Montauk’s Real Beauty Is in Its People

It was nearly 8 p.m. on a June night, but the sun had barely started to set at the Montauk lighthouse. Buttercream-colored clouds hung in a slightly overcast sky and birds coasted over the water in a blue haze. My three friends and I had stopped at the lighthouse after an early dinner, too excited about our weekend trip to return back to our room and too lazy to do anything else.

As we walked down one of the rocky trails to the shore, stopping to shake out the rogue Birkenstock pebble here and there, I was incredibly content. Laughing with my college friends, comfortable in our sweatshirts and denim shorts, snapping an admittedly embarrassing amount of photos; what more could a recent college graduate ask for?

It helped that I was back in one of my favorite places. My parents have owned a one-room condo in Amagansett since I was born, so the area has always felt like a second home. I was excited to be here with my friends, especially my friend Alessandra, a curly-haired brunette from the Bronx with an incredibly contagious laugh, who had never been to the Hamptons before.

We had been talking about the trip for months. The white sand beaches, the beautiful coastal weather, the restaurants and shopping in town. There was so much to love about Montauk.

When we reached the strip of beach at the bottom of the trail, we realized there was more than just the three surfers in sight at the top of the path — a lot more. At least twenty surfers were already

by Taylor Herzlich

suited up and treading water, with more on the way, carrying surfboards from their trucks in the parking lot.

“This is what I love about it out here,” said Alessandra, wistfully, as she says most things. “They really know how to live life.”

It was one of those throwaway dreamy sentiments that young women like ourselves say every time we get together. Although it did not hit me munity. The small town life. Those surfers weren’t just a pretty sight on a nice Long Island landmark. They were a wide-ranging group of people who may have known each other their whole lives, or maybe who had never met, and now were surfing together, brought together by their hometown. People who got off work at 5 pm on Friday and drove straight down to the end of the island, a wetsuit in their bag and a board in their trunk. Kids in their twenties who grew up on the same block and texted each other to meet at the lighthouse because the weather was good that day. Parents who called their partners to let them know that they’d be home for dinner after a quick dip in the water. at the time, what my friend said has stuck with me since. Although I’m certainly not a Montauk local, I am a Long Island girl who has been visiting the area every summer for most of my life. Alessandra had been there for less than 24 hours, and she had already gleamed the actual best part of Montauk: the people and how they make the most of their time. The com-

How had I been so blind to the small beautiful ways that Montauk and Amagansett residents made the most of their days? How lucky I was that weekend to spend time with a dear friend who lives in Montauk, and when we asked her what she wanted to do, she suggested parking outside the baseball field and watching the game. Pulling onto the grass (after a somewhat sharp turn), she squealed at me to turn off my headlights lest we draw attention to ourselves. With the windows down and Taylor Swift playing over the car speakers, we watched the game as she broke down who each of the players were. Men were divided into teams representing each local business in town, many of them with no relation to the employers on their jerseys, just guys who wanted to play for a team. It was easy to imagine life in Montauk, perhaps because I am from a similarly small-ish town, where ev- eryone knows each other and if you’re trying to avoid someone, you can bet money that is exactly who you’ll run into.

We stopped by a pizza place that turns into a dive bar at night. My friend graciously sacrificed her own sanity, walking into a restaurant packed with every person with whom she had gone to high school. Guys and girls played pool and sat chatting in booths, while two men in their forties or fifties sat nursing drinks at the bar.

Now, I can’t help but notice how much of Montauk’s beauty comes from its people. During my last weekend there, at the end of tourist season, I grabbed dinner at a restaurant in town where the hostess wore sweatpants and there was only one other group of customers at a table. I sat outside in my own cozy sweatshirt, eating fried calamari and listening to crickets and the women crying of laughter next to me, and loved every beautiful minute of it.