Greetings From Yaphank, Wish You Were Here

By Rhoda Amon | Staff Writer

A "MRS. NELSON" (first name unknown) sent this postcard to a friend in Queens from Yaphank, where she was vacationing in July, 1929. Evidently no romantic, Mrs. Nelson sent a view of the general store-post office-gas station on Main Street rather than a more bucolic scene such as the lake at sunset.

"It was a farm community in the '20s, Main Street was the whole town," says Yaphank Historic society curator Helen Kalbach.

Seventy years later the buildings are still there, though the facade has changed and the tree and gas pumps are gone.

Part of the lower section of the three-part attached building was moved from the William Floyd Estate in Mastic Beach in 1802, according to building owner Henry E. Heissenbuttel, who ran a combination general store-deli-hardware store from 1957 to 1970, when he joined the Suffolk County police finance department. The additions were in place by Heissenbuttel's time, although he added the two sets of brick steps after a drunk driver came uninvited into his front door.

Heissenbuttel's son, Henry II, now runs Components for Electronics on the lower level of the building at left. The righthand store is Right Field Collectibles, familiar to Long Island race-car fans for Frank Augustine's collection of NASCAR die-cast replicas and other sports memorabilia. Yaphank, familiar to veterans of two world wars as the gateway to Army life at nearby Camp Upton, has a lot more traffic these days, but Mrs. Nelson might still write, "Having a good time," to her friend.

"It's as nice as ever," says Heissenbuttel, 79.