Over nearly three decades as a science teacher at East Hampton High School, Anthony S. Minardi shared his passion for the ocean and the natural environment with generations of students.
Believing as he did that “the most valuable lessons happened outside of the classroom,” as his family put it, he often took students on field trips to the beach, where they collected data on tides, shifting beach profiles, and coastal erosion.
“The main work began every month or so with groups of students riding on a school bus to the beach with sets of basic wood measuring sticks that Tony designed,” The Star’s editor in chief, David E. Rattray, recalled in a 2024 column on the yearslong studies that Mr. Minardi conducted with his students’ help. “Back then, it was just about the only attempt to measure the season-by-season movement of sand here.”
Mr. Minardi died on Friday at N.Y.U. Langone Hospital in Patchogue. He was 89 and had been in declining health.
His talent as an educator was notable enough to earn him the title of outstanding biology teacher in New York State in 1986, but he was also an author of field guides on the wetlands and barrier beaches and an entrepreneur whose Claws on Wheels seafood shop and catering business helped pioneer the beach clambake.
“His life was closely connected to the beaches, waterways, schools, and people of East Hampton,” his family said.
Anthony Samuel Minardi was born in Brooklyn on July 6, 1937, to James and Lucy Minardi. He grew up in Patchogue and graduated from Patchogue-Medford High School. At the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, he played linebacker on the football team.
He earned a master’s degree in marine science in 1968 from Long Island University and later a Ph.D. from Fordham University, doing field studies at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts as part of his doctoral research.
His first teaching job was in the science department at Southampton High School. In 1969 he took a position with the East Hampton School District, just as it was opening its new high school building on former potato fields on Long Lane. When he took the job, he moved to Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton Village, where he raised his three sons.
At the high school here he coached tennis and served as chairman of the science department. Even after retiring in 1996, he continued to substitute for another 20 years.
Early in his career, he taught summer continuing education courses for fellow educators at Southampton College and Long Island University, specializing in environmental education. As with his younger students, he made fieldwork and outdoor activities a cornerstone of his classes. “His canoe trips became legendary among participating teachers,” his family recalled. “They combined environmental science, exploration, and adventure, creating experiences that many participants remembered long after the courses ended.” He was also an assistant professor of biology at Syracuse University.
He published his first field guide, “The Wetlands,” in the early 1980s, collaborating with the artist Francesco Bologna, who did the illustrations. “Tony and Frank shared an appreciation for the natural beauty of East Hampton as well as their Italian heritage,” his family noted.
The described him as “an entrepreneur with a creative and adventurous spirit.” He used his knowledge of biology and biochemistry to develop an all-natural deer repellent that he marketed as Deer Away in 2009. And in the early 1980s, while working in the summer at Multi Aquaculture Systems on Napeague, he came up with an idea for a 100-gallon lobster tank that was transported in the back of a big blue van. “During the summers and on weekends, Tony would park the van along Montauk Highway and sell fresh lobsters directly to customers,” his family said.
This gave birth to Claws on Wheels, which became a seasonal fish market on Race Lane in East Hampton Village that he co-owned with Robert Kohr. Their clambake concept grew to be a popular one mimicked by many. “One of the most memorable parts of Claws on Wheels was the environment Tony created for the people who worked there,” his family said. His own children worked there, as did many students for whom it was “a place to learn responsibility, work hard, make friends, and have fun.”
Mr. Minardi is survived by three sons, Jimmy Minardi and Christopher Minardi of East Hampton and Douglas Scott Minardi of North Myrtle Beach, S.C., and by his grandchildren: Cam and Vera Minardi of East Hampton, Logan and Brianna Minardi of South Carolina, and Skylar, Niya, and Pax Minardi of East Hampton. Also surviving are three great-granddaughters, Amelia, Nora, and Charlotte, a sister, Judy Gonzalez, and a niece, Kelly Newman, both of Patchogue, and Kelly’s children, Melissa and Daniel, and her grandson, Noah.
Mr. Minardi will be cremated. A celebration of his life will be held at a later date.
