Dan's Papers - August 17, 2007 - The Big Duck is to Hit the Road Right After Labor Day Weekend

Shortly after Labor Day, the Big Duck on Flanders Road, which is probably the second most well known landmark on the East End, after the Montauk Lighthouse, is to be moved away. They are going to put it on a flatbed truck and take it down Route 24 in the general direction of downtown Riverhead.

The first reaction, of just about everybody who hears about it is: oh my God, we've got to do something about this. Let's form a committee. This cannot happen.

The second reaction however, after they learn what is really going on, is more subdued. Oh.

The Big Duck is going home. It's going two miles up the road to be set up again on the same road it's on now, but this time across the street. And oh, by the way, the new location is the original location, where it was first built and from where it was moved to its present safe location in 1988, when developers threatened to tear it down.

Everybody loves the Big Duck. It's twenty feet tall. It roosts. And it stares out at the street with little red eyes that were once the taillights for a Model T Ford, which light up at night.

And it was Suffolk County that saved it and moved it away and it will be Suffolk County that moves it back, twenty years later. What goes around comes around.

The Big Duck was originally the grand idea of two brothers, Martin and Julie Maurer, who lived in Riverhead and raised ducks. This was in 1931. There were very few cars on the road then. In rural Riverhead, people congregated downtown and bought things in the stores there, or found themselves driving sometimes out of town on the long, lonesome rural roads that bordered the farms, where they could buy corn or strawberries or fresh duck from farm stands. As for the farmers, they'd put up a sign to call attention to what they sold at their stands.

That year, 1931, a new form of advertising gripped the nation. Along many bumpy dirt roads, there began to appear giant farm stands, visible from afar, built in the shape of what was being sold inside. You'd see a giant hot dog off in the distance, or a giant donut or a giant hamburger. When you'd get there, there'd be a door. You'd go inside and buy a tinier, edible version of what you had just walked into.

The fad lasted for a few years. And during this time, these two duck farmers -- there were about fifty duck farms on eastern Long Island, bordering the creeks and bays of this community -- said, well, let's build a duck.

And so they did. It's snowy white, perfectly proportioned and made out of wood studs, canvas and stucco and it's become a symbol of the farming industry on eastern Long Island.

Behind the Duck, just fifty feet away, was a small office and beside it, a storage shed. Behind all that, the land faded away downhill into the wetlands of Peconic Bay, where there were ten thousand ducks being raised at any given time. When the wind blew from the north, it all stank.

Trouble arose for the Big Duck in the 1960s and 1970s. There were supermarkets and shrink-wrap and trucks bringing produce and poultry from place to place. The duck farms were going out of business here and one of the first of the casualties was the Maurer farm. The duck and its attendant buildings got locked up tight.

After that, although the farm was gone, various entrepreneurs tried their hand at managing the place. There was a time that fresh eggs and other farm goods were sold inside the Big Duck. There were times the Big Duck was locked up, but the business office did business as a submarine sandwich shop.

And then came the developers. They had a plan. They had an option for the entire waterfront parcel. There would be a series of building lots. And no, the duck was not on their agenda. They presented their plan to the Town of Southampton, the entity that the Hamlet of Flanders reports to. It would be perfectly legal for them to do everything they presented. There was no stopping them.

What could anybody do? Two miles down Flanders Road to the east and across the street, there was the entrance to the Sears-Bellows County Park, a 693-acre game preserve that had a little horse ring by the entrance where kids could sit on ponies and be led around for a few dollars. The town talked to the County and on a beautiful sunny day in 1988, the Big Duck was picked up and carried on the back of a flatbed truck to its new location.

The local people of eastern Long Island thought of this as a big festive celebration. Accompanying the move, which required all the overhead wires to be taken down, were marching bands, baton twirlers, County and Town officials, the State and County police and lots and lots of people cheering it on for the entire length of its one-hour move. Even though it was broad daylight, a portable gasoline engine powered the glowing eyes. Impassively and with great dignity, the Duck made its move.

For the past twenty years, the Duck was open to the public every summer, selling local souvenirs, pamphlets and guidebooks to the people of the East End with the help of eager interns from the Suffolk County Department of Parks. But, no, you can't get a roasted duck in there. The Duck does not have a restaurant license.

You could worship the Big Duck, however. And many did. People brought it offerings. At Christmas, it was decorated with lights and wreaths, courtesy of local schools that held competition to decide on the design of its decorations. Bands stood out front and serenaded it on the Fourth of July.

For a time, there was even a private FM radio station inside that broadcasted a loop of tape that endlessly repeated the history of the Big Duck. Breathlessly reading the script of this history was local supermodel Christie Brinkley. She did it once. They played it over and over. And from a distance of 200 yards in either direction -- you were informed of this as you came closer and closer to the Duck by a big sign telling you the FM frequency where you could tune in to hear Christie as you drove by -- you'd learn the history, over and over and over again. It lasted about six months. When the tape wore out, the County chucked it. It had been a good idea. Now it was over.

As it happened, the County never actually intended to keep the Big Duck at its new site forever. They did own the duck. And they did own the property under it. But there were rules and regulations about what you could construct in a County Park and a giant 20-foot duck was not one of them.

This is "temporary," was the explanation.

Time passed. The lots on the old property went up for sale. And they didn't sell. Whether this was because of the bad real estate market around 1990 or because of hexes and other curses aimed at the developers at the time, I do not know. But by 1993, it was clear the thing had flopped. There would be no real estate development.

And so, the old Maurer Duck Farm languished.

Things move slowly in duckland. The first suggestion that the Duck ought to be moved back, now that the coast was clear, occurred around 1998. This whispered suggestion grew to a hue and cry and then to a debate and finally a decision. Here we are, almost ten years later and the Town of Southampton, using money from their real estate transfer tax coffers, has bought the former 27-acre duck farm in an effort to save it. And now, discussions about the ownership, care and maintenance of the Big Duck have been resolved between the Town and the County and the move back will be made.

The County will continue to own the Duck, but the Town will pay for the maintenance of its exterior. Meanwhile, the County will pay for the maintenance of the interior and the staffing of it, so the general public can still go in to get tourist information. The deal is done. Contracts are now out to get bids from house-moving companies.

We have to get a date for the move now, because we have to get going on building the floats and inviting the marching bands and circus animals to accompany the Big Duck on her move. And yes, it's a she. Don't ask how I know.

Anybody know if Bill Frankenbach, the guy who organizes the Fourth of July Parade, is available?

I wonder if the Big Duck would have become such a big deal if the two Maurer Brothers had been raising carrots.

How tall does a carrot have to be to be big enough for a front door, a counter with brochures on it and eager customers?