Huntingtons Centerpiece

By Rhoda Amon | Staff Writer

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THE BRUSH BLOCK BUILDING at the southeast corner of Main Street and New York Avenue was a Huntington village centerpiece in the early 1900s. It was built in 1889 after a disastrous fire swept away a row of wooden structures, including the Post Office, the Second Presbyterian Church, the Bank of Huntington and the telegraph office.

Note the electrified trolley in the right-hand corner of the circa-1900 photo above. Begun in 1890 as a horse-drawn trolley, the Huntington Street Railroad was purchased by the Long Island Rail Road in 1896. In 1909, the electrified line was extended south through Dix Hills, Melville, Farmingdale and Amityville. But the automobile soon became the preferred means of transportation. The Cross Island Trolley, as it became known, was curtailed in 1919; the service from Huntington to the railroad station continued until 1927.

Meanwhile, the Brush Block Building changed in stages, according to Karen Martin, archivist with the Huntington Historical Society. By the 1930s, the corner section was an updated two stories with offices above a popular liquor store; the eastern Main Street section was still a three-story structure occupied by the Long Island Lighting Co. By the 1950s the building looked much as it does in the current picture above. The Aboff family bought and restored it after another fire in the 1970s, Michael Aboff said. Today the building houses an antiques store, a restaurant and other businesses. The stone cottage shown in the circa 1930 picture seen at top continued to be home to a succession of park superintendents for almost 70 years, undergoing expansions and renovations. The first superintendent probably wouldn't recognize the modernist structure it has become, shown above.

The house was decommissioned in 1998 and rented to a private family. Park superintendent Tom Dess resides in Montauk Point; from there he supervises all the Montauk state parks, including Hither Hills, Montauk Point and Montauk Downs.