Ethan Miller/Getty Images Watch out Hamptons: Khloe (l.) and Kourtney Kardashian are coming to star in “Kourtney & Khloe Take the Hamptons.”
Stick a South Fork in it — the Hamptons are done.
As Memorial Day weekend ushers in club-hopping daytime drinkers, chain stores and the coming Kourtney and Khloe Kardashalypse, residents fear that the East End has become a high-end bridge-and-tunnel scene.
Call it the Eastpacking District.
“People are afraid that the Kardashians might turn us into the Jersey Shore,” says local real estate broker Patrick McLaughlin, who admits he grew up in the Garden State. “The Hamptons are known for being a subtle and genteel environment. … People are afraid they might lose that with the influx of this sort of attention.”
Society publicist R. Couri Hay, who’s been summering in the Hamptons since the 1960s, laughs that “the old money are in horror about the arrival of the Kardashians. The locals are always happy that the summer business is coming in, but also terrified of losing that level of perfection that people who go to the Hamptons want.”
The former bastion of bluebloods has become a melting pot of old money, new money and daytripping tourists looking to party like an A-lister with Uber helicopter rides.
INFphoto.com Local residents fear that their beloved communities are becoming one big version of “Jersey Shore”; from left, Nicole (Snooki) Polizzi, Jenni (J-Woww) Farley, Paul (Pauly D) DelVecchio and Vinny Guadagnino.
And now the Jersey Shorification of the resort zone continues: “Kourtney & Khloe Take the Hamptons,” which begins filming around the sisters’ Dash pop-up store in June, is the cherry on the cheesecake.
Fist-pumping partiers reportedly contributed to more than 12,500 calls made to the East Hampton Police last summer. The Long Island Rail Road also registered record 111,000 riders on its Hamptons-bound line in 2013.
Area residents have reacted on social media. Construction worker James Cuomo created the Douche Spotter Facebook group to post pictures of beachgoers’ bad behavior. Contractor Joe Schwenk gossips about his high-end clients under his Twitter handle @HamptonsBorn.
“This July Montauk will inherit the mantle of being the Daytona Beach of the Hamptons,” albeit with “slightly less on-street vomiting,” he predicts.
There’ll be plenty of nausea, of course. For instance, reality star Ramona Singer will likely make an appearance, given her contention that “ladies” go to the Hamptons — and she still considers herself one, despite throwing a plastic wine glass at “Real Housewives of New York” co-star Kristen Taekman when the show took a trip to the Berkshires instead of the East End.
“This July Montauk will inherit the mantle of being the Daytona Beach of the Hamptons,” albeit with “slightly less on-street vomiting.”
Taekman later dubbed Singer “the Wicked Witch of the Hamptons.”
Even the way people will get around this summer has gone downmarket: The Hampton Jitney meets its tacky match with the Hamptons Free Ride beach shuttle, which has installed selfie machines in their cars — because the most picturesque place to snap a self-portrait while surrounded by white sandy beaches is inside a cab.
Visitors from the city, Jersey, Philly and Connecticut have transformed quaint fishing villages like Montauk into citified tourist traps. Seaside mom-and-pop shops are being overrun by fitness chains such as Barry’s Bootcamp, Flywheel and SoulCycle, and for every exciting new restaurant prospect like Harlow East (from Richie Notar of Nobu) comes scores of ho-hum seafood restaurants and juice bars.
“It’s become very generic,” gripes one Hamptons insider. “I’ve been going to the Hamptons since I was 3, and now it’s turned into a shopping mall.”
Yet the loss of local character hasn’t hurt the local coffers.
Selfie machines are installed on the Hamptons Free Ride beach shuttle.
“It’s much more of a city now, which is good for business, but I know locals are not very fond of all the changes because they want their quiet,” says Patrick Cabido, owner of the Surf Lodge and Haven Hotel in Montauk, who has noticed a change in the “quality” of daytrippers.
“Last year, the Jersey Shore was closed because of the hurricane, so it brought a lot of people here, and not necessarily what Montauk was used to. It was more frat house people,” he says.
His wife and business partner Jenny agrees “there’s just no reprieve from the noise.”
Some A-listers appear to be fleeing this hotbed of reality TV, such as Anderson Cooper, who’s renting out one of his Hamptons houses for the summer. Those who remain, like the Seinfelds, Calvin Klein and Christie Brinkley, now hide in their houses.
“It used to be they went out more in public,” says Hay. “Now they only go out for a good cause, like a charity gala.”
Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images Much of the quaint character of the Hamptons has been overtaken by a chain-store vibe, like that of a SoulCycle exercise studio.
Or to publicize their projects. “If Gwyneth Paltrow has a book to hawk, believe me, she’s at the East Hampton Library book fair,” says Hay.
The C-list Kardashians aren’t ones to shy from the spotlight — and B-lister Kim will join her sisters in the East End after her wedding to Kanye West this weekend.
One place they’ll likely head is the Capri Hotel in Southampton with its pool parties and celeb-friendly BLT Steak restaurant.
Like many hotspots on the fork, the Capri welcomes the reality stars, but not the production teams and paparazzi that come in their wake.
The Hamptons are crowded enough.
“They are welcome to join us at the hotel or restaurant, but they’ll need to leave the camera crews at home,” says Steve Kasuba, a rep for the hotel. “That is, if they can score a reservation.”
Lifestyle – NY Daily News