Dan's Hamptons Predictions for 2020: What's Coming in the New Year

Sometime in mid-June, scientists discover that the large quantities of red algae that clog the ponds and lakes in the Hamptons are a miraculous cure for almost everything when used for medicinal purposes. It is such a sensational discovery, the Town Trustees quickly become rich and buy up all the Wall Street mansions in the Hamptons. With these waterfront palaces, they can supervise the daily harvests and re-seedings by looking out the windows.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg wins the election and becomes President of the United States in November. His home in Southampton becomes the Summer White House. Bloomberg’s campaign slogan “Able to See Putin Eye to Eye” carries the day. Both Bloomberg and Putin are 5 foot 7. Trump is 6 foot 3.

After Britain leaves the EU in January, Scotland, Northern Island and Wales become independent. Britain, now broke, appeals to the United States, which buys Greenland and gives it to Britain, thus giving Britain enough land area to keep its place as a world power.

In June, however, the Hamptons declares its independence from America, saying it will be better off with its own customs, economy and way of life. This results in a “good riddance” tweet from Trump, but in November, after the election of Bloomberg, realizing his Summer White House is now in a foreign country, he sends out feelers to get the Hamptons back.

Seven luxury pop-up stores appear in Southampton and East Hampton on June 16, but in rising up out of the ground kill 11 pedestrians and injure 52 others.

In late June, the owners of two 190-foot yachts get into a fistfight while trying to maneuver their ships into the last available berth at Sag Harbor’s Long Wharf. One ship sinks. The other pulls into the spot.

In August, millions of formerly endangered piping plovers attack beachgoers at several town beaches and drive them away. The New York State Department of Environmental Preservation declares the Hamptons beaches off
limits to humans.

When it’s learned in July that the owners of the offshore wind farms definitely want to bring their power lines to shore at Wainscott, a group of wealthy environmentalists from that town pay to fire up all 22 of the existing 19th century windmills in the area—which, as it turns out, provides all the power needed for the homes in the Hamptons, thus rendering the offshore wind farms unnecessary.

In August, researchers find photographs in the basement of the Pollock-Krasner House in Springs showing that Jackson Pollock, up on a ladder and dripping paint onto canvases in the backyard of his home there back in the 1940s, did so while blindfolded.

In the beginning of July, East Hampton Town passes a law making it legal for people to land helicopters on their property. Immediately, the noise and congestion out at the airport comes to an end.

In May, the Hampton Classic Horse Show announces it has purchased the Hamptons International Film Festival and that when the festival comes around in October, it will only be showing films about cowboys, rodeo riders, horse racing, betting, teenage girls and their steeds, polo, stall mucking and the Pony Express.

In May, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un again begins making frightening threats about imminent nuclear attacks on cities—but this time the cities will be Shanghai and Beijing. Kim, having learned of the Uyghur concentration camps, now says he’s discovered the Chinese want to move into North Korea and take over and dismantle his kingdom. “They want to sterilize us and make us speak Chinese,” he says.

Steve Cohen, the billionaire, completes his purchase of the New York Mets and announces the team is so much worse than he imagined, he is withdrawing it from the Major Leagues and will move it to Hampton Bays, where they will be a Triple A team playing as the Hampton Mets in his newly built Cohen Coliseum. First at-bat will take place in the fall.

An appeals court in October reverses the decision of a lower court and declares that all the land between the Shinnecock Canal and Water Mill rightly belongs to the Shinnecock Indian Nation, who were illegally snookered out of their land by the settlers in 1845. The nation immediately receives mail from both the Shinnecock Golf Course and the U.S. Open, begging to be allowed to continue.

Environmentalists cheered in 2019 when the bald eagle, an endangered species gone from the scene for more than half a century in the Hamptons, was found to be making a comeback. In 2020, however, with dozens of pairs of them stunningly swooping around up in Noyac and Promised Land using their awesome six-foot wingspans, a few have been found to have gone off with several toy poodles lifted off summer residents’ backyards. As a result, in September, the towns ban the ownership of any dog weighing less than 18 pounds and a massive dog exodus begins. In October, though, a couple is jailed when it’s found that their little nine-pound-and-illegal chihuahua has been leaping up, clawing down and killing swooping eagles in flight.

Powerful telescopes in the Hamptons, focusing on the full moon, discover in February that it has been taken over by unknown persons who are using it as a surveillance device.

In April, the Village of Sagaponack, learning that the annual survey done by the U.S. Postal Service showing they are the richest zip code in America is no longer true and they have dropped to third, embarks on a letter-writing campaign in the belief that if more letters get sent from their post office, their dominance will be restored. When this is shown to be a useless effort a month later and it all goes viral, Sagaponack is seen as a laughing stock and the effort is quickly but quietly ended.

After intense lobbying by the eyeglass industry, the federal government passes a bill in March saying that because it’s 2020, it will require all people in the United States to have their eyes tested to make sure they have 20-20 vision. It’s a matter of public safety, they say. Those who fail this test must buy eyeglasses. Trump signs the bill into law, but not until after he adds an amendment that says anyone with less than 20-20
eyesight has to be sent back to where they came from.