John MacCrate Jr., who transformed a small insurance and real estate company into one of Long Island's largest and best known agencies serving the North Shore of Nassau County from Manhasset Bay to Huntington Harbor, died in Naples, Florida at the age of 85. Mr. MacCrate was undergoing dialysis and other treatments and died from complications.

Mr. MacCrate was founder and president of John MacCrate Jr. Inc., MacCrate Realty Ltd., and MacCrate Associates Inc., which employed more than 75 real estate sales associates, seven real estate appraisers and five insurance associates, with offices in Sea Cliff, Manhasset, Port Washington and Greenvale. These companies specialized in all kinds of insurance and insurance consultation, real estate management, real estate sales and valuation consultation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. MacCrate sold his business interests to Daniel Gale (which became Daniel Gale MacCrate) and the Treiber Agency.

Mr. MacCrate was born in Brooklyn on August 23, 1916 and spent most of his early life in Brooklyn and Sea Cliff, New York. He graduated from Brooklyn Friends School in 1934 and received his BA Degree in 1938 from Columbia College where he was the manager of the Glee Club and a starting baseball pitcher. He received the most prestigious appraisal designations, MAI and SRA, from the Appraisal Institute and was an active instructor for this organization until he retired in the early 1990's. He was a founding member of the Red Tie Barbershop Quartet that performed in the 1940s and 1950s on Long Island.

During World War II, he was in the Merchant Marine but was considered essential personnel as a supervisor at Sperry Gyroscope Company. During the latter 1940s, he was one of the first insurance agents on Long Island appointed by the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company. At one time, he represented the Travelers Insurance Company, The Atlantic Companies, The Insurance Company of North America, Worcester Mutual Insurance Company and the Aetna Insurance Company. He was a receiver in a number of foreclosure actions in the greater New York area.

Mr. MacCrate was very active in many professional and service organizations. At one time, he had served as president of the Long Island Chapter of the Society of Real Estate Appraisers (now, The Appraisal Institute), the Manhasset Real Estate Board, Port Washington Real Estate Board, the Appraisal Division of the Long Island Board of Realtors. He participated in the early development of multiple listing services on Long Island. He had served Emigrant Savings Bank as a member of the Long Island Advisory Board. He was a past chairman of the Sea Cliff Village Planning Board. Other organizations in which Mr. MacCrate was active included the Lions Clubs of Port Washington and Manhasset and the Manhasset Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. MacCrate is survived by his loving wife of 43 years, Shirley Hedger MacCrate, of Naples, Florida; a brother, Robert, of Plandome; two sons, John III, of East Setauket and James Robert, of Oyster Bay; one daughter, Judith Stephens, of Horsham, Pennsylvania; nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at the Whitting Funeral Home, 300 Glen Cove Avenue, Glen Head, New York, 11545 (516-671-0807) on Saturday, June 15, at 10 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations should be sent to: National Kidney Foundation, 30 East 33rd St., Suite 1100, New York, NY 10016 or the American Kidney Fund, 6110 Executive Boulevard, Suite 1010, Rockville, MD 20852.