Dan's Papers - May 16, 2008

As things stand now, plans for the big super theme park being proposed for Riverhead is in great danger of not moving forward because of the discovery that there were short-eared hoot owls foraging for food on the property, which is 755 acres of prime grassland six miles west of downtown Riverhead.

This is a huge blow. The short-eared hoot owl is on the endangered species list. You can't have a billion and a half dollar development on the outskirts of Riverhead with the 35-story-high ski mountain, lake, equestrian ring and stables, convention centers, shopping malls, water park, ferris wheel, museum, hotels, condominiums, stadiums, jet skis and ferries, paddle boats and rides if it's going to upset these four hoot owls who were eating bugs there three months ago, even though they have since flown away.

I am all in favor of the ski mountain, lake, equestrian rings, stables, convention centers, shopping malls, water park, ferris wheel, museum, hotels, condominiums, stadiums, jet skis and ferries, paddle boats and rides because I think they will be a whole lot of fun for the millions of people who will visit every year beginning in 2012.

But what if the hoot owls win?

The problem, of course, is that the group of European corporations planning this development is private enterprise with a plan to enrich the bottom line after making their investment. My suggestion for a backup plan for them, and I have thought this through very carefully, is to build more Hamptons in the Pine Barrens. Maybe 17 of them.

People love the Hamptons. We all know that. But the Hamptons, which is east of Riverhead, consists of only 12 different villages and towns. And they are pretty much filled up all year.

Meanwhile, we have this vast empty Pine Barrens between Patchogue and Riverhead, where there is no development at all. It's just nasty bug infested scrub grasses from end to end. And it occupies a space about triple the size of the Hamptons.

The story of how we got this great open space in the middle of Long Island is of some interest. The English settled the East End in the seventeenth century, coming down from New England. And the Dutch settled New Amsterdam, and then began building small towns heading out to the east. The Dutch towns never met up with the English. Indeed, they didn't want to meet up. And so, there is this vast space in between the suburbs of New York City at one end of Long Island and the Hamptons at the other. And that is why we are in favor of the new resort scheduled to go there. We want to relieve the population pressure on the Hamptons. Let the people come out, discover the ski mountain and everything else, and then leave us alone. But now that plan is in trouble.

If the hoot owls win, I suggest we go to this backup plan. Here it is. Instead of the ski mountain theme park, we build 17 new Hamptons in the Pine Barrens, from Fire Island on the south all the way up to Shoreham on the north.

There are three virtues to this. One is the same basic idea as before, which is we take the population pressure off the original Hamptons. Two is that "Hamptons," has great panache. And three is that, unlike a business whose activities could interfere with hoot owls necessitating that they be stopped, there is no stopping a village. Each of these villages and towns would have its own government and so would deal with the hoot owl problem in its own way. Think about it. You don't shut down Southampton Village and have it pack up and leave just because they've found piping plovers there.

Here are the Hamptons I think would fit just perfectly in the Pine Barrens.

Hampton Bayous. A Hamptons with a Creole touch. Lots of alligators and swamps through which people can chug in their outboards while they catch catfish.

Slim Hamptons. Lots of restaurants, but every one of them serves only health food. Lots of coin-operated stationary bicycles on every corner. Weight Watchers and Overeaters Anonymous available at town hall on a 24-hour basis.

Hampton D'Art. Filled with artists, poets and painters. Also, sculptors. Lots of roundtable discussions and coffee shops.

Star Hampton. A restricted community for celebrities and stars of stage and screen and book and magazine publishing. Paparazzi are allowed in only at 10 a.m. for a brief picture taking session.

Hampton Park. This is the Hamptons where you would park your car to go to the other Hamptons.

"Da Hamptons." A spot for mafia types and people in the witness protection program. Lots of spaghetti houses where every night the bad guys burst in and machinegun somebody.

St. Hampton. A formerly religious community founded by right wingers, now taken over by the wealthy vacationers who want to go to the Caribbean but only have a few hours to spare.

Hodge Podge Hamptons. A strip of shopping malls that has every fast food restaurant known to man and every chain clothing store known to woman. Lots of neon, telephone poles, car washes, OTB, bagel stores, etc. etc. etc.

FlashHampton. Celebrities who can't get into Star Hamptons because they do not have the required Emmys, Grammys, Oscars and Tonys will live here where photographers can take pictures of them anytime of day or night.

Hippie Hamptons. Where aging baby boomers can live in the old way with ponytails (velcroed on), tie-dye, drugs, rock n' roll and free love. Only people with VW buses need apply.

Mies Hamptons. Every weird, modern, strange, sculptural and glass and steel house ever built in our old Hamptons gets moved to Mies Hamptons where they are put up again for sale.

Apple Hamptons. No, not the orchard, the computer company. Giant mansion on the hill will be for Bill Gates. Everybody has an iPod, an iPhone, a Mac Pro or Mac Air, and they seem to walk around real slow. Strange place.

Hampton Sur Le Mer. A big harbor. Europeans go here. And the place only takes Euros.

Dominy. This is the town that is so exclusive it doesn't even have to be called a Hampton. Instead, it is named for the Dominy family, which for three generations in the seventeenth century made clocks for the wealthy summer people out here. And you know that without asking.

Hussein Hamptons. Guantanamo North.

Short-Eared Hoot Owl Hampton. No explanation necessary.

Thanks to Jennifer Chetnik, Barbara Bornstein Hendricks, Ghiri Oberman, Pat Janums, Sandra Fields, Joan Ann Schueler, Morleen Novitt, Roberta Von Schlossberg, Elaine Greene and Vicki DiGaudio, each of whom, after I came up with a few, contributed one or more other names. We had a good time doing this and I'm grateful to them.