Salvatore Curto learned how to barber at age 14 years old in Italy his native country. He and his brother Charles made their livelihood in this profession. Recently, Joseph and Grace Curto Mauro, the two eldest of  Salvatore’s seven children, shared their memories of growing up in Brentwood when their father was a barber. In 1916, Salvatore and three of his siblings immigrated to America with their mother. They joined their father, Joseph Curto in Pennsylvania where he was working in the coal mines. Sal’s father apprenticed him to a barber there and later set him up with a chair behind a pool room. Ten years went by. With Sal and the other children working the family prospered. It was then that the Curtos moved to New York. It was here that Sal married Madeline who he had known from his boyhood in Italy.

Joseph and Grace did not know for sure how their parents came to live in Long Island. They think it had something to do with buying parcels of land from a roving salesman. Be that as it may, they came and settled in Central Islip and Brentwood.

All seven of Salvatore and Madeline’s children were born in Brentwood. Sal’s brother Charles set up a barber shop in Central Islip. Sal worked as a barber at Central Islip Hospital until he could open a barber shop of his own. He looked around the Islip area to find a good location. He chose to open his business in the nearby town of Brentwood because he had seen the potential in this location where there was no barber shop. In 1938 Sal opened his first shop on First Avenue. A few years later he moved his shop down First Avenue to the Quanahasset building. When he moved his family to Brentwood they lived in back of the first store for a short period of time until they bought a house on Fifth Avenue South and First Street.

The barber shop had two chairs and spittoons for the customers. There was a barber pole outside the shop. Besides cutting hair Sal gave the men shaves using a straight razor. His son, Charlie shined shoes after school. Joe said that their father also did women’s haircuts. Sal practiced haircutting for women on his youngest daughter Frances. Grace said she was the quiet one with the beautiful long hair. In 1951 Sal hired another barber to help him.

Sal was a volunteer fireman. The Brentwood Fire department is on Fourth Street, around the corner from First Avenue. So, when the fire whistle blew Sal dropped what he was doing to go to the fire. Sometimes a customer  was in the chair having a haircut and he would have to wait until Sal came back to finish the job. Often it might be a fireman who was getting the haircut. Sal did not drive a car. He used a bicycle for transportation. Grace said when there was a fire at night he would ride his bicycle to the firehouse.

Salvatore Curto worked in his barber shop in Brentwood until 1956 when he retired to Florida where he continued his trade. As was the case in those days, all the people in the small town of Brentwood knew each other and they fondly remembered Sal the barber.

-A. Bennett, Local History Newsletter June 2009