Grandfather Lived Here, ..... Bridgehampton

Grandfather Lived Here documents the transformation of Bridgehampton, New York from its English beginnings into a vibrant and ethnically diverse community. Like the arrival of the railroad in 1870, the 1973 extension of the Long Island Expressway marked a turning point in this century of change, providing much easier access to the East End and enabling evermore second homeowners to build on remaining farmland, forever altering the area s landscape. Richly illustrated with period photographs, this book is divided into three sections place, community, and work and uses local narrators to relate tales of shipwrecks and whales, Klansmen and rumrunners, hurricanes and magical summers. Fanny Crawford, a longtime African American resident, recalls her father s experiences as a Virginian sharecropper and the economic opportunities the family found after its move north. Carl Yastrzemski reveals himself as a local farm boy, as well as an aggressive baseball player in his youth. Throughout, the author discusses the formation of civic institutions. She identifies the impact of the growing wealth of New York City and traces the critical changes in family farming and land use that transformed the community. It is an absorbing local and American story. 212 pages, illustrated.