While Esperanza and Irwin both share their personal connections to the Art Barge, this extraordinary story speaks for itself. While Victor and Mabel's lives were devoted to Art, they couldn't have been more different. Victor was one of 11 children of Italian immigrants, Mabel an only child descending from the original settlers of our country. Victor created the education department at MOMA, while Mabel was the Art Department Chair at Rye High School. But it's their arrival to remote Lazy Point, Amagansett in the 1940's, and tugging a decommissioned naval vessel from Jersey City to the shores of Napeague Bay remains a source of wonder to this day.

Esperanza and Irwin go back to a far quieter Springs, September 1970. George Sid Miller's farm field became the launch site for a dream — and the scene of a tragedy. Three young adventurers set off in the Free Life, a hot air balloon bound for Europe, in a daring attempt to cross the Atlantic. But the balloon and its passengers vanished without a trace, leaving behind a mystery that still haunts the community today.

In this episode, we explore how the Free Life launch shook the close-knit Springs neighborhood that embraced it as its own, and the lingering questions asked for over 50 years. What drove the crew to take such a risk? And how did this brief moment in aviation history leave such a lasting impression. A story of youth, ambition, community, and loss — told from where it all began.

In this special episode, we sit down with Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger to revisit his seminal 1983 New York Times article, "The Strangling of a Resort." Over four decades later, we explore how his observations about overdevelopment, zoning failures, and the clash between preservation and profit still echo through the East End today. What has changed? What hasn't? And what does the future hold?

Join us as we reflect on the past, examine the present, and consider what it will take to preserve the character of eastern Long Island in the face of relentless growth.