Long Island Village photos by Richard Boyle

  One of the most colorful of Amityville’s mom & pop stores was Losi’s corner located at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and Ireland Place. Originally built as a harness and saddle shop in 1899, the two and a half story building was the first to have a paved sidewalks and was the first to install electric lights in the area.   Converted into a dry goods store by Anton Figari the store was purchased by Louis Losi his partner on the death of Anton in 1908 Losi’s store was a favorite of us children for penny candy and school supplies.      They always had lots of choice fruit baskets along the sidewalk. It was famous for Edith Fowley’s pies with celebrities   like Will Rodgers and Fred Stone coming in from Brooklyn to buy their pies at Losi;s. The store is still standing unchanged as of this 2020 writing .

With global warming it rarely goes below 10 degrees on Long Island, and we get one big snowstorm a season, But it's still too cold for alligators to eat our pets and Long Island has much less bugs. Yeah, I’ll take Long Island.

I was born in 1941 in Amityville Long Island we didn’t have a car or TV until the 50’s. I Walked, rode my bike or took mass transit to wherever I wanted to go. My friends and I were what today we call free range kids. (Then we were just kids) We explored our world learning about nature and the Great South Bay by ourselves. We played games outside all dy and at night I played games with my older sister making up our own games. We didn’t know how lucky we were growing up on Long Island. The United States came out of World War Two the only industrial nation left not only not damaged but built up military complex so there was plenty of work for out parents. We were also lucky to live so close to New York City where we went the shows and Coney Island.