Exclusive | Tourists refuse to leave Hamptons after Labor Day, putting beloved Tumbleweed Tuesday tradition on ice

For decades, Labor Day in the Hamptons meant the crowds left, shared houses emptied and locals reclaimed their towns from chaotic summer tourists.Known colloquially as “Tumbleweed Tuesday,” the day after Labor Day once marked a real economic and cultural cutoff between the frenetic summer season and the quiet months that followed.But that timeline has increasingly blurred since the pandemic as second-home owners spend longer stretches in the Hamptons and remote work makes it easier to file earnings reports from a couch in Quogue.Because of these lingering second-housers, Tumbleweed Tuesday is fading away —all while influencers who have barely unpacked their bikinis haunt Hamptons farms for ripe pumpkins, colorful foliage and meticulously curated “cozy” fall content.Ned Dougherty remembers just how literal “Tumbleweed Tuesday” once was.The 79-year-old, who grew up in Pennsylvania, has lived in Westhampton since 1967 and later owned the popular Main Street hotspot Club Marakesh.Dougherty told The Post that on the Tuesday after Labor Day in 1971, he stood in the middle of a car-free street in downtown Westhampton, watching privet branches blow down the street, resembling the tumbleweeds of abandoned mining hubs in the Wild West.“We’re talking history when we’re talking Tumbleweed Tuesday,” Dougherty told The Post.“It became a ghost town for nine months.”But more than five decades later, Dougherty says Tumbleweed Tuesday has lost much of its meaning.

Business now stretches through October and into November.More families spend longer chunks of time out East, and thanks to influencers seeking country-core content, the region has become a hotbed for TikTok shoots and fashion campaigns.“Tumbleweed Tuesday no longer has meaning because the season doesn’t end,” Dougherty said.

“I can only assume it’s become a marketing term because everyone now has some event.”For locals, Tumbleweed Tuesday became an unofficial reward for surviving the ...