Dan's Papers - October 13, 2006

Now I don't want to appear ungrateful, and I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I am certainly all in favor of the State spending $10 million this year to start fixing up the Southampton College campus this winter, and I love the new curriculum that the State will be bringing to the school, and I am very appreciative of everything that SUNY Stony Brook is bringing to the table here in re-opening the Southampton College as part of the State University system, but there's just one thing.

It's the name. At the big ceremony on Wednesday morning where Senator LaValle, who behind the scenes had made all this happen, and Fred Thiele Jr. from the Assembly and Congressman Bishop who helped and, of course, Shirley Strum Kenny from SUNY Stony Brook and many others spoke in praise of the new day that has dawned here, I began to wonder. It's the name.

They put up the big sign. It reads STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON. During this day, as all the bulldozers and workmen began to start work on fixing up this campus from the mess that Long Island University left behind, there were more signs put up. STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON the sign said at the main entrance. STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON read the sign by the soccer field. Even up on the highway, as you are driving along heading east on County Road 39, there is the new green and white metal sign reading STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON, with an arrow pointing to the Tuckahoe Road turnoff at the traffic light there.

Here's the problem. What is it? You are driving along the Sunrise Highway heading east, and you pass the green metal sign reading HAMPTON BAYS and another sign reading RIVERHEAD and another reading SHINNECOCK and then you come upon this.

"Didn't we pass Stony Brook?" she asked.

"So here it is again. Where are we going again? You turn right here to go to Southampton. And to Stony Brook."

"We're going to Amagansett."

"Maybe we circled around, and we're back at Stony Brook."

What is it? You make the right and you drive the long block to the end and there you come upon Route 27A, also called the Old Montauk Highway. Left is Southampton. Right is Stony Brook if you go far enough.

Harry Marmion, when he was President of Southampton College many years ago, got into an argument with the bigwigs over at Long Island University, which owned the place at the time. They wanted him to change the name of the place form Southampton College to Southampton Center of LIU. He objected.

"A center is a place where you go shopping," he told them.

It did not go over well. They told him it would have to be Southampton Center, and he said never, and so they said okay how about Southampton Campus of LIU and he said I don't like that either and so they fired him.

For a long time, the place was called Southampton Campus of LIU, but then the people here on the scene running the place began to slowly sneak back in the name Southampton College. It showed up first on napkins, and then on buttons and t-shirts and finally on a sign somewhere, but then LIU took it down. It was really still the Southampton Campus of LIU when LIU finally pulled the plug on the place in 2004, abandoning it, much of it to the elements, and sending the students and faculty packing.

So they put the names of two towns together, Stony Brook Southampton. But what is it? Stony Brook Southampton Café? Stony Brook Southampton Discount Clothing? The name cries out for its completion. And it will, I guess, come after a while.

For now, however, it will be affectionately referred to as Stony Brook Southampton and if people think that it somehow refers to two towns that are pushed together, well, they'll get used to the fact that it's not that, it's a COLLEGE.

Maybe just in little tiny print down there at the bottom. STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON College. Would that be so bad?