New Suffolk, NY

New Suffolk is a hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Southold on Long Island's North Fork, with the waterfront close at hand. The 2020 census counted 403 residents. The deep water once made the hamlet a landing place for boats running to New York City, and the Long Island Rail Road reached the Main Street dock to meet them. Working boats, shipbuilding, and sport fishing all belong to the older waterfront story.

The surprising chapter came at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Holland Submarine Company assembled boats here and tested them in the local basin. USS Holland and five Plunger-class submarines were based at the Holland Torpedo Boat Station between 1899 and 1905; the old station site is associated with First Street between Main and King. New Suffolk Common School grew from a two-room schoolhouse opened in 1907, a reminder that this is still a place organized around a small local institution as much as around the water.