Status Symbol

The historic windmill on the campus of Southampton College, and then Stony Brook Southampton, in Shinnecock Hills has long been the symbol of the plucky institution, a college campus that, in the constant face of adversity, somehow managed to stay afloat.

The windmill — constructed in 1713 in Southampton Village and moved to the future site of the college in Shinnecock Hills in 1888 by Janet Hoyt, who, with her husband, William Hoyt, opened the Shinnecock Inn and founded the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art — was iconic, a logo that represented the long tradition of educational endeavors at the college and its history. It lent its image and name to the college’s newspaper in its Long Island University days, and was an enduring symbol of the campus. It became a source of pride for those attending the school and its alumni.

Today, it’s come to represent something else entirely — what appears to be the utter neglect of the struggling campus, which has fallen into complete disrepair, with more than a dozen buildings being so unsafe that they have been condemned. Among those buildings is the iconic windmill, damaged by termites and never repaired.

“The windmill is iconic. It’s been a symbol of the campus, of the college, and it still is — unfortunately, in a very negative way,” State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said recently. “It was a symbol of the academic life and all of the good things about the college, and now it’s a symbol of the lack of stewardship by Stony Brook University, not just for the windmill but the whole campus.”

The writer Tennessee Williams lived in the windmill in the 1950s, when he wrote the play “The Day on Which a Man Dies,” leading the Library Association of America to officially designate the windmill as a literary landmark in 2013.

But Stony Brook University’s apparent indifference places the landmark, and all that it represents, in jeopardy.

University officials say they are committed to improving the Shinnecock Hills campus as they transition to a school that will support the future home of Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, a campus that will include medical programs and potentially housing for hospital employees.

And while the pandemic and staffing changes may account for delays in moving in that direction and difficulties in maintaining the campus, the community — both the school community and the surrounding community — should not have to wait indefinitely to see some improvements on the dilapidated campus.

Stony Brook must make concrete efforts to renovate and restore the campus, and there would be no better place to start than the iconic windmill, as a symbol of its dedication to the future of the college and dedication to the community.