Consider this: things never grew boring at “The Boardy Barn.”
Also this: Alexa, play their Spotify playlist – and kick it off with “Take Me Home Tonight” because I, once again, don’t want you to let me down ‘till we see the light.
Mickey Shields and Tony Galgano first opened the base of operations on April 16, 1970. On this day, gas was 36 cents per gallon. Richard Nixon was President. The Brady Bunch had yet to inexplicably write “Tiger the Dog” out of the series. And the number-one song in the world? The Beatles’ “Let it Be.”
And when the brokenhearted people, living in the world agree / There will be an answer, let it be / For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see / There will be an answer, let it be
Such describes the melancholy currently felt by a melee of quarter-to-mid-lifers all interconnected by a shared affinity for the East End-set obsession, to a cut-off tee.
Running into old friends. Making amends with enemies; all whilst everyone’s literally adorned head-to-toe in smiles. Times like these are immortalized through decades upon decades of daylong photoshoots that helped every common Johnny Everyman Long Islander tabbed to fall under the enchantment of the 270 West Montauk Highway-hosted festivities feel like a celebrity for a change.
..and now it’s all over.
As of May 5, the few-years-dormant “Barn” has officially been purchased by new owners who have yet to announce their plans for the property. Meanwhile, Boardy Barn’s passion pit of patrons across many generations have not been shy in sharing their thoughts on the end of a half-century-spanning era.
“No joke—it’s where I first came out of my shell,” said one Comsewogue native, 37, who hung up the “perma-stained Boardy shoes” when weekends with “the boys” were eventually traded in for even better days with “the girls” (his two toddler daughters).
“Someone seriously needs to consider making a movie about that place,” he added, “and film it there!”
Unlike the on-again/off-again sidelining of the ultimately-benched even older barn, the “Old Barn” best known as the Nassau Coliseum (former home of the New York Islanders), there is no imminent threat of a comeback for “Boardy” per the will of weekend warriors… for now.
The closing, in any event, is of the inherently bittersweet variety; especially due to their Covid-caused lack of a presence these past couple of summers.
A strong security team routinely thwarted the rare emergence of the toxically intoxicated subset who, when frequenting a place as epically “happy face-happy” as the Hampton Bays hangout hub-no-more, could drop their ego at the drop of a two-toned Toronto Raptors snapback hat in exchange for collective harmony of which there is no comparison. Why mess with authority employed to protect you from you, when you’re better off pretending a hot dog is a phone for the sake of evergreen Instagram iconography? Even objective teetotalers can appreciate the capturing of one fine, PG-rated moment that stands out in a sea of the predictably raunchy rest.
For the natively proud who “get it,” they too made sure to get in on the action while they could – because you just never know what can be gone in the blink of an eye. Hell, hasn’t the pandemic and its ripple effect taught us that enough already?
The key, according to adulthood-newcomers who post-delayed their foremost bucket list item until learning their long-awaited initiation into the Neverland of this Island’s end could never be redeemed, was to make this last forever. That way, they didn’t have to miss out on the experience entirely.
Though the plan may have runneth dry, through the power of social media, “The Barn” can absolutely remain alive. To fight past the memory blockage brought upon by obvious factors is to sift through the camera roll for the most forgotten, unfiltered and uncut gems since The Academy failed to recognize Adam Sandler, thereby manifesting a global pandemic (revisit the timeline and report back).
“I’ve been there twice; the second time I broke one of my flip-flops very early on, and was walking around with one bare foot exactly where you don’t want to,” Gabriella Buckley, 26, of Deer Park, recalled. “Just when I was going to (leave early), I saw they sold flip-flops there. I bought purple ones, and continued to enjoy a great day thanks to the Boardy Barn staff saving mine!”
Boardy Barn Memories: ‘They Last Forever’
Sometimes you want to go where everybody can let their hair down, and set their troubles aside with same-aged strangers and that random, firstly perceived out-of-place, but nevertheless equally relaxed “baby boomer” who’s abruptly appeared by your crew’s side. You could even stand to learn a thing or two from their unsurpassed flair on the dance floor, being as how you’ve spilled more than you’ve consumed at this point. And maybe if you wish it hard enough, you can grow a mustache as fierce as his one day. Or better yet: have someone Sharpie one onto you while inside the thick of the crowd-storm, because everyone all around you on this last-minute given Sunday is on cloud nine-the-wiser at the most opportune time.
Take a breather, and descend into the unending interior of the bar of the barn.
You’ve been dizzily gliding in circles around the decompression-positive vacant halls, still going “googoo gaga” after realizing mere minutes – or maybe hours, it’s all very much a blur – ago that many in your generation who you don’t typically identify with know as much of the lyrics and octave alignment to “American Girl” as you do. Well, at least when under the Boardy spell. Oh yeah, all right.
The further you push forward, you’ll live out a dream-like chain of events – trade new cell phone numbers with someone ultra-familiar to you who you stumbled upon where the opposite of the party is. In fact, they were so crucial to your past, you forgot you haven’t even seen them in a couple of years. And what’s funniest: they didn’t even recognize you until you remembered to remove your intentionally disposable sunglasses. You’ve been indoors for 12 minutes now, convinced it was just abnormally dark in here until you were made aware it wasn’t..
Come on, man, get it together.
Eyes-a-fluttering in your search for that bathroom you’re convinced doesn’t exist; you just had to be that guy who insisted on finding an alternative to the porta potty party outside yonder, while circumstantially half-listening to this barely hearable “blast from your past” past the blast of blasted music — genuinely surprised you can’t seem to access Netflix display-style subtitle options in a real-life situation. Lord knows you could really use it.
As it turns out, you two (and Blondie!) finally get to speaking the same language as you hash through the memorable madness of the day’s earlier events. You’re equally put into stitches by his next offering: a delayed admission that it took him an even healthier second to discern just who he was talking to on account of losing his contact lenses the second the contents of his first plastic cup of the day pupil-smacked him, the byproduct of a chug-for-dare gone tremendously awry. He blames it all on his workout-freak college roommate’s girlfriend’s older brother – who added this guy to the groupchat invite again? – who’s proudly rocking the knockoff Lonzo Ball jersey, and had the gall to claim your grade school recess mate possessed none of his outdated Lakers jersey’s surname pluralized.
Thankfully, he had let his guard down enough between indulgence-amalgamated communal anthems about piano men livin’ on a prayer while on the edge of seventeen – to remain unbothered by any of these inconveniences. You part ways after reminiscing about the rise and fall of AOL Instant Messenger and Myspace, in too deep into your respective big days that you fail to address a glaring obvious. How did neither of you recognize you were wearing the same jayvee lacrosse shirt, issued by the same [redacted] alma mater, and both turned into sleeveless muscle show-offs – his made so the second he deemed it safe to flaunt the 18th birthday tattoo without drawing a comment from someone like an out-of-touch coach who just doesn’t get it like the manchildren and the girlpower of The Barn do?
The both of you agree you were blessed to learn of Boardy’s “Shade City” status through the arbiters of the grapevine digest, and thus could forgo lathering yourselves in sunscreen that wouldn’t have worked the second you stepped foot off the jazzy-upholstered party bus into the undisputed highlight of your otherwise un-roaring 20s anyway.
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” The girl who shot down your best friend’s utterly harmless pursuit because it’s a “lady’s night” this 2 o’clock in the afternoon out on a Weezer scream-sung into existence (Long) “Island in the Sun” – still an ever tent-protected one, mind you – posted this caption at the crack of the following dawn. Accompanied with it: an “ussie” of “besties” only surpassed in grins by the stickers covering each of them from shin to chin.
But, egregiously, she attributed the aforementioned quote to Ferris Bueller. Madone!
Seasoned venue veterans in attendance at the very first Boardy Barn bash, way back when the world was still full of possibilities we’ve since-been reaping the benefits of, yet can do a better job of not taking for granted while we still have them, know better – and assign the profound saying to its rightful conceiver: John Lennon.
The Fab Four founder had already departed the band in secret by the time their “last hoorah” together amassed mass radio play across the Atlantic, overseas and stateside alike. And, at least at the time, with no regrets, either. For at a place called “The Boardy Barn,” broken up bands the rock-loving world over could reclaim that spark once more, with healing, each time a hailstorm of hangover-hungry Long Islanders arrived to live and let die like there was no tomorrow.
“Before starting Just Sixties [an appropriately titled local cover band] in 1982, our band Kivetsky got a June weeknight at the Boardy Barn in the summer of 1977,” said Rob Gerver, Ph.D. “It was our first foray into the Hamptons, and as a band of 22-year-olds we were really excited. We played Sixties music exclusively, and Sixties music was really hot, even as disco had invaded so many clubs on Long Island. But nothing could be more natural than playing Beach Boys in a beach town!”
Needless to say, long after The Boardy Barn’s demise, we’ll all still be talking about its pet sounds, excitations and good vibrations. You can take that to the bank.
Now excuse me, for the love of all that is nostalgic and holy, can someone please hold my past-the-point-of-functioning, name-earning throwaway sunglasses? I need everyone to see these tears forming in both of my eyes that are one-hundred-percent required when me and the guys turn saints into the sea as we belch out the chorus to “Mr. Brightside.”
