Dear Dan,

So this is Fashion Week, and I would like to make a statement. My name is CL and I am CK's neighbor. I do not reside on Meadow Lane, but we are neighbors none the less. We are bay neighbors. Since I was a child "Dragon Head" has always been in my view. I am Shinnecock and I live on the edge of the reservation directly across from CK.

Now you often write articles incorporating the history about my nation's interactions with the community over the past 400 years, but not often is such an intimate detail given. Housing on the reservation is dependent upon a families' income. Housing loans for the most part, do not apply on reservations and grant funding for such housing programs at the state level are dwindling as we speak. As a people, we do what we can and have been for thousands of years. I am only one voice that comes from many and this is my story.

I live in a 12' x 17' cabin with no running water. I have an outhouse. I have a water pump and a coal stove. Up until a year and a half ago I had no electricity running to the land. Living in this manner I have come to realize the simplicity of life that we often overlook. When I had no electricity I used a roaring generator on occasion. The noise would cover the crashing of the waves as they exited and entered the bay at night of the whippoorwill calls in the summer evenings. I would shut it off and use candles just so I could keep those moments.

I have lived through many winters looking out my sliding doors towards Shinnecock Bay. Dragon's Head became a symbol to me of excess and loss...of the "other side". This has become our new cultural landscape. Only a few windows were lit in the months prior to and after the summer weeks. I would often imagine and estimate that my cabin would fit in the room behind one window.

I have never met my neighbor and I mean him no offense in sharing these thoughts, but upon hearing of the recent "slay" of "Dragon's Head" (as some articles have termed the demolishing of the home) I began to wonder why and how? I mean in these times of loss...why ask for more? Then again I have heard of the phrase..."if you can't beat them join them"? So, Instead of demolishing the home, I propose donating it?

I haven't quite looked into it, but is there any financial equivalency involved in moving a structure to a property close by verses demolishing it and disposing of the remnants? If there is, then I propose that part of the property be moved to the reservation. I have always wanted to know what it would be like to live in a castle and I think the history of collecting that Henry Francis du Pont held on the property would be carried over quite nicely if an indigenous art center could be built in the interior. I hear there is enough square footage to afford such a proposal.

Think of it like killing two birds with one stone or maybe in this case one really huge dragon. CK would be rid of the beast, CL would try to tame it, and the community can still view and possibly understand the notion of excess, loss and one "simplistic" move.

Now how's that for fashion?-CL

Published in Dan's Paper February 27, 2009

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lidrag6037966feb16,0,5148813.story
http://www.luxist.com/2009/02/16/calvin-kleins-hamptons-teardown/