Years Ago In Dan’s Papers

Twenty-One Years Ago
“TV Crew Ends Shooting Here”
June 17, 1983

The TV series The Hamptons did five days of shooting in East Hampton last week, and headed off for some further scenes – to be shot upstate – and several weeks of editing. The series will premiere during the last week of July on a Wednesday at 9 p.m. on ABC. It will be seen nationwide and is initially scheduled for five weeks as a summer replacement show.
This is about the twentieth film made in the Hamptons in the last couple of years as reported to this newspaper. Death Trap, starring Christopher Reeves, was filmed here two summers ago. Woody Allen made Interiors and parts of several other films here. One can go back all the way to the early days of filming when Arabian desert scenes were shot in the vast wastelands of Napeague, complete with camels and an artificial oasis. The Hamptons, so beautiful, has long been a favorite location for filmmakers.
It is certainly hard to argue that filming in the Hamptons can bring anything but good to the area. Films call attention to the Hamptons, enhancing our already fine reputation. Filmmakers generally show off the natural beauty of our area. And finally the very act of filming is a shot in the arm to the economy. There were, in the case of “The Hamptons,” a crew of seventy-five mouths to feed, seventy-five bodies to put up for a week or more.
It seems odd, therefore, that none of our Towns or Villages have created any sort of policy about filming or any sort of administrative body to deal with filming. Should filming in public places be allowed? Encouraged? Should the town fathers be involved? New York City, for example, totally discouraged filming in the streets from about 1945 to 1970. It was only under Mayor Lindsay’s regime that this policy was reversed. Some truly great films have since been able to be made in New York City again. And the police help this to happen with the least possible disruption.
If Towns or Villages wish to encourage filming in the Hamptons, then they could set up some sort of coordinating committee that could deal with such problems as housing, feeding and policing of filming sites so as to coordinate them with the general flow of the community.
Suffolk County has such a movie board of volunteer members which meets, I am told, on an infrequent basis. Perhaps things could be modeled on this basis. – Dan Rattiner

Sixteen Years Ago
“No Frank Sinatra”
June 17, 1988

A rental that singer Frank Sinatra had made on Dune Road has fallen through according to those close to the situation. The house was oceanfront in Southampton, cost $100,000 to rent and was for the month of August.
Agents for Sinatra had made the rental late winter through Sotheby’s Agency. And the idea was that hedgerows would be planted to make the house more private. Well, hedgerows have been planted but they are not tall enough to give the man the privacy from the street he needs. Sotheby’s won’t acknowledge it, but the other brokers say the house is back on the market.
Personally, I’d like to offer my house to Mr. Sinatra for August this summer. I’d charge just $90,000 and I’d bring in a whole forest of big cedars if that’s what he wanted. Of course, he’d have to put up with the six of us huddled in the basement for the month. I wonder if he hums in the shower? – Dan Rattiner

Eleven Years Ago
“Wiped Out”
April 16, 1993

High tides washed out the access road to the Shinnecock Inlet commercial dock in Hampton Bays over the weekend. As of this writing, the road is closed off by police barriers and the fishermen who run the twenty fishing boats out of the slips there have no way of getting supplies in or out of their vessels.
The road itself, which has been occasionally covered by sand in the past, is now a mass of jagged pieces of asphalt extending almost a half a mile. The damage over the weekend cut the power lines to the Shinnecock fishing co-operative there and also to the Coast Guard’s automated light which briefly went out until an emergency generator took over.
Authorities have been worried about this situation for some time, since the two big winter storms virtually wiped out a ten-foot high line of sand dunes that stretched to the south of the road, protecting it from the sea. In fact, there was a meeting this Friday, at which Town, County, State, Federal and private citizens were to discuss with the Town Supervisor what should be done to restore the dunes. Now this meeting is far more serious. It is scheduled for 1 p.m., April 16.
The twenty fishermen and their crews who work out of the million-dollar pier built on the south side of the peninsula are making alternate arrangements until the situation can be restored. Some are trying to bring their catch into Montauk, others to Point Judith, Rhode Island. Unless something is done soon, the entire fishing fleet will permanently relocate resulting in an economic hardship and the end of this community.
A dredge that has been working at the Jones Inlet as part of an Army Corps of Engineers project has already been reassigned and will begin working restoring the dune Monday. Restoring the road is another matter.
The problem seems to have come about because of the construction of the stone jetties keeping open the inlet. In Westhampton Beach, stone jetties caused the scouring of the beaches and a loss of sand to the west of the last jetty, including the disastrous loss of hundreds of summer homes that have fallen into the sea. This weekend, in fact, two more collapsed and fell. Here, twelve miles away, stone jetties are causing the same sort of scouring to the west of the inlet. But the stone jetties are necessary to keep the inlet open. There seems to be no simple solution. But the construction of a series of groins, growing shorter as they are built a mile or so to the west, might provide the answer.
– Dan Rattiner