Just a little off the top

John Tammero, who works in the area, came into Eddie’s for a clean buzz.

Brian Croce/Herald

Charlie “the Greek” costani has been working at Eddie’s for nearly 30 years. Sam Sheiman is in the chair.

Brian Croce/Herald

Herald reporter Brian Croce became part of his own story when Lecuit offered to give him a trim.

Photo by Anne Moffitt

John Lecuit started working at his father’s barbershop in 1954. Anne Moffatt, of Lynbrook, has cut hair there for three years.

Brian Croce/Herald

Tyler paige, 4, of Lynbrook, went to Eddie’s for his back-to-school haircut.

Brian Croce/Herald

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For the past 63 years, Eddie’s Barber Shop has been a fixture on Broadway, south of Sunrise Highway. If you live in Lynbrook, East Rockaway or a neighboring community, you may get your hair cut there. If Eddie’s is your choice for “a little off the top,” you know the familiar faces that greet you when you walk through the door.

John Lecuit, whose father, Eddie, opened the shop in 1949, has been cutting hair on Broadway since 1954, right after he graduated from Lynbrook High School. Haircuts cost $1 then, he recalled, and most of the businesses that surround the shop now didn’t exist. Asked what it means to run a business with such a long history, Lecuit joked that it means “I’m getting old.”

Eddie Lecuit immigrated to the U.S. in 1922 from Luxembourg, and it wasn’t long before he was married and had two sons. In 1929, when the stock market crashed, Eddie took his family back to Luxembourg, where they stayed for nine years. John was born there in 1936, but amid the first rumblings of World War II, he and his family returned to the U.S. two years later. Although the Lecuit family is not Jewish, some of his relatives who did not leave, he said, were later placed in concentration camps.

Upon returning to the U.S., Eddie opened a barbershop on Sunset Avenue in Lynbrook, and after a few years moved to 91 Broadway. In 1949, he moved his operation down the road to 121 Broadway, where it has remained ever since. John grew up in the house behind the shop. He and his wife Betty, a 1956 graduate of Lynbrook High, have lived in Lindenhurst since 1957 and raised their three children there.

Charlie ‘The Greek,’ and Anne

This November will mark Charlie “The Greek” Costani’s 30th year working at Eddie’s. He came to the U.S. in 1966 from Greece and has live in East Rockaway for three decades. Costani said he has a great relationship with his customers, and even invites some of them to his house to celebrate Greek Easter. He added that he knows his regulars by name — and by their haircut schedules.