Dan's Papers - July 25, 2008

For 30 years, the abandoned six-story Bulova factory has loomed over downtown Sag Harbor like a great eyesore. In the 1990s, a developer wanted to turn it into condominiums, but the village trustees over the next two years stonewalled the project. So it just stayed an eyesore. Around 2000, some artsy types wanted to turn it into a great alternative lifestyle mall with yoga and massage studios, art galleries, vegetarian restaurants and pesticide-free food stores. The village only spent two months looking at this before stonewalling the project. So it continued as an eyesore. In 2006, some different condominium developers came to the village trustees with a new plan to turn the eyesore into a combination of condominium apartments, a spa and private club, with more than a million dollars set aside for subsidized housing elsewhere. The trustees considered the matter and then spent two years stonewalling it until, just three months ago, as the bottom fell out of the real estate market, the developers said they were putting the whole project on hold while they reassessed their options, which is shorthand for saying, "We had the money ready for the last two years but now things have dried up so we're taking a hike."

Last week, with Bulova still looming over the village like an eyesore, the village trustees announced that all their various objections and roadblocks would be removed and that the condominium developers were welcome to come back and go ahead. It was all a big mistake.

On the other hand, when they approved this, they said, it was only an "informal" vote, just a "sense" of the trustees and nothing official, so when and if the developers would come back they'd have to look at it again to see if the could translate this into black and white. (A more complete and up-to-date account of this appears on page 31.)

The eyesore continues to loom.

What is it with this business of giving everything a grade here on eastern Long Island?

Last month, County Executive Steve Levy gave the grade of D to Riverhead and Southampton for their efforts in recycling. Southold and East Hampton got Bs. Nobody got an A.

About a month ago, a lab that grades the beaches in America rated Coopers Beach in Southampton #4, down from #3 last year. Meanwhile, Main Beach in East Hampton was rated #6 this year, up from #7. The rating change had something to do with the fineness of the sand that came in this year.

Then there were the school ratings. Southampton and East Hampton got a B. Bridgehampton got an A.

Now, Senator Charles Schumer has given a rating of C- to the helicopter companies that fly into East Hampton and Westhampton airports. Last fall, he told them to fly over water so their chatter-chatter noise wouldn't bother the residents below so much. It would be a voluntary effort. Apparently, only some of the chopper companies have complied.

It might interest you to know that when you call the East Hampton Airport, by the way, the machine that answers says to press one for this and two for that, and if you want to file a complaint about the airport, here is another number to dial, which is the noise complaint number. Apparently, there is no number to call for other complaints.

Among the email I get every day are press releases from people urging me to attend one event or another. The other day I got one that not only urged me to attend the event, but also told me how I might fit in other things in my life in between. I found it disconcerting.

"The meeting to discuss the revision to the Sag Harbor Zoning Code will take place at 8:20 a.m. on Saturday, July 12. This is your chance to attend a weekend meeting and still have the rest of the day free for your weekend activities! Mark your calendars and set your alarm clocks!"

One of the most vicious weapons of war is the cluster bomb. Pieces of it can explode days, even months or years after it impacts the ground, by which time the war, whatever it might have been about, is simply over, so the victims are just innocent civilians.

The General of the Army, George W. Casey, Jr., put together a team of people to work on the problem and last week announced that by 2018, all cluster bombs manufactured in America would have all the pieces explode on impact 99 percent of the time.

Here's a brainstorm. Marvel Comics, which was part of Ron Perelman's stable of companies for a long time, owns the rights to a whole bunch of superheroes - Spiderman, X-Men, Hulk, Iron Man and Thor. In the past, they've tried to get action movies made about these comic book superheroes, and so they've approached studios that make movies. They've done a few deals. And then the studios hire some actors and writers to put together a plot and make it.

Now, the comic book company has come up with a brilliant plan to turn this scenario upside down. Why not make the movies themselves? Thus was born Marvel Films. They hired an experienced movie executive as president, and, since they don't exactly have their own studios, they then farmed the different parts of the project out to subcontractors. And they're a success. A side effect of this is that now they are in control of how all their superheroes make out. No death-ray or kryptonite for them. They've done Iron Man. They've done The Hulk. Their guys win! They get the girls! Why hasn't anybody thought of this before?

They caught the "bad hatter" bank robber the other day. Thomas Kenny, 58, of East Northport, had been robbing banks all over Long Island - in Deer Park, New Hyde Park, Great Neck and Roslyn, among other places. Each time, he'd come into the bank wearing a different kind of hat. He was photographed by the surveillance cameras wearing a beret, a ski cap, a bowler, a Tyrolian hat, a chapeau and a sunhat. All together, he robbed 17 banks between February and May of this year before, finally, they caught him.

He'd have done a whole lot better, in my opinion, if he'd worn just one hat, say a straw hat, like I do. I've never had a problem. Works for me.