With many members of their family and friends looking on, the brothers Joe and Sal LaCarrubba unveiled a plaque at the Main Street, Amagansett, building that once served as the hamlet’s U.S. Life-Saving Station on Monday.
Michael Cinque, co-president of the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station Museum, told the assembled that the United States government established the Life-Saving Service in Amagansett on June 11, 1849, with a 16-by-28-foot plot of land. A building stood behind the dunes near the southern end of the west side of Atlantic Avenue, he said, but had no crew. Rather, it stored a lifeboat and other gear.
On Oct. 4, 1880, Benjamin Terry bought a second, larger plot, this one 70 feet by 160 feet and located near the northwest corner of Bluff Road and what was then called Indian Wells Hollow. “This was the first station to have a full crew,” Mr. Cinque said. “There was an observation tower built on the ridge of the building. From that tower the surfmen could see three to four miles in either direction.”
But by 1898, the lifesaving surfmen needed a building closer to the ocean to house the crew and equipment, and the existing station was decommissioned. William Henry Barnes bought it from the federal government in 1902 and moved it to the Main Street parcel where it stands today. It was converted to a store and rented to Joseph D’Amico, who ran a barber shop and ice cream parlor, Mr. Cinque said.
The same year, the Amagansett Life-Saving and Coast Guard Station was constructed at the southern end of Atlantic Avenue. It was subsequently moved, and later returned, to the site, and today the restored structure serves as a museum.
The former lifesaving building on Main Street has been in the LaCarrubba family’s possession for more than nine decades. “In January of 1932, Salvatore LaCarrubba, who was from Ragusa, Sicily, rented the building and opened his shoemaking and shoe repair business,” Mr. Cinque said. “In March, he introduced men and women’s clothing.”
He bought the building from Mary Welby Barnes in 1939. “In the ‘50s, as Manny, Joe, and Sal graduated from East Hampton High School, they took over the family business and introduced everyday clothes for the working men and women,” he said. LaCarrubba’s was an indispensable resource for East Hampton Town residents and visitors alike until the 1990s, when the owners “decided it’s time to start golfing,” Mr. Cinque said. The Star reported in March 1997 that the business was under new ownership but would retain the LaCarrubba name. The building’s ground floor was divided in 2015, and today it houses the Lazy Point and Warm shops.
In March, Joe and Sal LaCarrubba were grand marshals in the Am O’Gansett Parade, which passed their old clothing store. “The brothers have been supporters of all things Amagansett all of their lives,” read a statement from the Amagansett Chamber of Commerce. “They have served the community through their Main Street store and through various organizations, including the Amagansett Fire Department. Congratulations gents, we love you!”
“People would come from far and wide to get boots,” Mr. Cinque, who has been in business at the Amagansett Wine and Spirits shop on Main Street for 45 years, remembered of LaCarrubba’s. “I still have people running into the wine store saying ‘Where’s LaCarrubba’s? I need a pack of underwear!’ “
“Here we are today,” he said, “to thank them for preserving this building.”
