Dan Riding a Lobster

In 2022, Dan's Papers reported that drivers heading east into the Hamptons were greeted by a bright red lobster carrying a man on its back. The statue, called "Welcome to Dan's Country," honors Dan Rattiner, who founded the weekly newspaper Dan's Papers in 1960. A group called Friends of Dan unveiled it on July 4, 2017, at Hills Station Road and Route 27, beside the then-closed Lobster Inn. Dan's Papers described the lobster as 7 feet tall, with a somewhat taller Rattiner on top. Behind the Fence Gallery and Acre Arts designed and made it, and the rider was repurposed from a John Wayne statue found at the gallery. In 2022 Dan's Papers reported that the lobster had replaced what was originally a horse. In August 2022 the paper moved the statue, refurbished by the gallery, to its new office at 2036 County Road 39, about three miles west of the old one, where it was reported to greet eastbound drivers. The plaque from the original installation has since disappeared, according to the same report. A Dan's Papers column of November 2024 placed it at the entrance to the paper's offices on the south side of County Road 39. Rattiner's own reaction at the time: "This is crazy!" It stands outside a working business.