NO TRAFFIC
LIGHT NEEDED
(l-r) An art installation in the garden at
LongHouse; local surfers have the beach to
themselves.
One glance up and down the seemingly endless, people-free stretch of beach along Old Montauk Highway, and I was sure this wasn’t Montauk. It couldn’t possibly be.
Where were the masses of humanity?
From what I had read, the East End summer
had recently morphed from fishing village charm
to a powder keg of chaos and pandemonium,
lit up by hard-partying urbanites on a vacation
bender. I had imagined the beach along Old
Montauk Highway to be the nautical version of
the subway rush hour, throngs of people fighting
for tiny patches of precious, sandy real estate.
And when space ran out? Another beachcomber
would do the equivalent of throwing himself into
a packed train car and unfurl his towel anyway,
personal space be damned!
So my plan was to head out to Montauk after
Labor Day 2015 to see if I could experience the
area in a simpler, slower way, without having to
fight crowds at every turn.
Every Day Is “Tumbleweed Tuesday”
Locals call the Tuesday after Labor Day
“Tumbleweed Tuesday,” since that’s when life
in their sleepy town returns to normal. Ask
around, and they’ll say fall is arguably the best
time to visit Montauk, anyway. The weather
remains pleasant, the crowds thin out and the
prices fall. One can walk into a restaurant at
7 p.m. without a reservation, hike over quiet
nature trails, and enjoy the farmers market
bounty of pumpkins and apples during harvest
season. And, if it becomes “sweatshirt weather,” as my grandma always called a chilly day, a
number of world-class art museums are an easy
drive away.
“People don’t get it,” Montauk native Maureen Keller says of what visitors imagine locals
do during the fall. “They’re like, ‘You don’t have
a mall?’ We don’t even have a traffic light.”
