Good Ground for Change

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THE HAMLET of Good Ground had only recently changed its name to Hampton Bays to capitalize on the growing popularity of the Hamptons as a summer resort when this photo of Montauk Highway, looking east, was taken by photographer Charles Duprez sometime around 1930.

At the time, movies at the Bays theater cost only 35 cents - 25 cents at matinees.

``It was an old wooden theater, everything creaked,'' recalls Sandy Sullivan, president of the Hampton Bays Historical Society, who watched films at the theater as a youngster before it was torn down in the early 1950s. The site is now a vacant lot; a new multiscreen theater has just opened in town.

Just behind the theater marquee is the sign for Schultz's meat store, which is now an antique shop. And across the street was the brick building housing the Hampton Bays National Bank, which has been replaced by a newer building housing a branch of the Bank of New York.