Philip Ramos came to Brentwood with his parents and maternal grandparents in 1957 when he was a year old and he has lived here ever since then. His grandparents emigrated from Puerto Rico and his father, Raymond Ramos and mother Jennie were born in Manhattan, NY. Philip said his family was one of the early families of Hispanic heritage to buy property and settle in Brentwood. Philip’s father, Raymond, saw a real estate advertisement in the New York Times advertising property in Brentwood, NY for $500 an acre. He wanted a better life for his family away from the city. This was the reason he pursued the property advertisement. Raymond Ramos bought a half acre of land in Brentwood and hired the construction company, Arlo Homes, to build his house at 1796 Wells Drive. Philip said that they later heard about a Hispanic man, a Mr. Tajada, who worked for the Brentwood Lumber Company near the Brentwood Recreation Center. The owner of the lumber company owned a large amount of real estate in Brentwood that he wished to sell for development. Mr. Tajada suggested to his employer that he advertise the Brentwood real estate in the New York Times. The advertisement might have been printed in Spanish as well as English. In any case the relatively cheap real estate in Brentwood may account for the influx of people of Hispanic heritage from New York City. Today, some fifty years later, we have a large Hispanic population in Brentwood.

 In the early 1960’s Philip went to school at South Elementary School. The school was located behind Entenmann’s which was a little storefront then. There was a chicken farm on the same property where Philip remembers having egg fights with other kids. As Entenmann’s business grew they enlarged their facility on that property.

Philip recalls the small businesses in the area that were there when he was growing up. One of these was Jack’s Gas Station which was located on the NW corner of Fifth Avenue and Pineaire drive. Across the street on the SE corner of Fifth and Pineaire was a bodega owned by Benny Nieves. The other half of that bodega was Erv’s luncheonette. Philip said “Erv spoke Spanish with a Puerto Rican accent. You would never have guessed he was Jewish.” Further down going south was Heinz’s Deli owned by a German man. There was not much else except the Brentwood Lumber Yard over near the Recreation Center. At that time there were about 15 Hispanic families in the Ramos’ neighborhood. The rest of that area south of Pineaire Drive was composed of African American and Italian families. The Italians predated the Hispanic influx but not by much.

 New communities sprung up with new leaders. There was a Spanish man who sold fruits and vegetables out of his car. He did well because he sold produce that was familiar to the Puerto Rican community.

 Elizabeth Guarnieri had a liquor store on corner of Connecticut Avenue and Fifth Avenue. Philip said “Liz Guarnieri was the unofficial mayor within the Hispanic community.” The people in the community were poor, hard working folks who did not get into politics. Liz was an activist in the community. She knew the town supervisor. People went to Liz with issues and she would go to town hall and try to get a solution for them. Sometimes she was successful. Years later she became the commissioner for the Human Rights Commission in Suffolk County.

-A. Bennett, Local History Room Newsletter, November 2010

Philip Ramos graduated from Brentwood High School in 1974.  After graduation he went to work at Pilgrim State Hospital as a mental hygiene therapist. He worked there for 6 years. He was  frustrated because they didn’t pay well and he wanted to do better. His father suggested that he take the police test. Philip didn’t want to do that because he had a negative impression of the police in his area.  He told his dad that he didn’t want to become a police officer because he knew he would hate that job. Philip said his father used a little bit of ghetto logic on him. His dad said to him “do you hate the job you do now?”  Philip said “yes.” So his dad said “well why not hate your job and get good money at it.”  So Philip took the police test and the correction officer’s test and he got good grades on these tests. He went to work as a corrections office at the Suffolk County Sheriffs department where he worked for a year. From there he went to a job, that Liz Guarnieri had advised him of, as a community service aide. He worked as a liaison between the police department and the community. This was a civilian job that did not pay very much. In the interim Philip had taken the police test and was hired by the Suffolk County Police Department. After he went though the police academy his first assignment was in the 118 call in Wyandanch. It was a very tough neighborhood to work in. This was the 1980’s when cocaine was becoming a big problem in our country and crack was starting. Drugs were leading to an extremely high crime rate. Philip said that growing up in Brentwood in the poorest part of Brentwood, in a community that suffered from a lot those same dysfunctions, turned out to be a real asset for him as a police officer. It was easier for him to relate to the people in Wyandanch. He treated the people with respect and he gained their confidence because they felt he was approachable. Philip understood the dynamics of the community from his own experiences. He solved a lot of crimes as well as passing good information on to detectives. Philip got an offer to go to the narcotics division of the Suffolk County Police Department early in his career. He worked undercover for about 8 years. Philip was then appointed to Detective and was assigned to the area surrounding and including the Brentwood community where he worked until he retired in 2002.

—A. Bennett, Local History Room Newsletter, December 2010

After twenty years of service with the Suffolk County Police, Philip Ramos retired. He planned to move to Arizona with his kids and he sold his home in Brentwood.

Two weeks after he retired he was approached by his cousin, Judith Cruz who was in Politics. She told Philip that a new assembly district had been created and the democratic chairman was looking for someone to run for assemblyman. Philip said I have worked in the eye of the storm in police work for many years and now I want to retire and relax. He turned down the offer to run for assemblyman. They went to his kids and asked them to try to persuade Phil to change his mind about running for office. The kids agreed to talk to him and asked their dad to give it a try. They said, “If you win we will stay and if not then we will move to Arizona in November”. So Philip Ramos ran for the newly created 6^th District assemblyman position. He had very little money for a campaign. He said “I ran my campaign on shoe leather not on thousands in the bank”.  He knocked on thousands of doors in Brentwood. Over a period of time in his career he had knocked on many of those doors he was knocking on now. People remembered him. In 90% of the cases these were people he had helped. For example, someone whose kids had run away remembered him for bringing their kids home. For every bad guy he had arrested there were many others who had been victims. They were grateful to him for being the only one who did anything about their problems. He gained support because he had touched many lives. During his campaign for office he realized that growing up in the Brentwood community was his biggest asset.

Philip knew this was a community that had been ignored in government representation. He knew that the concerns of the people were the same as anywhere else, jobs, good schools, and resources to improve their community.

When he debated his opponent his adversary attacked him on many levels. He was attacked for being divorced and a single parent. He was attacked for his financial problems, for his debts and his low credit rating, etcetera. That type of criticism in another community would have been against him but in Brentwood many voters had been and were in these same circumstances and could relate. They didn’t say: “if he can’t handle his own bills how can he handle the state budget”?   What Philip talked about in the debates were things at the grass roots level that concerned the voters. He addressed issues about which people had opinions such as immigration, lowering school taxes, resources for home improvement, improving the school their kids went to, fixing the flood down the street, fixing the hole in the fence in the local park. He said the issues are the same every where, it’s only the language that is different.

November of 2002 came and Philip won the election for assemblyman of the newly created 6^th Assembly District. He was the first Latino assembly member on Long Island and today in 2011 he continues to serve the 6^th District well.

-A. Bennett, Local History Room Newsletter, January 2011