If you know, let us know. Send your responses to a.clancy@sireporter.com or phone 631-275-1859.
Tom Speeches was the first to respond to last week’s mystery photo (see below) emailing that it’s “the sign at Black Cat Books across from the Shelter Island Brewery on 114.” Got it, Tom, and welcome back.
Rich Surozenski was right behind Tom on our Facebook page with the correct answer.
An institution in the Center, Black Cat Books is a second-hand bookstore that doesn’t look like a bomb went off in it an hour before you arrived, and you won’t risk respiratory failure from the dust of moldering paper.
The spaces are spotless, orderly, attractive, a perfect place to browse and spend time with about 10,000 books — including photography and art books — and vinyl records and other collectibles, with a view of a small garden at the rear.
Here you’ll find co-owners Michael Kinsey and Dawn Hedberg, usually at work on the computer, updating their extensive online catalogue. The Black Cat ships books all over the world, and buys books nearly every day, from one book to whole libraries.
Michael and Dawn opened their first secondhand bookstore in Sag Harbor in 1996 and used the distinctive and quirky structure on North Ferry Road as a warehouse for books in their overflowing inventory. They bought the house next door and in 2008 turned the warehouse into their retail store.
The Shelter Island Historical Society found records that the house was owned by Homer Griffing in 1916 and then by William Sandwald. Michael and Dawn still have people coming in to share memories.
It had been an artist’s studio and was known around town as an impromptu dry dock for a large boat out front that always seemed to be in various stages of either completion or deterioration.
“A neighbor told us about a guy who used to use that tree,” Mr. Kinsey said recently, pointing out the back window, “as target practice with his guns.”
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