Former East Rockaway Mayor Joe Carrigan dies at 87

Whether serving as village mayor, fire chief or creator of the Raiders football program, Joseph Carrigan spent his life serving East Rockaway.

In 1997, Carrigan was elected village trustee, and served for six years before being elected mayor, a position that he held for four years. As mayor he oversaw the first restoration of Memorial Park since World War II, implemented Operation Downtown to rehabilitate the village’s business district, ushered in the renovation of the public parking lot at Atlantic and Rocklyn avenues and McNulty Park on Ocean Avenue, and saw to the completion of White Cannon Park. in 2010, the village board renamed White Cannon Point, at the Main Street canal’s Talfor Boat Basin, Joseph F. Carrigan Point.

“His DNA was service,” said Joe Vito, who spent many years playing under Carrigan on the Raiders, “especially to the East Rockaway community.”

Carrigan died after a brief illness on Feb. 24, at age 87, but his legacy lives on in East Rockaway. As Vito tells it, Carrigan had an impact on him from an early age. When his parents took him to his first Raiders practice in 1971, he recalled, he didn’t want get out of the car, but eventually he started playing for the team and fell in love with the game because, he said, Carrigan made it fun. The sport meant so much to Vito that he became a high school football coach in 1983.

“A coach has more impact on people in one year than most people will impact you in their whole lifetime,” said Vito, who now coaches at Roosevelt High School. “That’s so true, because his character had that impact on me.”

Carrigan was born on July 5, 1932, at what is now Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside, to Paul and Vera Carrigan. He attended St. Raymond’s Parochial School and graduated from East Rockaway Junior-Senior High School in 1950, where he excelled at football and baseball and also learned to play the piano and accordion.

While in high school, he dated his future wife, Herma Bantzoff, whom he had met at Leroy’s Dance Studio in 1939, when he was 7 and she was 5. They danced together at live show nights at the Criterion Theater in East Rockaway, and also performed to the song “The Band Played On,” also known as “Casey Would Waltz with a Strawberry Blonde,” by John Palmer and Charles Ward, at the 1939 World’s Fair.

“She was the light of his life,” said Chris Shelton, who added that he knew Carrigan for 60 years and volunteered with him in the East Rockaway Fire Department.

After graduating from high school, Carrigan became a substitute letter carrier for the East Rockaway Post Office, where his parents both worked and at one time served as postmasters. On March 5, 1951, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was an aviation ordnance mate second-class during the Korean War. While he was serving his country, Carrigan wed Bantzoff on Jan. 16, 1954, and they had three children, Joanne, Joseph and James.

When Carrigan left the Navy in 1955, he returned to his post office job in East Rockaway, and he and his wife bought the first of four homes they would own in the village. In 1962, like his father and mother before him, Carrigan became postmaster, and served until his retirement on New Year’s Day in 1987.

When he returned home from the Navy, Carrigan got involved in the community, which included joining the East Rockaway Fire Department as a volunteer in July 1960. There, he met Shelton, who described him as a “great man and a true friend” who had an infectious smile and was organized.

“He was always neat as a pin,” Shelton recounted with a laugh. “We would go to rescue calls in the middle of the night, and I would ask him if he went through a machine to get his hair combed.”

Carrigan became the department’s captain in 1964 and chief in 1969, and also served on many of the ERFD’s committees. His dedication inspired his son James — and Vito — to join the department.

In April 1963, Carrigan and two fellow firemen responded to a severe blaze at what was the White Cannon Inn. They were trapped on the roof, Shelton said, and had to jump. As a result, Carrigan suffered burns on his hands and face, while another firefighter shattered his heel and another broke his leg. That building stood at the site that became known as Carrigan Point. While volunteering, Carrigan also earned a medal after saving a resident’s life after he was trapped on the second floor of a home on Murdock Road during a fire.

In 1970, Carrigan began volunteering with the village’s Recreation Commission. At the time, he and Jerry Chapel formed the Raiders football program, which will celebrate 50 years in September. Additionally, Carrigan was a parishioner at St. Raymond’s Church and a member of the village’s Kiwanis Club, American Legion Post 958 and Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3350, where he was once vice commander.

“Joe never forgot that he was a veteran and that he served the United States of America,” Shelton said. “He was very proud to be a veteran, like he was proud to be a chief of the East Rockaway Fire Department. It all goes back to his dedication to service to people and the community. He had a great love for East Rockaway.”

In addition to serving East Rockaway, Carrigan was passionate about football, the Giants, Yankees and Islanders, and had season tickets when the Isles won four straight Stanley Cups from 1980 to 1983.

Carrigan was pre-deceased by his wife. In addition to his three children, he is survived by his grandchildren, Amanda, Emily, Taylor and Gabriella; his daughters-in-law, Suzanne and Paola; his sister-in-law, Joan Gipson (Sam); and his nieces and nephews, Linda Reeves and William Gipson (Barbara).

Carrigan’s wake was on Saturday and Sunday at Donza Funeral Home, and his funeral Mass was celebrated at St. Raymond’s on Monday. He was buried at Long Island National Cemetery in Farmingdale.

Hundreds of people paid their respects to a man who left his mark on the village.

“I called him an East Rockaway treasure because he was involved in so many things,” Vito said. “ I think his legacy is just a man of service that was a true Renaissance man.”