East End Arts in Riverhead said a temporary farewell to its East Main Street Gallery Saturday evening, as the campus of the non-profit community arts group is expected to undergo a major overhaul as part of Riverhead Town’s Town Square redevelopment project.
Artists, politicians and community members packed the gallery one last time for “The Forward Frame,” an invite to an ephemeral exhibition created by attendees on the wall of the building, which is expected to be raised until it is level with Main Street, in a project that will reconfigure East End Arts’ gallery, carriage house and music school building and raise the campus seven feet, out of the floodplain of the neighboring Peconic River.
To the west of the campus will be a new, five-story Hilton Tapestry Collection hotel, built by the Town Square’s Master Developer, J. Petrocelli Contracting, which will also be doing the work on the East End Arts campus.
As she watched the community, wielding markers and creative ideas, redesign the walls of the gallery, East End Arts Executive Director Wendy Weiss reminded our reporters that ephemeral art is in the DNA of the organization, which every year takes over Main Street in late May for a community Mosaic Street Fair, where chalk art fills the street for one shining day before gradually fading and disappearing.
The Mosaic Street Fair will return this year on May 31 — it will be held on West Second Street, adjacent to Town Hall and the temporary location of East End Arts’ Art & Music School at 206 Griffing Avenue — to avoid the construction downtown.
And East End Arts galleries will not be dormant during the reconstruction.
It already has another gallery space, at 11 West Main Street, and is leasing a second space, 48 West Main Street, a storefront across Main Street from 11 West Main, which will be inaugurated with this summer’s “Detour” exhibition in both West Main Street galleries.
The farewell party was in part a fundraiser for the renovation of the new gallery, with some ticket tiers including a signed matted print of photographer Mike McLauglin’s 2024 “East End Arts,” a portrait of the gallery framed against an empty sky (above).
The blues and classic rock band Retro Crew will hold a fundraiser for scholarships for students at the Art & Music School on Saturday, April 25 from 7 to 10 p.m. at Ziggy’s Music Room in the Polish Hall at 214 Marcy Avenue in Riverhead. Tickets are $25 and are available online here.
At The Forward Frame, longtime East End Arts members and staff reminisced about their times in the gallery, an 1840s-era historic building which was donated to Riverhead Town in 1977, when it became East End Arts’ headquarters.
Some left messages of hope on the walls:
“Please Save + Bring This Building Back To Us,” read one.
“Let the sun keep shining on the EEAC,” read another.
“No hotel putting it in the shade!!” was an answer, in green marker.
Ms. Weiss said plans for the reconstructed campus had not yet been finalized, but early versions had included moving the carriage house so its entrance faced the center of the campus, and the gallery building is expected to be moved slightly to the east — it currently is just feet away from the property line with the new hotel.
John McAuliff, a frequent critic of the Town Square project, chatted pleasantly with everyone at the farewell party before withdrawing “a piece of agitprop,” which he’d decided not to circulate, out of a sheaf of papers and handing it to our reporters.
“What should be the east side of the Town Square?” it asked. “The 1840s Davis-Corwin house? Or a five story hotel? Tell Joe Petrocelli and the Town Board to save the square!”
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