Somehow I don't think that history will ever hold the '80's in the same nostalgic regard as it does say the '50's and '60's. Even it's closer cousin the '70's seems to get better press. As for how the '80's decade figured into the history of Mastic Beach and for that matter at least the latter half of the '70's it can basically be summed up in one word ....DECLINE. In fact it probably started in earnest about the time of the towns 50th anniversary. The Bi-Centennial year of the United States. That I can recall as I still lived in Mastic then. I know when I returned in the early '80's it was very depressing to see my former childhood home and my home town blighted.
As a long since removed former resident I make no claims of any type of judgment or expertise on what happened out there. I am only adding my two cents in from the safe distance of both time and space for the sake of discussion. This past winter I attended a very informal gathering at the Mastic Beach Fire Hall on a Sunday morning. As we sat around the table reminiscing and discussing this little project of mine one of the firemen offered up a very poignant statement about what happened that seems to still resonate with me. "There's money in poverty!" ...............
I think most would agree that the town started to slip with the influx of absentee landlords, buying up cheap housing and then renting it mostly to impoverished people. Couple that in with senior members of the pioneer families either retiring to Florida or dieing off and you have a general decline in what once was the status quo. In move a bunch of new residents with no roots to the area and a myriad of social problems and you have an area in decline and also people making money from poverty.
In the early 80's the new owners of what was then known as "The South Brookhaven Health Center" relocated it to Montauk Hwy in Center Moriches(?) and shut the doors of Bayview Hospital. Gary Messinetti who's full time job was that of a Suffolk County Parole officer was Chief of the Fire Dept in the early '80's. He knew that leaving this place empty was a very bad sign. "I used to hold drills there for the guys as I knew if someone put a match to it we would have very little chance to save it." A lot of drug activity and gang activity was developing in the abandoned building. It still took four years for the worse that could happen to unfold but happen it did. On a Saturday night at 11:55 February 22, 1986 the alarm went off at Mastic Beach Fire Department. Gary who by now had moved out on the Island to East Quogue did not hear about it till the next day. But no one for several miles around Mastic Beach that night could of not seen the midnight sky turn orange.
Sunday morning it was still burning as some of the last people of the "Calabro Clan" to actually live in it like the late Pat Messinetti and late Anita Siriani along with their children visited the scene of the crime. It was arson and two juveniles were arrested for it two days later. Anita's daughter the late Adrienne Siriani Dionisio recalled to reporters,
" There were five or six families and we each had a big, tremendous room with fireplaces and we had a tremendous dining room, and all the mothers would cook...... it was a paradise for a child I remember exploring the ice house and sneaking up to the attic....there were shackles still up there from the slave days."
In the video Pat Messinetti stands in silence but he did tell reporters " The loss is much higher than just the $200,000.00 figure they are saying...it's a very sickening feeling"
Anita Siriani had the last word on the video as she told the camera man. "I was in this hospital 3 times" (I believe she was referring to being a patient not as a resident) My brother in law... It was like a monument to him ....and Joe you know Dr. Calabro don't you? He lives right in the back there ...He was the one who called in the alarm"
