Steinbeck Park is one of my favorite places in the Hamptons. Imbued with history and modeling a future for public spaces and shared inspiration, it is a fantastic example of the Hamptons community at work.
Like the year-old park, a recently installed statue of John Steinbeck—a noble and spirited effort to bring public art to the Hamptons—offers its own lessons and an immediately felt community response.
Encouraging and exciting for the community to come together during construction and a place to enjoy being together once completed. The sentiment was palpable at last year’s grand unveiling (“Steinbeck Park, Exactly What Sag Harbor Needs”). For good reason. Just look at the before and after photos for how the space was realized. The response to the new statue remains to be seen.
Looking at the new statue of John Steinbeck and his poodle Charley in Sag Harbor Village, the words flow easy. The statue elicits a full range of emotions, examples of which will likely be expressed by the ever-engaged citizens of Sag Harbor Village.
The statue is uncannily lifelike. From a distance, it is eye-catching in a whoa-whose-that-guy-over-there kind of way; up close, the artist’s use of texture is immediately impressive in the statue’s clothing—to me, the true highlight of the piece. Taken on its own, the skill needed to create that is jarring.
Donning the writer’s iconic beige, corduroy sports coat, dimpled flat cap, relaxed slacks, and well-worn boat shoes, clearly difficult to sculpt. Each texture and material has a patina and is masterfully expressed and begs to be touched to confirm it’s not cloth.
Posed with a contoured neck, the man gazes eternally—not toward the water—but Charley, his poodle, who occupies a prominent place seated beside him on the bench. This is their bench; this is their moment immortalized.
Pen in hand, reaching forever toward the page, Charley interrupts the writer from his perpetually unwritten sentence with a knowing paw and an inexplicably vacant pair of eyes. The expression on the man’s face is equally unplacable, if not maybe menacing, with a full set of individual teeth, fully clinched, and those unyielding, piercing eyes.
One parkgoer said, “I take my dogs here to relax and sit by the bay, but they are hesitant to meet Charley. John’s expression also puzzles them, maybe they think his pen is a treat! ”
“Great idea, and we love street art, but they have the best seat in the house,” said another man.
Don’t @Me, but considering the eponymous “Travels with Charley,” which starts in Sag Harbor during a hurricane and the new potentially permanent statue in the VIllage—is Charley Steinbeck the Hamptons’ most famous Poodle??
Steinbeck’s work is universal, and he lived with his wife Elaine in Sag Harbor Village for the last 16 years of his life. His book Travels with Charley starts out in Sag Harbor Cove! What could be more Hamptons? DYK: John Steinbeck is also credited with starting HarborFest and proposing the Windmill at the end of Long Wharf.
Likely you read Of Mice and Men in high school. Or found your way, undaunted, to East of Eden, emerging somehow more hopeful about the human capacity to forgive. As an aside, Grapes of Wrath is not a reference to the bountiful abundance of wineries and vineyards on Long Island and in the Hamptons. Apropos in its own right, Grapes cultivates an expression of appreciation for the American working class, whose labor is often as overlooked as it is essential.
When I heard there was a new statue at the park, I knew I had to check in with Canio’s Books for the real Steinbeck scoop. Maryanne, co-owner and longtime Sag Harbor resident let me know, “he lived just up the road, so he almost definitely used to walk by this shop, then an electronic shop, on his way toward the Corner Bar. Steinbeck was a real tinker-er, so it’s easy to imagine him stopping in and standing where we are right now.”
“Especially in Winters of Our Discontent,” Maryanne notes, “the author drew considerable inspiration from Sag Harbor Village and the community here, strong and hardworking, everyday Americans. Schedule a tour of the Steinbeck Home for the real experience!”
If you’re not a writer looking for inspiration (like me), it’s a great place to read! Grab a paperback over at Canio’s (they are true experts on all things literary in Sag Harbor) and head over to the park. Or, if you’re a real-real one, hop on the Hamptons.com Free Public Wi-Fi and read one of TJ Clemente’s reviews of the Sag Harbor Theater!
John and I share some similarities (I’m standing next to him, so we’re on a first-name basis now) as writers in the Hamptons—a penchant to wax poetic and a love for Sag Harbor as an adopted home. Since my awards and international acclaim are pending, let’s hear from the Nobel–Prize-winning author for the last word:
“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government that limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”
