The Good, the Bad and the Funny of 2014 on the East End
The past year was filled with ideas good, bad, and both. Here’s the top 20:
Good Idea: Raising more than $25,000 via Kickstarter to fund the Montauk Surf Museum
Bad Idea: Giving your money to fund a potato salad now worth over $55,000
Good Idea: Three K-Cups from Hampton Coffee Company
Bad Idea: KKK pamphlets in Hampton Bays
Good Idea: Deer cull
Bad Idea: Swan cull
Good Idea: Hilaria Baldwin treating her Instagram followers to a Yoga Pose of the Day
Bad Idea: Trying to replicate them (ouch!)
Good Idea: Philippe Petit celebrating the 40th anniversary of walking a tightrope between the Twin Towers by walking a tightrope the exact same distance at Jack Larsen’s Longhouse
Bad Idea: Walking across the Napeague Stretch in front of Cyril’s
Good Idea: Jay Schneiderman introducing a bill that would have facilitated waiving parking fees at county beaches when temperatures spike
Bad Idea: Trying to park at a Hamptons beach without a parking sticker
Good Idea: Travel & Leisure naming Montauk to its 25 Most Romantic Towns in America (Sag Harbor was fourth)
Bad Idea: Condé Nast Traveler naming “The Hamptons” the 8th “Most Unfriendly City” in America
Bad Idea: A travel magazine thinking “The Hamptons” is a city
Good Idea: Restoring the old Hedges Barn in East Hampton Village
Bad Idea: Not preserving the Springs art studios of James Brooks and Charlotte Park
Good Idea: Announcing that Montauk Brewing Company will brewing beer in Montauk in 2015
Bad Idea: Waiting until the end of August to buy Wölffer Rosé, which sold out again this year
Good Idea: Opening the new East Hampton Library Children’s Wing
Bad Idea: Closing the Montauk Movie
Good Idea: Purchasing Tate’s Bake Shop business for a reported $100 million
Bad Idea: Missing Governor Cuomo celebrate L.I. Wine Country at Dan’s Harvest East End
Good Idea: Reopening the Agawam Ferry that Pyrrhus Concer piloted in the mid-19th century
Bad Idea: Trying to use your SUV as a ferry on Dune Road during a flood
Good Idea: Playing the new mini-golf course at the Children’s Museum of the East End
Bad Idea: Thinking you could defeat the East Hampton High School boys soccer team, Southampton High School boys cross-country, champions both
Good Idea: Jimmy Fallon hosting The Tonight Show
Bad Idea: Fallon trying to drive on the beach
Good Idea: Bringing back East Hampton Idiot Spotter for a second summer
Bad Idea: Winding up on East Hampton Idiot Spotter…especially if it’s for a second summer
Good Idea: Moriches Bay Project’s Million Mollusk March
Bad Idea: Thousands of scallop shells dumped in a mound by Three Mile Harbor for recycling
Good Idea: Being a part of the most dynamic real estate market in the world, with a chart-topping $147 million sale this year
Bad Idea: Not having enough housing to support a millennial workforce
Good Idea: Shake Shack naming a Concrete (aka shake) after the Hampton Jitney
Bad Idea: Banning ice cream cones
Good Idea: The Long Island GLBT Services Network’s Sag Harbor center expanding.
Bad Idea: Local bigots sending death threats to the Network’s president, David Kilmnick
Good Idea: After nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother, finally finding out who the mother is
Bad Idea: After nine seasons, not accepting that there is no such place as Farhampton.