Five years ago, when I was writing my book about Greenport’s immigrants, a parent asked me to translate into Spanish a notice from her child’s school. It announced an event that interested her but, lacking an English-speaker close at hand, she had set it aside until it was too late to benefit.
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When I first spent summers on Shelter Island, in the 1970s, a favorite rainy-day excursion was a trip to Greenport to shop at the Arcade. If we needed beach toys, 100 percent cotton socks or sheets for the extra guest, we knew where to go. European visitors delighted in the novelty of finding measuring cups in ounces rather than grams. The store’s aura — its creaky wooden floors and leathery smell — was as welcoming as its inventory.
When I set out from Greenport last month for the National Immigrant Integration Conference in Brooklyn, I didn’t know what to expect.
Two of four buildings that house six numbered apartments at the Cutchogue business property where town officials say people are living illegally. Residents there, who pay more than $1,000 a month, say they can’t afford to live anywhere else in town.
To the editor:
It is indeed important that Southold Town take steps to promote affordable housing. Long Island is in the throes of a serious housing crisis, as a Regional Plan Association report found in 2013. Without affordable rental housing, the report warned, businesses will not stay in the area and the economy will stagnate. (more…)