Patch Braves Boardy Barn Line

The following is an account of one intern's (attempted) journey to the . As a 22-year-old kid just out of college, partying is a hobby. I've waited in my fair share of lines for far more important things: tickets to see the Allman Brothers, giant paint parties, even housing selections. But all the experience in the world couldn't prepare me for what was to come.

The entrance to the Boardy Barn is unimposing, even normal. No grand awnings, neon signs, billboards or anything else the other clubs use to draw a crowd. There is no evidence to suggest that just a few feet in lies one of the most mythically notorious party hubs on the East End.

Well, besides an odorous brick wall of stale beer that greets drivers at the edge of the turn off Montauk Highway, about a mile west of Hampton Bays Plaza.

The Boardy Barn is perhaps the oldest club in Hampton Bays, and certainly one of the most paradoxical party scenes on the East End. The club refuses media attention and is open for just four hours each week - on Sundays. Yet the club has been open for decades, a drinking haven for the 20-something crowd that draws from the entirety of Long Island and beyond.

The club is notorious for long lines that boarder on the ludicrous - Boardy Barn vets say the line starts building as much as two hours before the doors open at 4 p.m. The Boardy Barn offers $2 beers for a $20 cover every Sunday, that is, if you can stomach the line (without losing your buzz, as one girl behind me remarked).

I arrived at the Boardy Barn at about 4:30 p.m. to a waiting crowd stretching past the tent and under the canopy, about 500 feet from the entrance.

Directly in front of me was a 33-year-old man with a shaved head and khaki shorts, and beyond, a group of five: two girls and three guys, all tanned and wearing beach clothes. Behind me was a group of six pretty college-aged girls dressed casually and comfortably for a day of day-drinking; behind them stood a cadre of young guys in tank tops and sunglasses who behaved despite a few unrequited advances to engage the girls in front.

The 5 p.m. crowd was a bit too loud to be sober, but seemed to embrace the wait as a right of passage. The sign at the club's entrance cleverly (if not condescendingly) read "it is not the journey that matters, but the friends you make along the way."

I was warned not to tell anyone it was my first visit, for fear of getting beer thrown at me.

"But it happens anyway," the 33-year-old said. "There's a lot of tough guys, mix that with alcohol and it can get unpleasant. And plus everyone is packed in together."

The one press review tacked onto the rickety fence encompassing the line advised Boardy Barners to wear closed shoes, and clothes they wouldn't mind throwing out. Of course It was too late for me, the naive square wearing a white button-down shirt and flip flops.

By 5:20, the line crept along to the canopy; we had traveled about 200 feet. For nearly an hour we had gawked at the green awning in front of us like a marathoner: if we get there, we're over the hill, the cute blonde girl behind me kept saying. Last week, she said, it was only a 25 minute wait from there. We all knew it was just a pipe dream, but time acts differently on line at the Boardy Barn. The only guests spared from the full wait are lucky enough to spot acquaintances at the front of the line, and brave enough to jump in despite obscenities from the crowd.

Of course there were the somber bouncers, who would have looked as comfortable in Mussolini's brown shirts as they did in the orange shirts that read "I'm only doing my job."

They were on the prowl for anyone brave enough to drink on the line, but ignored the waste piling up in the ditches next to us.

At 6 p.m. an ambulance arrived with two police cars, clogging the parking lot and bringing the line to a dead halt. We were told the line wasn't going anywhere. We sneered at the people who left the Boardy Barn with genuine hatred. I now joining my toner, tanner, tipsier mates in the heckling.

It was a group of strangers, the men in many cases showing more skin than the women. Some with gelled up hair, visors and sunglasses, others with male ponytails and jean shorts. A mixture of seemingly different individuals now united with a mutual respect for those who partied hard enough to withstand a two hour wait on line.

As the crowd belted out the chorus to Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" in a perfect drunk pitch, one girl mentions the obvious, that Bon Jovi was singing about our current state. We were just halfway there. Still with hundreds of feet, and at least another half hour to go. Well, there's always next week.