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Recollections From the Montauk Manor

In 1978, my friend and brother-in-law, Kenny, and my long gone ex-girlfriend, chipped in and bought me a 35mm camera. It was a Miranda, I think a Sensorex. Anyway, I eventually destroyed that poor camera, not once, but twice! More about that another time...

These two photos are of the famed Montauk Manor, out on the eastern tip of Long Island, N.Y. I took my soon to be ex-girl friend who bought me this great camera that I would destroy twice, out to see this place that I worked at to show her how magnificent it was.
A little about the Montauk Manor. 
Apparently, this place had quite the history. You can look it up on several sites on the net. But...
Way back in the early 70's, the place was empty. It had gone through some major renovations, and it was finished in many areas, but was still unused. My dad, Ed Sr., was out of work (construction worker-crane operator) and so to make some money for a family of 9, he got a truck, some oxy-acetelene cutting torch equipment, and hired out to cut up large metal things for scrap metal.  This was probably 1972.
Ed Sr. got a contract to chop up the huge boilers in the basement of the Montauk Manor. My dad, "hired" Ed Jr. (myself) and my brother Stephen ( pressed in to family-style work for no cash status) and off we went to Montauk Manor to chop! Those suckers were big. The project was too big for us, actually. But we chopped up those boilers anyway, and even more importantly, we did get to sleep there in one of the big empty rooms for a couple of nights. Very creepy and way spooky.
Interestingly  (and I don't have any photos from the time) there was an old US Submarine Torpedo testing base just a couple of miles from here, where we chopped up old railroad tracks. 
By the way, my dad did give us a few bucks, which I promptly spent on Eric Clapton's Layla LP!
It was worth it. I would need it to sooth myself when my future " long ago, soon to be ex-girl friend" would dump me!




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