In the Hamptons 4Ever

Mostly True Tales from the East End

Dan Rattiner

• Publisher: Excelsior Editions
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781438458151
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

This is Dan Rattiner's fourth collection of essays about the fishermen, farmers, celebrities, billionaires, and artists who live, work, and play in the Hamptons. As the founder and publisher of Dan's Papers, a weekly community newspaper, Rattiner knows the Hamptons backwards and forwards, and stories of his encounters on the South Fork of Long Island give readers a greater understanding of how this community has changed over the years and the major figures who have shepherded these changes along. In addition to well-known faces such as Dr. Oz and billionaires like Ira Rennert and his wife—who built the second-largest private home in America—you'll also read about motel owners, art gallery owners, an ad salesman for Dan's Papers, and a philanthropist who at one time had nearly a dozen historical buildings on her $100 million property in East Hampton. The book also provides some of the hoaxes and tall tales that the author has fabricated over the years to entertain the readers of Dan's Papers, including the moving radar tower at Montauk, the great Ecuadorian eel attack, and the Hamptons subway. "Dan's book, as does his newspaper, creates a chronicle of the women and men who have chosen to live in this magical place over these different decades, so one gets a very personal picture of how it was and is. Dan's seen it all and isn't keeping it under his very real hat." — from the Foreword by Barbara L. Goldsmith

On the Next Page: In the summer of 1988, the Village of Sag Harbor began to consider a plan to allow local artists to paint over the pale green forty foot tall steel ball in the center of town that had for many years been used for the storage of compressed gas. By this time Dan’s Papers had become known for occasional fantasies and hoaxes that would shake up the community. Did Jackson Pollock really do a drip painting on that ball years earlier? From Dan’s Papers on August 27, 1988.

POLLOCK MASTERPIECE IS FOUND IN SAG HARBOR

The big steel gas ball that for years has dominated the Sag Harbor skyline may have a value in excess of $10 million, according to an art expert. Dr. Harrison Holly of the Manhattan Art Institute says that if this is the steel gas storage sphere that was built in Sag Harbor in 1952, and the company that owns the sphere, the Long Island Lighting Company, confirms that it is, then it has, under its many coats of paint, the largest and most spectacular Jackson Pollock drip painting ever made. “Pollock lived in the Springs,” Dr. Holly said. “He made the drip painting standing on the top of this sphere in 1954, just two years after its construction. He was at the top of his form at the time, and the painting was considered a masterwork. Unfortunately, vandals painted over Pollock’s work in 1956, just after Pollock’s untimely death. It was a major loss to the art world at the time. I had no idea this sphere was still standing. Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles’ sold at auction for more than $8 million recently. Pollock’s paintings fetch more than those of any American painter of the 20th Century.”

Dr. Holly said that whatever coats of paint have been put on top of the Pollock could easily be removed using modern restoration techniques. He said the possible existence of the sphere came to his attention because of newspaper reports about an East End group that wanted to paint the sphere as a replica of the earth. That plan, which was put before the Sag Harbor Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review last week, was unanimously turned down.

According to LILCO, if there is a Jackson Pollock under there, they are surely going to find it. “If this sphere is worth tens of millions of dollars, then we are surely going to take advantage of it,” a LILCO representative said. “We may bring in a new sphere and remove this old one so we can work on it. We may put it up for auction. At this point, we don’t know.” The sphere was originally built in Sag Harbor by the local gas company that operated in Sag Harbor at that time. Owned by an erratic millionaire named Fester Blount, the East Coast Coal and Combustible Gas Corporation did its business just in Noyac, North Sea and Sag Harbor until right after the Second World War. At that time, Blount decided on a major expansion. He would have gas brought in by steamer, and he would distribute it up and down the east coast, from Maine to North Carolina. And he would build a big storage tank on property he owned on Long Island Avenue in Sag Harbor that would be large enough to serve the gas needs of the entire eastern seaboard. Blount hired Howard Horton Contracting to build him this gas ball out of steel plates and rivets—it was the largest of its kind at the time—and Horton complied. It was ready to receive gas by April 2, 1952.

Unfortunately, a week earlier, Blount was seriously injured when a tank of propane he was carrying from his car to his garage exploded in his hands. On his deathbed at his home in Sag Harbor, he was visited by, among others, Jackson Pollock, whom Blount had met at Jungle Pete’s Bar on Fort Pond Boulevard in East Hampton. From the day of their meeting until their parting at Blount’s deathbed, the two men were inseparable. Among other things, Blount was, along with Peggy Guggenheim, Pollock’s major benefactor.

“Make my sphere your greatest work,” Blount reportedly gasped to Pollock as his last words.

Before the summer was out, Pollock had made sketches, designed a concept and then climbed up to the top of the sphere to splash this most brilliant and exuberant drip painting down every side. It was a dramatic and unequivocal statement of Abstract Expressionism, visible for miles. Photographs of the sphere appeared on the covers of virtually every art magazine published at that time, with accompanying rave reviews. On the other hand, most of the Sag Harbor townspeople hated it.

(Courtesy of the author)

One and a half years later, in August, with his wife in Paris, Pollock was driving two young women to a party at the home of Alphonse Ossorio in Wainscott. Ossorio was another abstract expressionist of sorts, and he had just returned from the Philippines and wanted to re-acquaint himself with all his friends. By four in the afternoon, when the party was to begin, Pollock was already drinking heavily and the girls had suggested they not go. Pollock insisted, however, and he began weaving his Oldsmobile convertible down Springs-Fireplace Road. As the girls continued to insist that Pollock was too drunk to go to the party, the painter became abusive, turned the Oldsmobile around, stepped on the gas and increased his speed to more than 60 miles an hour before reaching a bend in the road near Abraham’s Path. The car lifted up, turned over and crashed into a tree by the side of the road. Pollock and one of the girls were killed. The other girl lived to tell the tale.

As for the sphere in Sag Harbor, it was entirely painted over in an aqua color during the night just one week later. No one was ever arrested for this desecration, and it was said that the Sag Harbor police, who along with the rest of the townspeople did not seem to appreciate either Pollock, his work, his girl friends or his drinking prowess, didn’t try very hard.

The Long Island Lighting Company bought the sphere in 1962, when they consolidated all the small lighting and power companies on Long Island. And so it was almost ten years after its construction that the sphere was first filled with gas. Horton had built it well. There were no leaks.

From that day until this, LILCO has re-painted the sphere every eight years, always the same aqua color. Around 1975, the Federal Aviation Authority passed laws requiring that all tall objects be painted in certain bright colors so they would not be dangers to pilots in passing aircraft. The aqua color was acceptable to the FAA.

Early this winter, a group of local artists formed an organization called the “One World Project,” hoping to be able to paint the sphere as a replica of the Earth. Among those in the group were artist Bianca Rice from Sag Harbor, architect Eva Growney from East Hampton, Bill Smith, who is president of FISH Unlimited, and Barney Corrigan, president of Sag Harbor’s Guild of Holistic Practices. They got the okay from LILCO to repaint the sphere so long as the colors were acceptable to the FAA, and on Monday, March 25, appeared before the Sag Harbor Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review to get approval from the Village.

The basic aqua color of the sphere would be left as it was for the various oceans. Land masses would be painted an FAA approved beige. Puffs of white clouds would be added.

Although the representatives of the One World Project brought in a petition of more than 165 signatures, many of them local Sag Harbor merchants who had to every day look out at the sphere, the Board was not satisfied that this was not some sort of “political statement” that ought to be better made in a demonstration or meeting. They voted the project down, unanimously.

Neither members of the Village Board nor members of the One World Project indicated they had any idea that underneath all of this was an original Jackson Pollock masterpiece.

“I had no idea,” one One World Project member said, requesting anonymity.

Barney Corrigan, who left the meeting dejected after the Defeat, had originally said this was only the beginning of the fight and they’d present the proposal again next year. Now, with the new information provided by Dr. Holly, he said he would have no comment at the present time.

Elaine Benson

One day in 1970, I asked Elaine Benson, the owner of a large art gallery and sculpture garden next door to the house that had become our new office in Bridgehampton, to write a column for this newspaper. It seemed a logical thing to do, considering that both the newspaper and the art gallery along with a nearby bar were pioneers in the transformation of Bridgehampton.

Until about 1970, Bridgehampton was just a three-block main street surrounded by farms and potato fields, really just an agricultural town, like any other in America. A popular summer event was for the largest potato competition. Another well-attended event was the antique tractor run. Agway was the big store. Farmers and farmhands were everywhere. Sunday, the downtown closed up. The farmers and their wives, all dressed up, went to church. Four churches graced Main Street. There were feed stores, luncheonettes—one was the Candy Kitchen (still there) where at the time, farmers assembled at 6 a.m. to discuss feed, grain, and potato prices over coffee to start their day—a meat market with raw sides of beef hanging on hooks, two barber shops, and several taverns. Also, amazingly, in just those three blocks, there were seven gas stations, all of which fixed not only cars but also tractors and other gasoline-powered farm implements. The town even had a weekly newspaper, the Bridgehampton News. Around 1970, however, potatoes grown in Maine and Idaho began to dominate the market. Meanwhile, a new wave of artists, writers, sculptors, Wall Street people and others from the city were moving into town and building homes in some of the farm fields. And they were willing to pay high prices.

ELAINE BENSON

(Photo by Nancy Crampton, Sculpture by Molly Mason)

And then, along Main Street, there were us pioneers. First, in 1964, came the Benson Art Gallery. Elaine and Emanual Benson bought a large old Victorian home on Main Street and in the back, inside a large barn and outside in a field, exhibited sculpture and art from the abstract expressionists, the surrealists, and others. They showed the work of Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, Robert Dash, Fairfield Porter, all artists who lived in this community.

A second pioneer, a bar called Bobby Van’s, opened in 1968 catering to literary types. It became a famous hangout for novelists and editors such as Truman Capote, James Jones, George Plimpton, Peter Mattheissen, Irwin Shaw, and others who had moved into the community.

And then came me. My entry into town came in 1970 when I moved the offices of Dan’s Papers to Bridgehampton’s Main Street, to a house directly next door to the Benson Art Gallery. I also bought a home nearby on Lumber Lane in a residential neighborhood for my young family.

Of course, the day after my new newspaper office opened, I walked over to meet the Bensons. They invited me in for coffee. And, over time, I got to know them well.

Emanuel Benson was a formidable, scholarly man of about sixty-five who had been the director of the Philadelphia Museum School of Art. Elaine, a beautiful, graceful woman of forty, was his wife. I, at twenty-nine, considered them both wise elders.

Art was everywhere. The talk at the gallery was of literature, travel, Europe. I learned that at one time before they got married, Elaine had worked for Mr. Benson as his secretary. They had both been married at the time. There were children involved. But they had eloped to start someplace new.

And I’d see Elaine and Emanuel about one th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Dan Rattiner
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Bob Steadman
• Sea Fair Week
• The Mackensie Seagull Whistle Ad
• Pollock Masterpiece is Found in Sag Harbor
• Radar Tower at Montauk Moves
• Hampton Subway, Built in 1920s, Found Underground Here
• Lions Will Kill All Deer in the Hamptons
• Acknowledgments
• Back Cover