Last week I was driving around the village checking on the kinds of things we officials are known to do, like leaf pick-up and signs and such, and I happened to be up in the estate section coming back from Main Beach. As I worked my way around the various streets, like Lee Avenue and Cottage Avenue, and admired the beautiful houses, I started thinking about what it was like when I was growing up. Then when my car finally got to Baiting Hollow a really specific memory jumped into my brain.
We were taking my sister to a friend's house. One of her best friends lived on Baiting Hollow, between the highway and where Georgica Road crosses it. Her friend's father was a doctor so I assumed they lived there because they were rich, although I have
no idea if they had any more money than anyone else, really. It was probably the property that was available when he moved here. But as a kid, that was my impression. Anyway, they lived in a low-slung ranch house, also unusual when all the houses I was surrounded by were shingled, two-story jobs which had been around for at least two generations. This was a new (contemporary for its day) house - and very different to me. In my mind, rich people lived outside the village. We regular people lived in the village where the houses were closer together and the streets a little busier. If you wanted room to spread out you bought where no one else lived, on the outskirts, down in the Springs, or up in Northwest, where nobody lived!
My ancestors arrived in East Hampton Village in the mid-nineteenth century (before that they'd been in Wainscott). And when they arrived here everyone lived close together, where they could walk wherever they wanted to go and keep an eye on each other for safety and social reasons as much as any other. Hitching up a horse and wagon was not done quickly or easily and therefore it was rare. No one lived in the woods unless they were native America or on the lam.
I still live within a few hundred yards of where my ancestors landed so village life is, to me, wonderful and comfortable. And for a long time living on a road like Baiting Hollow was really about living alone - I remember thinking it took so long to get there! My ancestors would be shocked to see the houses that fill Northwest Woods and the Springs today. Even I'm amazed, and I've watched them all being built.
We were taking my sister to a friend's house. One of her best friends lived on Baiting Hollow, between the highway and where Georgica Road crosses it. Her friend's father was a doctor so I assumed they lived there because they were rich, although I have
no idea if they had any more money than anyone else, really. It was probably the property that was available when he moved here. But as a kid, that was my impression. Anyway, they lived in a low-slung ranch house, also unusual when all the houses I was surrounded by were shingled, two-story jobs which had been around for at least two generations. This was a new (contemporary for its day) house - and very different to me. In my mind, rich people lived outside the village. We regular people lived in the village where the houses were closer together and the streets a little busier. If you wanted room to spread out you bought where no one else lived, on the outskirts, down in the Springs, or up in Northwest, where nobody lived!My ancestors arrived in East Hampton Village in the mid-nineteenth century (before that they'd been in Wainscott). And when they arrived here everyone lived close together, where they could walk wherever they wanted to go and keep an eye on each other for safety and social reasons as much as any other. Hitching up a horse and wagon was not done quickly or easily and therefore it was rare. No one lived in the woods unless they were native America or on the lam.
I still live within a few hundred yards of where my ancestors landed so village life is, to me, wonderful and comfortable. And for a long time living on a road like Baiting Hollow was really about living alone - I remember thinking it took so long to get there! My ancestors would be shocked to see the houses that fill Northwest Woods and the Springs today. Even I'm amazed, and I've watched them all being built.
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