This week in Shelter Island history

50 YEARS AGO IN HISTORY

The People’s Republic of China detonated its first nuclear weapons test

The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the New York Yankees 7-5 to win the 1964 World SeriesDirectors of the Indians voted to keep the team in Cleveland, rejecting bids from Seattle, Oakland and Dallas

President Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photos showed the presence of missile bases in Cuba

Composer Cole Porter died at age 73

50 YEARS AGO
Duryea predicts bridge will come

Then assemblyman Perry Duryea told East End  officials that a bridge spanning Long Island Sound eventually would be in place linking the East End of Long Island to New England. He wouldn’t venture a guess as to just when, but was adamant in his insistence that it eventually would happen.

Studies of a crossing from Orient Point to Rhode Island were already under way, Mr. Duryea said. There were also alternative ideas for a bridge that would be further west on Long Island and he predicted that by the spring of 1965, the various studies would be completed. He also predicted an extension of the Long Island Expressway to the East End.

POSTSCRIPT: Last time we looked, 50 years after Mr. Duryea’s prediction, there was still no bridge to New England, nor was such an idea even being discussed. The link from Orient to New England does, indeed exist thanks to Cross Sound Ferry. As for the extension of the Long Island Expressway, it does now reach into Riverhead, but don’t expect the major highway will ever go any further east. And that’s just fine with East End residents who wouldn’t welcome more intrusion into their bucolic lifestyle.

30 YEARS AGO
State requires swimming pool fences

Shelter Islands may prefer to do things in their own unique way, but occasionally there’s an intrusion. Residents crammed a meeting in October 1984 to protest a town proposal to require a 4-foot fence around new and existing pools. The provision was to take effect as of January 1986. But after listening to the complaints residents had about the proposal, the board dropped it. But New York State, with its own regulations that required such fencing as of January 1984.

POSTSCRIPT: Today, there’s no apparent dispute over the safety that fencing affords and recognition that when it comes to building codes, a municipality may have a tighter regulation than the state has, but can’t ignore the state requirement.

20 YEARS AGO
East End survey shows Islanders content

A survey conducted in 1994 by the Southampton College’s Institute for Regional Research revealed that 86 percent of Shelter Island residents believed the quality of life was better than in most other places in which they could afford to live. That number contrasts with 61 percent of residents in the other four East End towns. The survey of 500 people had been conducted in March and April of 1994, with results released in October of that year.

The survey revealed general satisfaction with various departments in town, again with higher scores than the other East End town had, except for the Board of Education that at that time earned a 5.2 on a 10-point scale, compared with 6.3 in the other towns.

POSTSCRIPT: There’s no survey to prove it right now, but we’re guessing that Shelter Islanders would again express a high level of satisfaction with their lives here.

10 YEARS AGO
Cliff Clark calls ‘bridge traffic’ overblown

Shelter Island in 2004 was joining Southold and Cross Sound Ferry in challenging East Hampton’s law barring vehicle ferry terminals. But South Ferry president Cliff Clark told the Town Board he thought it was a mistake to challenge the East Hampton law, arguing that it could result in increased ferry rates and decreased local business revenue from customers using Shelter Island as their “bridge” between the North and South forks.

The traffic generated by Cross Sound vehicles using Shelter Island as a bridge to the South Fork is overblown, Mr. Clark said. What’s more, because additional people have moved here since crossing the Island and bring more relatives and guests here, it has benefitted local business, he said.

POSTSCRIPT: Complaints continue on the North Fork that likely have more to do with traffic clogging the roads from Orient to Greenport, but the long-standing East Hampton ban on passenger ferries remains.

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