Ancient Hixtory

Introduction

Welcome to the third part of our look back at the past through the stories of Hicksville’s diners. Last month’s article ended on a sour note: it was 1958, and New York State had unveiled its misguided response to the increased traffic generated by the Mid-Island Plaza: widen Broadway and flatten whatever is in the way. The first phase of work, the road north of the LIRR tracks, was imminent. The next phase – demolishing buildings on the west side of Broadway between the tracks and Old Country Road -- would come later.

I should mention that the “dining car” restaurant that you see on the right side of this picture is NOT the Empire. It is an old incarnation of the Broadway Diner.

In consequence, Archie Kyriacou had relocated his Empire Diner, and afterwards he was not pleased about the result. To better understand why, let’s go back to the 1950s now, and look at the junction of Broadway and Jerusalem Avenue at John Street. I apologize to you all for the poor quality of the image which follows. It was taken in 1956 from the Professional Building by Harold Kelly, and it seems to have suffered over the ensuing years – but at least we still have it.

The Diner That is Not on the Corner

Kyriacou had thought about the new site for his Empire Diner. It would extend into West John Street from the southwest corner of John Street and Jerusalem Avenue, which I’ve circled in the picture. Without the visibility and automobile access of a corner site, the Empire could not thrive as it had in the Triangle, when it was on another well-chosen site, from which it was ripped too soon because of officials in Albany.

In 1958, however, incorporating the little 50’ wide corner plot into his diner’s site would have to wait. Florence Wallace had lived in the house on that plot since her youth. Now, she was old, and nearing death. Kyriacou would have to acquire her little parcel of land later, from her heirs. She passed away a month after the diner opened on its corner-less new site, and soon the lengthy process of probate was begun.

Every Man Has His Limits

Archie Kyriacou appears to have been a well-liked, capable, successful, and upstanding man in many ways, but he slowly became pathologically impatient with the pace at which Miss Wallace’s estate was probated. That corner meant a lot to him: before her death, he had offered $20,000 for it -- at the time, nearly enough to purchase three new Levitt homes. Now he saw no reason why he could not buy it immediately. Her heirs wanted to sell it. They did not want to live there, and even if the house were in good repair, it would not generate significant rental income. No one else wanted to buy it, but if they did, he would outbid them. He would buy it eventually. Until he could, he would gladly pay the heirs $3,500 for the privilege of demolishing the house and cleaning up the grounds, and still pay them the full amount later when the purchase happened. He just wanted to be happy again.

Instead, every day when he looked over his customers, he wondered. How could they enjoy food and companionship when the ambience of the room was ruined by that derelict house, which loomed over their tables from outside the windows? He got angry when he thought about would-be patrons who had passed by without seeing the diner – for motorists traveling some routes, the house and its foliage hid the diner from sight.

Heading Over the Edge

Eventually, he thought – or someone suggested -- that maybe it wasn’t a probate issue. Maybe the heirs were at fault. Maybe they wanted to get a little extra money and avoid taxes by renting the old house after all. Desperate to move things along, and worrying more and more, he “reasoned” that no landlord could rent out a burned-out shell of a house. And so, one night he started a fire, just in case.

Afterwards, he may have thought that his arson had achieved its purpose: no one repaired or tried to rent the damaged house. On the other hand, the end of probate still was not in sight. Kyriacou seemed no closer to owning the corner, and the house was more of an eyesore than before. Summer went by; autumn went by. The Empire would soon celebrate its second Christmas on the new site, and the empty little house was still there, hogging the corner to no one’s benefit.

As December came, his frustration became unbearable, and he lashed out – not against any person, but against the empty house itself. He devised a Plan B, which turned out to be his old Plan A, but with an extra order of gasoline on the side. The result was not at all what Archie Kyriacou had wanted:

Initial news reports said that a Nassau County policeman had been on duty at his assigned post, the John Street Police Booth. Let’s look at that intersection again, this time focusing on the booth, which I’ve circled – well, ellipsed. The news reports pointed out that it was only “steps away from” the house.

Before being sedated heavily for medical reasons, severely burned Patrolman Charles Beck had been able to relate that he’d observed two “boys” (later described variously in news reports as teenagers, men, vagrants, etc.) enter the deserted house. He attempted to investigate, but as he opened the house’s door, he was hit by an explosion that burned away most of his uniform. He might survive his burns, but it was unlikely that Beck would ever be able to work again.

There was a fortunate but puzzling aspect to his tale: no bodies or survivors were found in the house. What had happened to the two people who entered it just before him?

Facts and allegations dribbled in over the next several days. Then Archie Kyriacou was arrested and charged with second-degree arson, pending Grand Jury deliberations. He admitted pouring gasoline into the house through a window, but he denied that he had set it on fire. He added that he was very upset about the injuries to Patrolman Beck, whom he considered a close friend. Reporters confirmed that Kyriacou had requested, and had been granted, a private hearing with the judge who would be handling the charges, but what the two had discussed remained confidential.

An Unavoidable Hiatus

The Grand Jury would make little progress while Patrolman Beck underwent skin grafts and plastic surgery. The case vanished from the headlines. Kyriacou, although hypothetically still under investigation, did not hide from view. He resumed doing what he did best, not in Hicksville, but in nearby Syosset:

Belated Resolution

In March 1965, news about the case was rekindled, so to speak, when Patrolman Beck filed a lawsuit against Kyriacou, hoping to be awarded $1,000,000 as compensation for his suffering. Badly disfigured, he stated that since recovering, he had been able to work only part-time as a taxi driver, earning on average $35 per week to supplement his pension, while accumulating more than $30,000 in medical expenses. No mention was made of any disability payments from NCPD-related sources. He also took the opportunity to deny rumors that he had been part of an arson plot with Kyriacou, and he stood by his earlier statements.

Later, when the suit was before the court, the diner owner testified on his own behalf. He said that he and Beck had indeed conspired to burn down the little house. They together had poured three gallons of gasoline around the interior, after which Beck was to ignite the blaze. Despite Beck’s denials, the fire investigation showed that he had in fact been inside the house prior to the explosion – he had left his NCPD flashlight in an upstairs room.

Armed with better knowledge of how much gasoline had been deployed, investigators revised their theory of the explosion. The house’s windows were closed tight; gasoline was rampant and began to vaporize. When Patrolman Beck opened the door, something on his person – a static spark, a lighted match, whatever – detonated the vapors in the sealed house, the way that spark plugs detonate similar vapors in the sealed cylinders of an automobile engine.

Charles Beck had been thought an innocent victim, but no longer. He abruptly dropped the lawsuit without explanation. Kyriacou’s lawyer announced that the charges against his client, which previously had been upgraded to first-degree arson, and could have led to a 40-year prison term, had been revised in accord with new developments. Kyriacou had agreed to plead guilty to a single count of felony arson and pay a fine of only $1,000. He would not be incarcerated.

In the years that followed, Archie Kyriacou seems to have put behind him the once-overwhelming frustrations about the little house next to the Empire Diner. In the end, he retired to Suffolk County, but his ties with Hicksville had remained strong. Like those of fellow Greek immigrant Harry Dounelis, who had owned the Hub Diner, his remains were laid to rest in Plainlawn Cemetery.

Coda: Doubly Scandalous Hicksville

Out of compassion, or at least pity, Charles Beck was not charged with any crime. He still was desperately in need. Why, after fighting to survive and finally initiating the lawsuit, did he give up on it so easily? Perhaps his decision had something to do with a different ex-Patrolman Beck, who was then mired in a different local scandal.

The year before, Hicksville had been stunned by news of a Queens-Nassau “Housewife Prostitution Ring,” which had many connections with organized crime, some of them running through Long Island motels and night clubs. The madam-in-charge conducted business from her family home on Genesee Street, a few blocks west of Hicksville High. The newspapers enjoyed reporting that the husbands of some women in her “stable” baby-sat their little ones whenever their wives “got called into work” on short notice. The ring’s success – it grossed about a quarter million annually – depended on inside information about the NCPD, supplied from files at Police headquarters by Patrolman John Beck, George’s brother (who had resigned, giving as cause his displeasure at having undergone a “disrespectful” interrogation). Recently, news items about each scandal had started mentioning the other one, just to play up the fact the Department had picked two bad apples from the same family tree. George Beck may have dropped the lawsuit in hopes of limiting further damage to the Beck family.

Besides, now that his brother John was known to have links to organized crime, the odds of George’s winning the suit were nil – any judge who found in his favor would be viewed by the public as being in bed with organized crime.

That’s it!

Appendix: List of Images and Their Sources