Post Avenue, named after the prominent Quaker family, has been the heart of the village for more than one hundred years. A go-to place where virutally anything can be found.
In the late nineteenth century, Post Avenue was mainly St. Brigid’s Church, farms and a few residences that dotted the avenue. The road was built to serve the travel needs of Old Westbury but as time passed more and more people began to settle in Westbury proper.
Post Avenue was primarily a dirt road with trees
Photographs from the early decades of the twentieth century depict a dirt road lined with plentiful shade trees. Eventually, the corner of Maple and Post Avenue became the nexus of town.
Post Avenue home circa 1900
Businesses would grow to serve residents of both communities and development of Post Avenue grew between 1900 and 1925. The most developed area of the avenue were the blocks directly north of the railroad.
Post Avenue looking north from the railroad station
Founded in 1890, S. Marvin Barley ran a popular drugstore at 167 Post Avenue. Medicines, chemicals, sick room supplies, cigars, perfumes, stationery, ice cream soda and dentistry were some of the offerings.
Barley’s Pharmacy
In 1915, Charles Bauer opened the Meadowbrook Pharmacy, several blocks north of Barley’s, and offered the same goods as Barley’s with the addition of a soda fountain and a few small tables. With the opening of the Theatre across the street in 1920, movie crowds would cross the avenue for refreshments well into the evening.
McCarthy’s store on upper Post Avenue sold groceries, penny candy, five-cent ice cream cones and school supplies. There was also a general store near the railroad crossing, first called Kelsey’s and then Schwickers.
The Westbury Coal Yard was established in 1885 by the Hicks family and managed by Charles Levi. Fred Levi’s Bicycles and Sporting Goods was on the northwest corner of Post and Madison Avenue.
Fred Levi’s Bicycle and Sporting Goods
There were blacksmiths, hardware stores, saddleries and other horse-related shops. Fox and Ellison Blacksmith was located on Post Avenue, north of where the Northern State currently crosses through Westbury. Edwin Hicks, the great-great grandson of Isaac Hicks, remembered, “I admired seeing the blacksmith build up his forge fire with big hand bellows, heat up a piece of steel, shape it and weld on the heel of the horse shoe, a bar to give the horses traction particularly in winter. The blacksmith would then bend over and hold each horse’s leg while he held the horseshoe against the hoof, heated up the shoe in the fire and then hammered it to shape.”
Bank of Westbury on the corner of Post and Maple
The first bank in town, the Bank of Westbury, opened in 1910 with two employees. In 1924, it relocated to a new building at the corner of Maple and Post. The Wheatley Hills bank, on the corner of Scally Place and Post Avenue, opened in the mid-1920's.
A well-known family, the Deferrari’s, had at times a clothing store, stationery store, radio/phonograph store, real estate agency and liquor store.
A&P and the Defarri Building
The Wheatley Tavern was founded in 1930 and run by the Zaino family until the 1990’s. It was one of the hot spots in town.
Inside the first A&P
Food shopping was a necessity and besides butchers shops and fruit stores, there was the Atlantic & Pacific store. The early A&P was located in the Deferrari Building at Post and Winthrop. It was a small and friendly store with offerings that included: Quaker hominy grits for ten cents, a can of pink salmon for eight cents, Jell-O for seven cents, catsup for fifteen cents, dates for seven cents, a loaf of bread for thirteen cents, a large jar of olives for thirty-nine cents, matches for five cents, salad dressing for twenty-nine cents, and pancake flour for thirty-five cents.
Tudor style Westbury Theatre
The Westbury Theatre, built in the late 1920s in Tudor style, offered entertainment. Before that, movies were shown on the second floor of the old firehouse on Post Avenue.
Original Firehouse on Post Avenue
By 1929, businesses in Westbury were thriving. At 140 Post Avenue there was Patsie Russo’s Family Shoe Store. John A. McKenna had a real estate and insurance business at 207. Formerly known as A. Fabricant's, Samuel Tear was located at 223 and offered novelties, confectionery, smokers’ supplies, stationery, newspapers, and cameras. Louis’s Shoe Shoppe was at 234. Ellison Electric Company, a hardware, paint, oils and radio sets supply store, was at 243-245. Businesses that occupied the Theatre Building included N. Fusco Custom Tailor, Theatre Tonsorial Parlors (a hair salon), and Dr. Charles J. Robinson (a dentist). On the corner of Post and Belmont was M.J. Knipfing & Sons (automobiles).
Also along the avenue were G. Abbatiello Meat Market, Albert Schwicker (Chrysler dealership), M. Baum (smoking, sporting and stationery), I. Brown Custom Tailor, F.A. Carle’s Place (horse and dog supplies), C&H Crouchley (horse transporation), Deferrari’s Music Shoppe, Anthony Deferrari real estate and insurance, Goldberg Furniture, Joffone’s fruiterer, C&E Krupp (meat and dairy), Anthony Lagnese Sanitary Barber Shop, A.M. McCarthy (groceries), John McDonnell (real estate), Renison & Doyle, Rudolph’s Delicatessen, I. Schack United Cigar Store, Russell C. Sherman (dentist), Edward W. Staab hardware and tools, Vesuvius Spaghetti, Gustave H. Weber (saddle and harness maker), Westbury Baker, Westbury Candy Kitchen, Westbury Meat Market, Westbury Hardware, Wheatley Taxi and Zaino Custom Tailor.
Post Avenue was the bustling center of town, but as the settlement grew, more businesses sprawled along other roadways. Maple Avenue, Union Avenue, School Street, Grand Street, Butler Street, and Brush Hollow Road hosted a variety of shops and businesses.
Few things are immune to the passage of time. Post Avenue today is a pleasant mixture of new and old, of history made and history in the making.
Post Avenue looking south
Source: Richard Panchyk, Author, “The History of Westbury Long Island”