Reporter Photo Quiz: What is that? June 19, 2026

If you know, let us know. Send your responses to [email protected] or phone 631-275-1859. 

Last week’s photo (see below) was no problem for Roger McKeon, Jennifer Allen and Elizabeth McKee who made motions that it is Town Hall facing North Ferry Road. Motions carried.

Shelter Island’s Town Hall was once a funeral parlor. Provide your own punch line.

The building on the eastern rim of the circle across from the Library was also a place where Islanders endured teeth drilling and were physically examined. In its long life, the property at the Center’s crossroad also hosted a pool hall — again, keep all ironic comments to yourself — and a barber and blacksmith shop.

The handsome main building was once a one-story saltbox built prior to 1850, with a second story added in 1875. Later additions included a long, low, one-story structure, which now houses the meeting room and, down the hall, the Town Clerk’s office. This was a viewing room where the dead were waked, at an establishment operated by mortician Ambrose Havey, who opened for business in September 1978 and built the addition.

The public bathroom across the hall from the Town Clerk’s office was a “preparation room” for corpses. Down the short hall, where now there are Town offices, was an organ to greet mourners with dirges. Out back, where the Building Department resides, was space for storage and a showroom where the bereaved could select a casket.

The Building Department’s long, low building behind Town Hall was where Joseph Condon, the Island’s blacksmith, worked at his forge in the last part of the 19th century. A poolroom and barbershop operated after 1900.

The saltbox on the corner where the government now does business is known by residents with long memories as “the White house,” not for any connection to government, but because the Whites — Frank White was a mason — resided there in the middle of the 20th century. Part of the house was leased to the town in 1975 as an office for Dr. Edgar Grunwaldt, the Island’s resident physician, which was located where Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams’ office is now.

Dr. Grunwaldt was remembered in the pages of the Reporter as a doctor whose “care was all encompassing — from home births to midnight house calls to caring for the elderly and even the occasional dog with a fishhook caught in its mouth.”