at CR 19. East of CR 19, Montauk Highway (known within the village as West and East Main streets) continues as a village-maintained street to the eastern village line, where it becomes CR 80, the designation that comprises most of Montauk Highway. Proceeding east from Patchogue, Montauk Highway runs through progressively less-densely populated communities. The segment east of Station Road in North Bellport and CR 36 in Brookhaven still contains old concrete pavement, a common practice of the mid-20th century. East of Speonk, the highway enters the Hamptons, the small-town, farming and summer resort communities especially popular with New York City summer vacationers. Montauk Highway forms the main street of most of the communities in the Hamptons, such as Westhampton, Quogue, and Hampton Bays. CR 80 ends west of the village of Southampton at Knoll Road, at which point Montauk Highway becomes state-maintained again as NY 900W, an unsigned reference route. This ends at the Southampton village line, leaving Montauk Highway as a village-maintained street until it reconnects to NY 27 northeast of the village center. Now part of NY 27, Montauk Highway is the major, and occasionally the only through road in the area, passing through Bridgehampton, East Hampton, and Amagansett to reach Montauk. The highway and NY 27 end at a loop in the road at Montauk Point. History Background Montauk Highway was planned as the southernmost all-weather road on Long Island. It began in Jamaica, the county seat of Queens County and an important railroad junction located in the east-central part of the county. Montauk Highway was routed in a southeasterly direction toward the Atlantic Ocean coastline of Long Island, turning in an east-northeasterly direction in current Nassau County to more or less parallel the shore through Suffolk County, ending at Montauk Point, the easternmost point of land on the South Fork of the island. As an all-weather road, Montauk Highway has rarely been breached by even serious storms; however, portions in the Hamptons were flooded out by the New England Hurricane of 1938. The current road is no longer a single route-designated road. In Queens, it is a city street known as Merrick Boulevard. Through Nassau County, it is a two-to-four lane highway with traffic lights known as Merrick Road. This name is derived from the community of Merrick, through which the road passes. As such, the Montauk Highway name now applies to the section that