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East Hampton Library Digitizes Whaling Log Collection, Largest Of Its Kind On Long Island

Blog January 26, 2021

While the East Hampton Library had its doors closed to the public due to COVID-19 restrictions, the staff of the Long Island Collection was busy at work on a long overdue project: scanning all of its historic whaling logs in full, thousands upon thousands of pages, which are now available to read online.

And when Andrea Meyer, head of the Long Island Collection, flips through the archive, the librarian feels like a green archivist all over again.

“When you get something like these whaling logs, that numbness wears off,” she said. “That exciting, amazingness comes back. It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s not just another 1690s land deed. Oh wait, this is really cool.’ And you stop and you go, ‘Wait a second, there’s something wrong with me that I think, “Just another 1690s land deed.”’”

Astrologer Kate Plumb Looks to the Stars for 2021

Blog January 6, 2021

For Kate Plumb, the future is written among the stars.

With the closing of a tumultuous year, to say the least, the Sag Harbor astrologer has turned her sights toward 2021 and her gaze upward, looking to the cosmos for clarity on what’s to come.

“There’s meaning in the universe and things are unfolding the way they should be. It’s that faith that’s so important to have: ‘Okay, somehow I might not understand what’s happening now, but in time, I will,’” she said. “It’s that sense of faith in the spiritual world, if you will, that sense of faith in the unfolding process of your personal life and also this country and the world. It can be very dark otherwise.”

East End Clergy Brace for Restricted Holiday Season

Blog December 2, 2020

For nearly two decades, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Southampton had never once locked its doors, keeping them open for rest, prayer, solace and peace 24 hours a day, seven days a week — with no exceptions.

It was a tradition born from the devastation of September 11, 2001, a time when religious, spiritual and agnostic individuals alike needed guidance, or simply a place to go, following the terrorist attack on New York City that day, just 90 miles away.

Weighed down by uncertainty and fear, parishioners sought a similar degree of comfort when the COVID-19 outbreak reached the East End this past March. Some turned to their houses of worship as beacons of hope — and, in the case of St. John’s, knew the doors would always be open.

Until they weren’t.

“What’s Up, Doc?” Bugs Bunny Gets His Close-up, Courtesy of Peter Browngardt

Blog September 9, 2020

Peter Browngardt is closer to his cartoon childhood heroes than most have ever gotten. Perhaps most notably known as the creator of Cartoon Network’s “Uncle Grandpa,” his 20-year animation career now includes “Looney Tunes Cartoons,” which premiered this past May as part of the HBO Max launch.

Composed of 80 11-minute episodes, the animated shorts present adapted storylines for a more modern audience, explained the series executive producer and showrunner — a pair of roles that cast Browngardt as the prime candidate to supervise an adjacent project that marks one of the greatest moments of his career.

In a collaboration between the U.S. Postal Service and Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Browngardt and his team of designers and painters recently created a series of commemorative Forever stamps celebrating Bugs Bunny’s 80th anniversary. Now available for purchase, the 20-stamp pane — which features 10 designs of Bugs Bunny in his most memorable getups — comes at a time when the USPS is not only at risk, Browngardt noted, but is also poised to play a crucial role in the upcoming presidential election.

“It’s one of the highlights of my career, for sure, to be involved with this postage stamp,” he said. “The Postal Service is part of our history as a country and, right now, it’s a big deal what’s going on politically with the postal service, so it’s kind of cool and important, and it was awesome.”

The Classically Social American Hotel

Blog July 30, 2020

When Ted Conklin first walked through the front door, he saw a canvas.

The year was 1971, but inside the neglected brick building, it might as well have been the turn of the 20th century — between the gas lamps, rusted coal stove, outhouses in the back and an all-pervasive layer of dust that he could scoop with a snow shovel.

Still, he wanted it.

Conklin envisioned what the place would become, both the establishment itself — now, famously, The American Hotel — and Sag Harbor, then a depressed village following back-to-back economic downturns, first as a whaling port and then as an industrial hub.

“It hadn’t really been touched since a renovation they might have done in the 1870s — 1900 maybe,” Conklin said of the building. “So I started in on the rebuilding of it, as something that would be functional. I was just in a survival mode for the first 20 years, and now I’m back in survival mode. It’s like being a kid again.”

Ahead of His Time: Ben Vereen Reflects on Broadway’s Place in Black History

Blog July 15, 2020

When Ben Vereen auditioned for “Pippin,” the burgeoning Broadway star never thought he would get the part.

But not only did he nail the audition — in front of the original production’s director, Bob Fosse, no less — his performance as the Leading Player would win him the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1973.

At the behest of Bay Street Theater Artistic Director Scott Schwartz — whose father, Stephen Schwartz, wrote the music and lyrics of “Pippin” — Vereen has reprised the role for the Sag Harbor venue’s virtual gala, “A Starry Night,” a celebration of 1970s Broadway musicals on Wednesday, July 22, at 8 p.m., featuring performances by luminary figures of the performing arts.

Ahead of the gala, Vereen caught up with The Express News Group, reflecting on his 55-year career, the current civil rights movement and its place in the theater.

“Every war, every conflict we’ve ever had, the arts has been the thing that has brought us through,” the 73-year-old Broadway veteran said from his home in Florida. “Because the arts is spiritual. The arts has no color… It is an expression of the most high. And the conflicts of the human race, we can reflect back on our races and say, ‘This has to be changed, and this is what you need to know about the joy of your journey.’”

Child Cancer Survivor Pays It Forward, Aspires To Be Pediatric Nurse

Blog July 6, 2020

Halle Kneeland is, undeniably, an inherently positive young woman.

When the skies opened up, creating a downpour on Pierson High School’s graduation last month, the 18-year-old couldn’t help but smile as the rain soaked through her cap and gown, her long blonde curls framing her beaming face.

After all, she was simply alive. She had not only survived the COVID-19 crisis that changed the face of her senior year, but she also beat a devastating cancer diagnosis four years earlier — a chapter that defined her career path as she looks ahead toward nursing school at the University of Florida this fall.

Mind Offline Kits Spark Creativity

Blog June 10, 2020

When Jesse Spooner woke up and stumbled into the kitchen on a recent Sunday morning, he found his wife, Nicole Delma, fussing over six bubbling pots on the stove.

Except she wasn’t cooking the breakfast he’d expected.

Instead, her aromatic concoctions were walnut and turmeric, annatto, madder and osage, boiling in water to form all-nature dye baths that would consume the rest of her day — as well as the curiosity of her daughters, 4-year-old Georgica and 3-year-old Indigo-Marie — as she readied for the launch of her newest venture, Mind Offline Kits, just 24 hours later.

Quarantining in the Highlands: Sag Harbor Native Finds Solace in Scotland

Blog June 6, 2020

All Ben Lindstrom-Ives wanted was an action-packed spring break, a respite from his master’s degree pursuit at the University of London, one that promised far-away lands and great adventures.

It was, as he’d soon find out, an extremely tall order.

Artists Inspired in Days of COVID-19 Pandemic

Blog May 30, 2020

Artists across the East End have reported mixed impacts on their creativity and productivity while sheltering in place — a concept that is foreign to some, but not much of a departure for many who are already accustomed to, and prefer, working in isolation.