Amagansett's Streetlight Debate Is About How Many Main Streets the Hamlet Has

How many streets make up Amagansett's Main Street? East Hampton Town's engineers drew one continuous corridor and lined it with matching fixtures. When residents filled the Amagansett School gym on October 26, they described several different streets. 27east reported that Amagansett Library Board President Barbara Hill put it plainly: "There's commercial, entertainment, historic, residential, civic and agricultural areas — and they should not be lit the same."

A Plan That Grew While It Waited

The project began about seven years ago. At the time, the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee raised concerns about dark stretches along Main Street. It has gone through several versions and studies since then, and 27east reports that it could still be dropped entirely. The two most recent versions, about three months apart, look like this:

The July figures come from The East Hampton Star's report on that month's advisory committee meeting. That version put lights at intervals on both sides of Main Street from Indian Wells Highway to Meeting House Lane, and on the north side only from Meeting House Lane east. It would also have removed the existing "cobra head" lights on metal poles. By late October, the count had grown to 74. Councilman Tom Flight, the town's liaison to Amagansett, told 27east that a final count that high was unlikely.

In July, Flight framed the goal as consistency: "uniform lighting from one end of the study area to the other," for the safety of pedestrians and drivers. Dan Mongan of the Amagansett Historical Association answered at the same meeting: "Uniform lighting is not equal to safety." Every stretch of Main Street tests that disagreement differently, starting at the west end.

The West End Only Recently Woke Up

At the western edge of the business district, 136 Main Street sits beside the Mobil station. It is a 1920s building with a red barn behind it, off Indian Wells Highway. The Star described this corner in July as "once dead as a desert." This year it filled up. Sett Coffee and Sea Dragon Books opened on Main Street, Jamagansett took the passage facing the parking lot with its jams and fruit pies, LaParlour moved into the ground floor of the barn, and One Stop Pet Shop stayed put.

The crowd The Star found there on a summer Saturday morning was largely local. It described people with babies, strollers and dogs talking about the new Little League field on Stephen Hand's Path and the price of peanut butter at the I.G.A.

That matters for the lighting debate. The west end's foot traffic is new, and it is a daytime pattern of coffee, books and errands. Flight told 27east that some stretches on the plan's western edge may not need fixtures at all. A block that only came back to life this year is the kind of place where that judgment is still open.

The Square and the Evening Blocks

Farther in, the street keeps evening hours. The Amagansett Square directory lists Doubles, Jack's Stir Brew Coffee, Cavaniola's Gourmet, French Presse, Brunch, Meeting House, Vinnie & Nick's Barber Shop, The Salon & Day Spa and shops including La Garçonne, Ulla Johnson, Jenni Kayne, Love Adorned, Pink Chicken and Henry Lehr. Meeting House's own site says it is closed for the season, though it still invites inquiries about holiday events.

Il Buco al Mare, at 231 Main Street, posts daily hours of noon to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and noon to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The Stephen Talkhouse calendar runs shows at 8 and 10 p.m. on its busier nights, and Bogmen are booked for November 28, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This is the "entertainment" stretch in Barbara Hill's list, where people really are walking to and from cars after dark. It is also where 27east reported that East Hampton Town Police see a more pressing hazard than darkness: the traffic friction and drop-off problems created by rideshare cars. On the evening blocks, the safety question is as much about curb space as it is about light.

The Historic Stretch, Under the Trees

The design objections are sharpest east of the Square, where Main Street's 18th- and 19th-century buildings line the road. The Amagansett Historical Association runs Miss Amelia's Cottage as a house museum. The house was built in 1725.

The published plan recommends replicas of 19th-century Manhattan street lamps. Mongan's reply, as 27east reported it, was "Placing a fake urban fixture in front of our authentic, historic, rural property is not a public benefit." He also pointed out that the earliest photographs of Main Street show a street that is still recognizable today. Real antique fixtures are impractical for the town to install, so 27east expects the choice to come down to contemporary or understated modern designs.

The trees are the other concern here. Victor Gelb, president of the Amagansett Village Improvement Society, told the October meeting: "We have this beautiful canopy of trees all the way along Main Street." He said most of those trees are more than 100 years old and survived the 1938 hurricane, and he asked how trenching for underground power would affect them. Flight said the engineers have strict instructions not to damage, remove or disturb any trees. Local arborists remain concerned that the trenches could run straight through the roots.

Gelb was clear about where AVIS stands: "the AVIS is not opposed to improved lighting along Main Street," he said. "We are vehemently — vehemently — opposed to this particular design." His complaint was that the template looked built for Sag Harbor's and Montauk's main streets and then "plopped" onto Amagansett.

School to Station, Where Lower Light Is on the Table

Toward the eastern end, past Amagansett School and on to the train station, the town has already conceded that one design may not fit everything. Flight has said he is open to low bollard lights from the school to the station, where a light below eye level could suit the stretch better. This is the first place the plan itself treats Main Street as more than one street, and it is the argument the civic groups were making in the gym.

The other request from that evening concerned the ground. Several speakers asked why lighting was getting priority over cracked and uneven sidewalks. Hill suggested doing the lighting and sidewalk repairs together. Flight said he will work with the Highway Department on sidewalk repairs in the meantime.

What the Lighting District Would Carry, and What Comes Next

The cost would be paid only by the roughly 1,500 properties in the Amagansett lighting district. For the July $1.7 million version, Flight gave these estimates:

• A property with a market value of $1.25 million would pay $20.28 more a year, or $608.40 over the 30-year funding period.
• A property valued at $3.125 million would pay $50.70 more a year, or $1,521 over 30 years.

The 74-light version has no cost estimate yet. These are the town's estimates for a proposal still in flux. This post is general information, not tax or legal advice, so owners should confirm how any assessment would apply to their own property with the appropriate professional.

Before anything is built, 27east lists four steps the project still has to clear:

1. A SEQRA environmental review by the Town Board
2. Submission to the State Department of Transportation
3. Approval from the Architectural Review Board
4. A public hearing

Flight has said he will not push the project forward aggressively until there is agreement on what works best. The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee is where the plan has come back for discussion. The Amagansett Chamber calendar listed a meeting for Monday, November 9. The next one after that is Monday, December 14, at 6:30 p.m. at Amagansett School. The committee usually meets on the second Monday of the month, and the calendar advises checking for cancellations.

Until then, Main Street keeps its current mix of cobra-head lights, dark stretches and the old canopy overhead. Il Buco stays open until 10 on weekends, the Talkhouse has Bogmen on November 28, and the Amagansett Free Library is hosting a family showing of Moana on November 27.

Main Street runs through what The Star calls the hamlet's historic district, and on a street like that, decisions like fixture height, a lighting district's tax line and the reach of a tree's roots become part of what a property is. If you own along this corridor, or are thinking about it, we can talk through how the historic district and the lighting plan affect that particular address. Schedule a private consultation with Jennifer Friedberg.