Main Street
by Ellin Saltzman
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| Main Street, East Hampton circa 1940. |
| As excited as I am about Madison Avenue's revival, that's how devastated I am about the situation of Main Street in East Hampton, Long Island. After rushing to East Hampton for a golf lesson warm-up (and the term warm up did not apply to the cool-down weather) and an ensuing very poor 9 holes, I ran into town. My goal was to buy movie tickets for the evening, but the box office was closed. Feeling deprived, bad golf, no tickets, no lunch, I wandered into Dylan's Candy Bar to treat myself and spoil my supposed diet. Whoa! Closed for the season! What is going on? The candy store down the street from the cineplex movie theatre closed? Over the weekend I decided I would walk up and down Main Street to see how many stores were "closed for the season." |
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| This was very very sad to see! I needed my red strings or banana taffy! |
| That evening after indulging in ribs and fries and fried baby artichokes at the East Hampton Grill (new this season to East Hampton, a transport from Palm Beach, and an instant success), I went home to read my favorite local paper, The East Hampton Star. On page three was this incredible ad from Home, James!: |
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| I believe this ad will produce some major backlash in the community and hopefully some action will be taken! It certainly led me to return to Main Street to see what was truly happening. |
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| Main Street in East Hampton is a continuation of Route 27, going from Southampton to Montauk. It is essentially your introduction to East Hampton, making its present state even more despicable. Bridgehampton is replete with open stores, looking very inviting, some of which are East Hampton deserters. With rents having gone sky high, many of the single owner's much needed stores have fled. Gone are the newsstand, the stationery store, the music store (I fear iPods interfered with that business as well). Gone is the shoe store (it moved around the corner). Gone are some of the antique stores, the toy store. There are three jewelers led by Tiffany and three cashmere stores (Magaschoni, Cashmere Hampton, and Christopher Fisher). Do we need all of those? Ralph Lauren has nicely covered both sides of the street and stays open all year. J.Crew has a store for all men, women, children, and that is open all year, fortunately. Need to get your shoes repaired? Find a friend who lives in NYC as well as EH. There are no shoe repair places around. There is a cineplex and a fun restaurant called Rowdy Hall with burgers, beers, mussels and lots of goodies. It is open all year and great for before or after the movies. Check out the "closed for the season" stores; some may come back, some may not. Pop ups don't belong in East Hampton! |
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| Sam Edelman's first summer. Will they be back? |
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| Around the corner from Main Street is Newtown Lane. Sad to say, Newtown Lane is not seen when driving through town. Obviously the rental prices are much more reasonable. Almost every store is year round, including a Michael Kors store that moved there from Main Street. The store manager said he would only take the job if it were year round! There is a Scoop, a Lily Pulitzer, a Tahari, a Theory, a J.Crew branch of their W line, shoe store, and a great store called the Monogram Shop. It is owned by a chic and tasty woman, Valerie Smith. She is an entrepreneur and has terrific merchandise, which can almost all be monogrammed. Perfect baby presents (monogrammed sweaters or slickers or blankets), house presents, and got-to-have-myself gifts. There used to be many single-owner smart shopkeepers, but they have been run out of town. Fortunately, the hardware store is still there! |
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| Hopefully year-rounders will rent! |
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| Some folks just close up and go away! |
| Newtown Lane also has five restaurants; two are all-day breakfast sites, one is the Italian Cittanuova, one used to be the butcher shop (another gone entity) Dreesen's, with its famous doughnuts as its main attraction. Across from Dreesen's is another golden oldie, Sam's Pizzeria. It has been there since at least 1959 (my arrival) and has been passed down through the family. That resume is what many stores had. One aside: Sam's does a great business with all ages ... before or after the movies, they all come running. One summer evening many years ago someone came running in ahead of the crowd trying to reserve a table for "Steven Spielberg from the movies." Rose, the owner and founder said, "from the movies? Everyone here is from the movies. The 7 PM ones or the 9 PM ones?" |
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| HB covers their empty window with Xmas paper. |
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| Thus, only half the town of East Hampton is as it should be. Very sad for the natives and year-round weekenders. |
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Twitter: ShoppingDiary |
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