Montauk Just Won't Ever Be The Same

It was a place with lots of families, with lots of kids. Hard working blue collar dads getting away from their sacrifices and toil to experience a piece of the American dream via their vacation time in affordable Montauk. Family oriented affordable restaurants with friendly service and healthy portions made family night out a joy. Unspoiled ocean beaches the length of the whole town were so special and practically no rules or any need for rules.

The locals were also hard working fisherman, proprietors, and service oriented business people with an eye towards privacy but polite to the guests whose summer visits made everything work. Yes this was Montauk, the quiet fishing village at the end of Long Island.

2015 brought record amounts of actual trash into the town. It was overflowing at the public beaches, on the Main Street, in many parking lots of the all the parks and sadly on the sidewalks and the streets. The more it was cleaned up the faster it seemed to accumulate. It seemed to be a combination of lack of respect for the town by its visitors, as if Montauk had become a Disney destination and some visitors felt entitled to trash the place at will. There was puke on private lawns, drunk, stoned or medicated people walking into homes to sleep, use the showers, or just watch the TV. The term used by too many was, Montauk is really out of control.

The East Hampton Town Police, whose very leadership are actual children of Montauk could only do so much against the record number of disorderly visitors, even with roadblocks, ID checks, and other police tactics. Yet I must admit there were times I felt “something more” was needed as I tried to get through Montauk at night.

Meetings were held, voices raised, parking conditions altered, all perhaps to attempt to change the behavior of those who really don’t care about rules anyway. The problems/situation of today’s Montauk appears to be both complex and simple. It might just be as simple as the young folks who once had large families while in their twenties are no longer getting married and having families. Instead they are staying single and only seem to have enough money to party on weekends. This might be because of a population shift of wealth to older retired baby boomers. The post World War 2 folks who grew up in a world where the middle class prospered and still come to Montauk, but minus their grown up struggling children. It can be all of this or just a change in the American way of life reaching all the way out to Montauk. Maybe the Montauk situation on summer nights is happening in other hotspot towns all over the nation? Whatever, the truth is this; Montauk just won’t ever be the same.

The good news is there is a magic to Montauk, an ability due to its location to evolve, to always be way out at the end, a boundary, a landing spot all with unique charms and beauty. Thus is and will always be special.