This week in Shelter Island history
Ten years ago, Cara Loriz was appointed to chair the Island’s Conservation Advisory Committee. Ms. Loriz has since served as Reporter editor and then executive director at Sylvester Manor.
50 YEARS AGO IN HISTORY
Time magazine’s cover illustrated computers in society with a story on the first orbiting digital computer, described as a “hatbox-sized model” capable of making 7,000 calculations per second.
The United States launched the first space nuclear power reactor from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Actor Robert Downey Jr. was born in New York City.
“My Fair Lady” took home the Best Picture Award as well as Academy Awards in seven other categories, including Best Director and Best Actor.
Julie Andrews, passed over in favor of Audrey Hepburn for the movie role of Eliza Doolittle that she had initiated on Broadway, took the Best Actress statuette for her role in “Mary Poppins.”
And on Shelter Island …
50 YEARS AGO
Are we polluting our own waters?
An editorial in an early April 1965 questioned whether visiting yachtsmen were responsible for polluting waters when they anchored overnight or through a weekend and failed to properly dispose of contents of their toilets.
But the editorial also noted that the Shelter Island Heights Sewage Treatment Plant was dumping insufficiently treated waste into the water through its outfall pipe. Baymen were being warned not to take shellfish from the area. The sewer treatment plant has been upgraded and improved through the years.
POSTSCRIPT: As recently as two years ago, Heights Property Owners Corporation officials were talking to Greenport about hooking into that village’s sewer plant, but environmentalists protested and the Village Board at the time decided not to further extend its services to the south.
If it was going to extend services, it would be to the east and west of the Village, Mayor David Nyce said.
30 YEARS AGO
North Ferry raising discount book prices
It was April 1985 when North Ferry announced a small increase in the discount books sold to Shelter Island residents and off-Island transients. A one-way book of 10 went from $27.50 to $30 while the roundtrip book of 10 went from $35 to $40. Passenger tokens of 20 went from $7 to $9 and senior citizen tokens went up by $1 to $8.
North Ferry Manager Hoot Sherman noted at the time that the roundtrip book price was still below the maximum allowed by the Suffolk County Legislature.
POSTSCRIPT: Today, those roundtrip discount books go for $55.
20 YEARS AGO
ELIH eyes merger with East End hospitals
The year was 1995 and all three East End hospitals — Eastern Long Island, Southampton and Peconic Bay, then known as Central Suffolk — were feeling the financial pinch and exploring ways to cooperate instead of competing. It would be several years before they formed the East End Health Alliance.
POSTSCRIPT: Eastern Long Island Hospital is still examining options of joining one of the major networks while Southampton Hospital is affiliating with Stony Brook University Hospital and Peconic Bay Medical Center recently announced it will be affiliating with the North Shore-LIJ network of hospitals.
10 YEARS AGO
Environmental committee gets new chair
Just 10 years ago, Cara Loriz was appointed chair of the Shelter Island Conservation Advisory Committee. She had been a part-time editorial assistant at the Reporter prior to her appointment and would later go on to edit the Reporter before accepting a job as executive director at Sylvester Manor.
Her aim as CAC leader was to encourage property owners to follow best practices in developing their property in ways that would be consistent with the health of Shelter Island.
POSTSCRIPT: Ms. Loriz recently resigned her job at Sylvester Manor to move cross country with her family.
