.

A book written by a group of Russian scientists, Floating Nuclear Power Plants in Russia: A Threat to the Arctic, World Oceans and Non-Proliferation, says “one would have imagined that the Chernobyl catastrophe would have taught us to treat nuclear technologies with caution.” It notes “the idea of creating floating nuclear power plants originated in the USA” but was dropped and recommends Russia do the same.

Last week, Long Island Power Authority President Kevin Law, as he prepared to leave LIPA, unveiled an ambitious new proposal for 234 wind turbines in the Atlantic off southern Long Island. That’s a safe, clean way to harvest energy on the sea. The plan for floating Chernobyls invites disaster. We should pursue wise ways of gathering energy—and, just maybe, Russia (and other nations) will emulate safe U.S. energy ideas.

A handful of students from the Springs School District are poised to attend high school at Pierson Middle-High School and the Bridgehampton School this fall following a successful referendum in Springs this May that allows parents to send their high school aged children to schools other than the East Hampton High School.

High school students from Amagansett, Montauk, Sagaponack, Springs and Wainscott school districts have traditionally all attended East Hampton High School, but this year, in the face of mounting tuition costs, the districts have begun discussions about consolidation and choice. Tuition to send students to East Hampton High School is nearing $30,000 per student, per year, whereas the cost to send students to Pierson and Bridgehampton is far less.

At a Bridgehampton Board of Education meeting on Wednesday, July 28 that board signed a tuition contract for Springs School students after Bridgehampton Principal Jack Pryor announced three students from that district will definitely attend Bridgehampton this fall.

According to school board president Nicki Hemby, the tuition agreement will allow Springs high school students to attend Bridgehampton for $15,000 in the 2010-2011 school year, $17,500 for the 2011-2012 school year, $20,000 in the 2012-2013 school year and $22,500 in the 2013-2014 school year.

The Springs School District will have to use the New York State Education Department’s Seneca Galls formula to calculate tuition for any Springs student with special education needs that would like to attend high school at Bridgehampton.

According to Hemby, Bridgehampton has agreed to accept a maximum of six students per grade level from Springs, and enrollment remains open.

On Tuesday, Sag Harbor School District Dr. John Gratto and Pierson Middle-High School Principal Jeff Nichols confirmed they also have three or four students from Springs interested in attending high school in Sag Harbor.

According to nonresident tuition rates established by that school district’s board of education, the tuition rate for Springs high school students to attend Pierson is $21,080. While there is no expiration on that tuition rate, Dr. Gratto said on Tuesday the board of education has reserved the right to raise that rate by up to 2.5 percent.

He added this year, all incoming students from Springs will be freshmen, and therefore will not affect class size. Gratto said per grade, without affecting services or requiring more teachers, Pierson can absorb roughly 10 Springs students per high school grade.

Nichols said he and Gratto made two presentations to board members and parents from Springs School in an effort to attract students to Sag Harbor.

“We had probably about six to 10 different families visit and tour the school,” said Nichols, who added convincing parents to take such a big leap, moving their children into a new school district, and largely away from the peer group they have attended elementary and middle school with could be a tough sell; but as students attending Pierson return to Springs with positive experiences, it will become an easier task.

Bridgehampton is seeing a diverse group of Springs residents coming into their high school this fall, according to Pryor. One is a freshman, another is a student who has already attended East Hampton High School and the last is a Springs resident who has been a student at the Hayground School and will not complete high school at Bridgehampton.

Pryor gave credit to Springs School Superintendent Mike Hartner for opening up the dialogue about choice in the regional education system.

“Congratulations to him for understanding that choice is something we have to look at,” said Pryor.

Like Nichols, Pryor said he expects interest in Bridgehampton from Springs students will increase as time goes on, and he expects a second round of tours and visits from interested parents as the school year approaches.

“Historically, there is a lot of movement after August 15 as far as people wanting to register for school in the fall,” he said.

“This is a very positive opportunity for all districts,” agreed Hemby. “Children learn differently in different settings. It is a refreshing option for parents on all fronts.”

Hemby added she believes Bridgehampton School is a “diamond in the rough,” offering individually focused education opportunities, which may be attractive for parents looking for a more intimate education for their children. “It is an excellent learning facility with hands-on teaching,” said Hemby. “We do not see our children as a “student body” but rather as individuals — individuals with strengths and weaknesses that are both acknowledged and strengthened.

By Peter Hamilton Travis

This column is a continuum of my previous Our Town contribution, Requiem for Credibility — 1^st Movement.

For the handful of inattentive myopes who remain unfamiliar with the precursor — as they say in the oil biz: “Sorry. Sort of.” I’ve no intention of taxing the loyal Effervescents — who regularly find time in their busy, interesting, important lives to follow the circus inside my head — with another boorish, excruciatingly arid rehash. If you absolutely must see Sex and the City 2 — Crisis in the Middle East, fine. But not on my watch.

My editor (whose opinion I genuinely respect even though he golfs) would undoubtedly welcome a brief recap. If for no other reason than common courtesy. Which — considering how courteous most golfers are — is par for the course.

So, here’s what you cretins missed (Effervescents may scamper past bulleted points):

• I am a fan of paper grocery bags and Schiavoni’s Market.
• Having been justly pilloried, Mommie Weirdest will never again ask Max, “Do you know where Momma might find the taaangelos?”
• Mary Hart is a predator drone.
• Pope Benedict XVI is not a drone.
• I once got the pink confectionery eye from a colossal white chocolate Easter bunny lodged inside my left ear.

Upon my return from the hospital, I wove my way over to my best friend Hillary Speilvogel’s house. I felt strongly she should sign my heavily bandaged ear while the exterior surface was still dry-ish.

Hillary refused. Insisting the sloppy dressing and underlying drainage tubes would surely attract a wide variety of crawling insects. Hillary simply could not risk having whatever impromptu hilarity she might scrawl across the side of my head ruined by a few hundred discharge-drunk ants. She even went so far as to suggest we remove both bandage and tubes before her mother returned to a house swarming with earwigs and gauze mites.

She had a point.

Hillary Speilvogel and I dragged each other up on the same bucolic, alcoholic block. In a subdivision of Glen Cove aptly named, High Elms.

Even as toddlers, Hillary and I both knew she had the total package. Looks. Style. And a father whose highly publicized escape from Leavenworth made his daughter’s already luminous star (Hillary could rock a dirndl with the best of them. Including — and in no particular order of preeminence: Claudia Schiffer, Heidi Klum, Heidi Montag, Heidi, and Karl Lagerfeld) go completely supernova. If there isn’t a German word to describe a fashion-forward, four year-old suburban celebutante — there should be.

Hey, guess what? Now there are three:

1.   “Speilvogeliciousness”

2.   “Hillarysiegfriedundroy”

3.   “Richardkind”

Creating new Wikipedia articles is far too easy.

Hillary was a blithe but damaged blond with dark Germanic roots — evident in her family’s thirst for blood. The Speilvogels were not vampires, per se. Just physically aggressive to the point of occasionally/always drawing blood.

Had Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm been slightly less invested in the propagation of merriment and mirth, they might have concocted a character identical to Hillary’s mother. Mrs. Speilvogel would routinely drag Hillary out to a Volkswagen-sized boulder that dominated their front yard like a prehistoric idol of public discomfiture. Once in full view of passing cars, she would savagely beat Hillary with a wooden spoon. Not the cooking utensil-type wooden spoon one might use to whip up a vat of Kartoffelsuppe. No — this was a massive, decorative wall-hanging-of-a-wooden-spoon. Roughly the size of a rifle. Specifically — the WWII Mauser that hung above the Speilvogel’s quaint yet cavernous inglenook.

Surely, those Grimm brothers were born a few hundred years too soon. The Hausfrau, the Boulder, and the Black Alder Spoon! would have been a huge hit mit der kindern.

To be fair, Mrs. Speilvogel also made the coziest peanut butter and toast sandwich ever. Smooth, sultry Skippy.® The consistency of molten caramel. Squashed between two flawlessly tanned slices of Pepperidge Farm® white bread. The Hausfrau called it, “Schwärmerisch.” Whenever possible — I called it, “Lünch.”

Coming from a home where direct eye contact was considered a hostile act of suffocating want — I was wildly attracted to Hillary and her touchy-feely-kicky-slappy-compound-fracturey clan. I found rare comfort knowing Hillary was my friend. Primarily, because those not friends with a Speilvogel ended up making a hasty exit from High Elms. Usually in the back of an ambulance. Lights on. Siren off. Except for Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson. They shared the same unmarked, white, windowless refrigerated van.

Wherever Hillary and I went — drama and intrigue followed like the sweeping klieg spot from Leavenworth’s watchtower. No matter whose newly seeded yard we tumbled across — or what freshly poured sidewalk we strolled — being relentlessly monitored and pointed at (always through tightly-drawn drapes) left me woozy from the heady exhaust of fame by proxy.

Fame by proxy is a concept no doubt familiar to most summertime visitors of the East End. Along with anyone who has ever watched anything on Bravo. Thanks to the Peabody Award-winning dreamy genius of Bravo Senior V.P. and local resident, Andy Cohen (yes, I’m listed — call me).

As any Real Housewife can tell you — once lost — fame leaves a void no amount of JUVÉDERM® can fill. A lesson I learned early on when Hillary’s much older brother, Matthäus caught me one fateful August afternoon lifting up his sister’s folksy skirt.

Matthäus was an overgrown, dummkopf, buck-of-a-Bavarian. A dangerous boy on a good day, Matthäus was highly unpredictable when confronted with a morally complex scenario. Like catching a four year-old boy from down the block — up to his elbow — in the Oktoberfest bräu maid’s uniform worn by your four year-old sister.

Matthäus assumed I was just your typical predatory male toddler. Which I clearly was not. I routinely wore my mother’s shoes and/or costume jewelry in the unforgiving light of day. On that particularly unforgiving day — black satin pumps and the perfect pair of Hattie Carnegie faux pearl clip-on earrings. Yet, Matthäus found no reassurance in my gender (wrong) specific (freak show) style.

He could barely find his own reflection in a puddle of my tears.

I had a completely reasonable explanation for my unsolicited wardrobe realignment. I was curious. Were the washing instructions on Hillary’s exotic garment written in German? And, if so — what was the German phrase for, “Do not wash with chlorine bleach!” ? Sadly, before I could fully absorb the elegance of, “Nicht Waschen Mit Chlorbleiche!” — Matthäus knackwursted me to the gütter.

My first thought — mid-flight — was, “Save the earrings!” Upon impact, I immediately began counting my blessings. Along with each and every fleck of costume jewelry shrapnel sprayed about my head. I was lucky. Record-high temperatures that summer had transformed our street into the asphalt equivalent of a Tempur-Pedic mattress. The curb was much less forgiving. Hence the shattered Hattie Carnegies. And fingers — two metacarpals and three phalanges — each hand.

I was at once grateful and terribly pained. I knew Matthäus’s lumbering assault had allowed me plenty of time to snatch off a pair of clip ons. I had been practicing that very same maneuver for months. Alone. In front of my bedroom mirror. Using my hairbrush as a Princess phone, I repeatedly tested my skill at removing an earring before the second, imaginary ring. With élan.

What was originally diagnosed by our family physician as, “Nervous Nelly Disorder,” was — in fact — just a precognitive tick. A compulsive training exercise as incomprehensible as my future run in with Matthäus. Albeit, sans baseball bat.

It never occurred to me during all those phone/earring drills to incorporate the possibility of being struck behind both knees with a baseball bat — between rings. An oversight I vowed never to repeat. As soon as the movers finished unpacking our things. In our new house. On a new block. Far, far away from High Elms. 

By Anetta Nowosielska

Contrary to popular belief, that popping sound you’ve been hearing throughout the East End has little to do with Veuve Clicquot bottles during cocktail hour. Pop ups —  a temporary high-end retail venue — have sprung up all over the Hamptons like mushrooms after the rainy season, offering discerning shoppers reasons to rejoice. This year, Asprey, Trina Turk, Hugo Boss, Screaming Mimi’s, Steven Alan, Hermes and Balenciaga, to name a few, will temporarily unload their shiny goods upon our shores.

And while we can’t help but love the convenience of it all, nothing says “Deadville” quite like a post-popped village with boarded-up storefronts in winter months, when retailers, in locust like fashion, have moved onto greener pastures.

Blame it on Comme des Garçons, an avant-garde fashion label from Japan. Back in 2004, in a stroke of marketing genius, a remote neighborhood in the former East Berlin became the first area to host CDG’s Guerrilla store, the original pop up boutique. Many quirky locations, as in shipping crates, public parks, or inside another store altogether, followed, with the caveat that all operations in a particular location would cease within one year. With minimal financial investment, and a “word of mouth” advertising campaign, Guerrilla shops were less luxury destinations and more artist colonies. The idea was to generate buzz about the brand among the hipsters, while gentrifying undesirable communities. Things have come a long way since.

“This trend uses our market as pluckings for their advertising and marketing. And that’s OK,” says Bob Schepps the president of the Southampton Chamber of Commerce. “But when the trend becomes overwhelming and out of balance with what is already on the market then it becomes a problem.” And as per usual, the problem boils down to numbers.

“The store will only be open for the four peak summer months,” said Robert Chavez, CEO of Hermès USA. “We want to do at least two or three summer seasons to get a read on what the potential is. If it’s very strong, we’d look to do something on a more permanent basis.”

Such state of one-sided flux could easily be resolved if only the landlords, too afraid to lose out on tenants with big budgets, were as concerned about the welfare of their communities as they are with their bottom line. With rents of up to $200 a square foot, only companies with deep pockets can afford a presence on our swanky blocks. So leading up to summer months, landlords have taken the “wait and see” attitude about potential occupants for retail spaces, hoping to score a tenant of the Hermes persuasion. Leases, which historically lasted 10 years, are now being offered for as short as five month periods. Money issues aside, we reckon that dealing with a renter for only five months surely beats handling leaking ceilings and toilet problems for “mom and pop” shops all year round, doesn’t it?

Not so much if you are a full time Hampton resident. Sure, for the summer crowd this temporary presence of luxury brands means less packing for the weekend (who, after all wants to schlep their finest china to the beach bungalow, when you’ve got Asprey on the corner?) And yes, we can argue that this “easy come, easy go” retail trend is absolutely in tune with the short attention span of an average consumer, who is on a never ending quest for another satisfying shopping experience. But what’s good for summer renters is not all that great for many Hamptonites, who feel like Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.

“The pop up shops while exciting and full of great fashion and design, which I love, are part of a vicious cycle that is leaving full time businesses in town wondering whether they should remain in a village that no longer caters to the year-round customer,” says Pamela Eldridge, the associate publisher of Hamptons Cottages & Gardens Magazine. Strolling down the street during winter months, when most of the poppers have boarded up their windows, can seem like a sad scene from a western (cue tumbleweed rolling down the street.)

Eldridge worries about the message this inactivity sends out: “I would think that prospective home owners coming out to look at property in their new potential village give pause at the site of so many empty spaces in town.”

So how to remedy this polarizing fad?

“Businesses ought to be vested in the communities they profit from,” Schepps suggests and notes Elie Tahari as a perfect example. In order to avoid being subject to real estate tantrums of fickle landlords, Tahari bought the building his boutique is located in.

We would like to offer another name for your consideration. No one popped up better than Stella McCartney. Perhaps we ought to take a hint from this famous Brit, whose weekend Spring’s Fireplace Project fashion production last year  — fancy-garage-sale-meets-barbeque-meets-art-installation —  was the fashion event of the season. No local feathers were ruffled, no contracts had to be negotiated, and legion of McCartney devotees with bags full of merchandise left the affair as happy as clams. Now, if only Mr. Lagerfeld would follow suit and set up shop in the parking lot of Citarella.

By Richard Gambino

Sixty-five years ago, on May 6, 1945, the last German submarine sunk by the Allies in World War II, the U-853, was downed by U.S. warships and aircraft about 22 miles from Montauk Point, off Block Island. On the previous day (my sixth birthday) the same submarine had torpedoed and sunk the U.S. coal ship, Black Point, killing 22 of her crew. In fact, after Germany declared war on the U.S., on December 11, 1941, the first Allied ship sunk by a U-boat, the tanker, Coimbra, on January 14, 1942, was also off our shore.  And much of the Battle of the Atlantic, in which 2,828 of our ships were sunk by U-boats, and in which we sank 632 of the subs, was fought off Long Island. People here called the police to report debris washed up on our ocean beaches, including the bodies of dead seamen. Appropriately, as it were, on May 7, the day after the U-853 was sunk, the commander of the German U-boat force, Admiral Karl Doenitz, authorized Germany’s surrender to the Allies, ending World War II in Europe, the next day. (Hitler had committed suicide on April 30.) Last year, a relic of that war, right here at home, brought me to a standstill.

I’m an amateur nature photographer. So in April ’09, I was hiking alone through Camp Hero State Park about 1.5 miles west of the Montauk Lighthouse, carrying my photo gear. I was inland of the high dunes there when I came to a break in them that allowed me to walk through a winding area that led right to the ocean’s edge. I came to a very rocky small beach, intent on taking photos of where the ocean approached the bluffs on either side of me. Instead I stood there, unmoving. In front of me, to my left, was what appears to be part of a reinforced concrete fortification, of the kind we’ve all seen in films, used against us in World War II by the Germans at Normandy. But this was right here, to protect us from those same Germans. Once sitting high and dry, decades of coastal erosion has brought the ocean to it.

As a matter of fact, the East End was involved in World War II right to the end of its twin forks, and beyond. In the earliest months of the war, civilian boaters in Greenport, with their boats, were recruited as volunteers by the U.S. Coast Guard. The boaters were given military two-way radios, a minimum of training, and asked to sail the ocean nearby at night to find U-boats, and to rescue survivors of ships sunk by the subs. The U-boats stayed underwater in daylight, but had to be on the surface at night running their diesel engines to charge the batteries that powered the subs when underwater. The first of the Greenport “picket boats,” the Two Pals, sailed on its first patrol from the town on July 29, 1942. One night, the crew of one of the boats, using only its sails, to stay silent, heard diesel engines. Then men’s voices. Speaking German. The Greenport sailors quickly calculated their location, then sailed from the area as fast as possible, and radioed the U-boat’s position to our military.

In the early 1990s, I had another surprising reminder of the war, this time in Southold. “Skip” Goldsmith took me inside a large building in which his father’s “The Boat Shop” had made one hundred and thirty-eight 25ft. and 33ft. wooden “Plane Rearming Boats” for the Navy, used to ferry supplies between seaplanes and shores. To my amazement, wood-working machinery was there as it was left at war’s end, and a 1945 calendar still hung on a wall. Nearby, the Greenport Yacht and Ship Building Company made 49 minesweeping vessels for the Navy, eight of them weighing 205 tons each, and 41 of them each weighing 278 tons, all with wooden hulls, which would not set off mines with magnetic triggers.

At Camp Hero there are several wartime structures, as there are also at the Shadmoor Preserve west of it, including big concrete bunkers and small sentry shelters. At Hero one may also see large concrete bases on which once sat coastal artillery aimed out to sea. These included sixteen-inch guns, the largest artillery the U.S. had, meaning they fired 2,000 lb. armor-piercing explosive projectiles, 16 inches in diameter and several feet long, which had a range of over 20 miles. When their crews practice-fired them, the resulting concussions rattled buildings in Montauk village, and the guns’ reports were heard over both forks.

Why coastal defenses here? Well, late on the foggy night of June 13, 1942, a German submarine, the U-202, sat off the beach at Amagansett. From it, four Germans in German military uniforms paddled a rubber raft to the shore. Shortly after they landed, they changed into civilian fishermen clothes.  They had come in uniforms so that if they were captured on landing, they would be treated as prisoners of war, and not spies or saboteurs, who under international law, were usually executed. Soon after they landed, a young Coast Guardsman patrolling the beach on foot, alone, came upon them. In perfect American English — each had been raised in the U.S. — they offered him a bribe. Being unarmed and outnumbered, he pretended to go along with it. But when he left them, he ran to alert the military. The four Germans buried their raft and uniforms, and also explosives they had brought with them, intending to come back for the bomb-making material another day. Each carrying a revolver and thousands of dollars in cash, they walked to the Amagansett station of the Long Island Rail Road, bought tickets for $5.10 each, took a morning train to Manhattan, and from there went to locations in the mid-West, to lie low.

But the Germans had been chosen for their mission simply because they spoke American English. Most had little stomach for blowing up American industrial sites, and soon one of them turned himself in. He told all, including where his three comrades were hiding, and they were arrested. He also told FBI agents, to their astonishment, that another four German saboteurs had landed on the coast of Florida from a U-boat on June 18, completely undetected, and the FBI soon caught them. The agency broke the news to the press, causing a shock throughout the nation. In July, all eight were tried before a military tribunal, found guilty as saboteurs, and all were sentenced to death. President Roosevelt commuted the sentences of two of them, who had cooperated, to long prison terms. Without any advance notice to the public, on August 8, the other six were executed by electric chair, less than two months after they had landed in the U.S.  Afterward, the White House issued a terse statement: “The President approved the judgment of the military commission …,” which the U.S. Supreme Court had also approved.

A din of warplanes overhead was an East End wartime daily routine. The immense Grumman facility in Calverton — at which many people from both forks worked — during the war test-flew the amazing number of Navy planes it made, mostly east out to the Atlantic and L.I. Sound to avoid more populated lands up-west. These included 12,275 Hellcat and 7,722 Wildcat fighters, and 9,837 Avenger torpedo bombers.

But the sound of a large, four-engine B-24 bomber late on Wednesday evening, December 27, 1944, caught the attention of people on the ground, some sitting around Christmas trees. One, it was flying low over the center of the twin forks. Two, it was flying in a dense snowstorm.  And, three, one of its engines was heard to be malfunctioning. The plane crashed and exploded into flames in a farm field in Laurel next to Aldrich Lane, south of Sound Avenue, killing all ten of its crew. The explosion was so violent that it threw plane fragments, and human body parts, over a 500-foot area.

When the war officially ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, the celebration in the U.S. was muted, because fighting still raged on in Asia. In fact, each day Americans, between listening to great swing music, like Tommy Dorsey’s wild “Well Git It!” on the radio, and sad war ballads, like Frank Sinatra’s “I’ll Be Seeing You,” heard news accounts of the battle at Okinawa, which had begun on April 1 and was to last until June 22, killing 6, 821 Americans and wounding 19,217. So in May, East Enders went back to their lives, with anxiety about their loved ones among the more than 14 million American service members — more than one in ten of the entire U.S. population — still at risk. And back to rationed food. People out here, like all Americans, had food-rationing books — their stamps, required to buy food, sporting pictures of tanks and warplanes. (I still have two of my books.)  And rationed gasoline, for people’s aging cars — the U.S. did not make any cars for the general civilian market during the war. Finally, celebrations broke out here when Japan surrendered on August 14, but not before the war cost 405,399 U.S. dead and 1,076,245 wounded, at a time when the American population totaled only 132 million, according to the 1940 census. Was it worth it? When you have some time in quiet, imagine a world in which the Nazis and Japanese militarists had won.

RICHARD GAMBINO salutes all Americans who served in World War II, and all those who kept faith with them at home.