East End Arts moves programs to Main Street
The carriage house at East End Arts in downtown Riverhead is usually teeming with visual artists and young musicians busy honing their skills.
But during Hurricane Sandy, it was an island in the lake of the downtown parking lot alongside the bank of the Peconic River, and the lights in the carriage house have been dark ever since.
This week, East End Arts moved its programs that are usually run in the carriage house to a vacant storefront owned by Riverhead Enterprises at 127 Main Street, just to the west of the East End Arts campus.
Riverhead Town owns the carriage house, and workers from the town’s Building and Grounds department are now beginning the work of restoring the building so it can be used again.
“It was sprayed with mold abatement stuff. They’re putting in new walls, heating and plumbing,” said East End Arts Executive Director Pat Snyder on Friday.
Volunteers from the community spent Thursday and Friday cleaning out the new work space on Main Street.
Ms. Snyder said the Long Island Academy of Fine Arts was the most recent tenant in the space, which has a room that has been set up with work tables and chairs for artists to use. She said many individual music lessons that had been in the carriage house have been moved to East End Arts’ school of the arts, which was undamaged in the flood.
“I have no idea how long this will be, but I wouldn’t expect more than a month or two,” said Ms. Snyder of the temporary arrangement.
Riverhead Building & Grounds Supervisor Guy Cawley, who is supervising the project, was not immediately available for comment.
