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 Is
There No Island Left
For Islanders Like Me?
by J.C. Johnson / August 1999 issue of
New York Nightlife Magazine |
"I
was a bayman
like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me ..."
The words drift over from the CD playing
in the other room as I sit down to write this piece. They are the words
from the last verse of "The Downeaster Alexa", a fitting Billy Joel
tune for the piece I am about to write. For I have just come back from
a trip to Shelter Island, a visit with Rock and Roll's famed Piano Man.
Although, in the setting I saw him in today, he was more the image of
fisherman than piano man. For this was the time he devotes to his other
passion, the ocean. He has left his passion for music back on another
shore. This day he will talk of the sea and of boats, his love for the
Long Island of his youth and for his concern that this island that he
loves so much is fast disappearing before his very eyes.
He arrived for the interview by boat, the Alexa,
named for his beloved daughter. It is also the name of the boat he immortalized
in his song "The Downeaster Alexa" from his '89 "Storm Front" album.
The song speaks of the plight of fishermen on the East End of Long Island
who are watching their livelihood being taken away from them. Joel's
involvement with the East End baymen has been widely publicized. Not
mearly by the writing and recording of his song "The Downeaster Alexa",
but by other events as well. Events such as an arrest in the early '90s
for taking part in a protest over striped bass fishing regulations.
He has lent his support because he is trying to keep an occupation from
dying on Long Island, but even more importantly he is trying to keep
the Long Island he knows and loves from dying.
 "I
grew up on Long Island, really it's the only place like this that I've
ever been to," says Joel, a man who has traveled much of the globe during
his years of concert touring. "You look at the New York bight. We're
actually an archipelago, there's all these island's ... Manhattan Island,
Staten Island, Coney Island, Ellis Island, Randalls Island, Wards Island,
Governors Island, Gardiners Island, Block Island, Long Island. It's
an exploded group of Islands and Long Island is just the biggest one.
We're surrounded by water. You've got bays, harbors, coves, oceans,
sound, creeks, marsh. I mean everywhere you go there's water and all
different kinds of water. And that creates all different kinds of eco
systems, different kinds of natural beauty, different kinds of living
conditions. It's just an amazing place. Plus you're in the proximity
of the greatest city in the world. We've also got New England (nearby)
which is the oldest, most beautiful part of the country, I think. It's
unique, there really is no place like this. And I like the people here
and I speak the language. And the food's good, you know ... fresh sea
food, good Italian food..."
His current passion, when it comes to preserving
the Long Island of his youth, is to revive the once flourishing boat
building industry on the East End. "There used to be a lot of mom and
pop boat building companies on Long Island. That was a traditional industry
on Long Island, like farming, like fishing. Little by little, after
the war, the big production companies took over and all the small boat
building companies disappeared," says Billy Joel, with a hint of melancholia
in his voice. "The East End became touristy and recreational and people
went into the curio and T-shirt shop business and in a way I was watching
Long Island disappear ... the old Long Island. That was one of the motivations
to have a boat building business, to revive a traditional Long Island
industry. 'Cause a lot of people don't have a sense of identity on Long
Island ... They don't know where they are, or why they are where they
are."
Billy Joel has hooked up with Shelter Islander,
Peter Needham for his boat building endeavor. Needham, a former marine
biologist who runs the family business Coecles Harbor Marina at Hudson
Ave. on Shelter Island, has a long and well respected history for refinishing,
and refurbishing classic yachts.
 After
getting into sports fishing big time, back in the '80s, Billy Joel had
a 46 foot sport fish boat built for him by Lee Wilbur up in Maine. The
boat used a Jarvis Newman semi-displacement hull and had a lot of woodwork
on it. It was a beautiful boat but Joel soon discovered that the maintenance
on the woodwork was overwhelming him. So he searched for a craftsman
who could cut some of the woodwork back and simplify the boat without
taking away too much of its beauty. "Somebody told me to come over here
and look," adds Joel, referring to Coecles Harbor Marina. "There were
always really nice boats in this marina. Nicely restored boats, nicely
maintained boats." Billy Joel saw a lobster boat he liked, which Coecles
Harbor had built, bought it and began modifying it. Eventually Joel
would request Peter Needham build him a bigger version of the lobster
boat. With the help of what he learned in a mechanical drawing course
back in his high school days, Billy Joel began faxing sketches of ideas
he had for the boat while on concert tour to help pass the time. "It's
kind of a Zen when you're on the road," says Joel, "a lot of times there's
not much to do. When you're in the mid-west, Canada and some places.
So we came up with a 36 footer. We went up to Maine and found a hull.
We were always going up to Maine because Maine, as you know, has a reputation
for building really solid good boats. Work boats. These guys gotta use
their hull to go out all year round in the worst conditions." Eventually,
the Alexa was born, a boat based on an old Swordfish design from the
'30s and '40s.
After the Alexa, Joel started dreaming of creating
another boat. The time Billy Joel spends on the water is his quiet time
... "I like to be near water all the time," confides Joel, "it's replenishing
for the soul and the spirit." So the last thing Joel wanted was a noisy
boat, on the other hand he didn't want to sacrifice speed. "I'd see
these fast boats," says Joel. "You know, these cigarette boats, formulas
... they make a lot of noise." Not happy with the look of the boats
or all that noise, Billy Joel recalls asking Peter, "Do they have to
look like that, and do they have to make that much noise. You can hear
them coming from Connecticut." And Peter said there was no hydrostatic
reason that a boat has to look like a rocketship or a computer blob
for it to go a certain speed. And that they didn't have to make that
much noise, either. So began the work of creating a commuter boat that
was fast, yet quiet, and had the traditional stylings Billy Joel was
looking for.
 The
two picked Doug Zurn, out of the dozen or so naval architects who seemed
to have the right concept of what they were looking for. Then began
the faxing ... Over the course of the winter of '95 Doug was doing drawings.
He would fax them to Billy, then to Peter. Billy would change a line.
Peter would change a line. It was a lot of compromising, a lot of ...
one wanting the house a little further forward, one wanting it further
back and eventually they'd settle on somewhere in the middle. Once everyone
was happy with what they had they began building the first prototype
boat and introduced her at the '96 Newport show. "At the time," says
Neeham, "we had figured, if we were lucky, we'd be building two boats
a year. Immediately we just started getting flooded with inquires which
then started to turn into orders. So now we're doing six or seven boats
a year. We're a small outfit, we can't keep up with the pace that people
want to buy these at. It's been a very successful adventure."
"In a way," adds Billy Joel, "it's a way to
guarantee a certain quality. It's not a big operation, it's a small
operation. They can only make so many. But that way Peter can keep an
eye on a lot of details."
"These boats are all over the country," Needham
interjects "if somebody calls me on the phone, a cold call on a Sunday
night at my house, I know the answer. I mean, I know the boat backwards
and forwards. I can go through it with my eyes closed. And if they have
a question I can help them out. By keeping it small they get nice after
sales service. "
Billy Joel is excited over the chance to put
Long Island boat builders back to work. "This Island was built on the
bones of whales," says Joel. "A lot of it has to do with boats, shipbuilding,
fishing. There were people around with the prerequisite skills but a
lot of them weren't able to work in the boat industry so they went into
construction." Now he and Needham are able to round up some of these
people and put them back to work using these skills. They're also able
to begin training a younger generation of boat crafters, in the hopes
that a once thriving Long Island industry will somehow come alive again.
"Time is relentless
And as the past disappears
We're on the verge of all things new
We are two thousand years."
-- Billy Joel, Two Thousand Years
As we enter the next two thousand years Billy
Joel's efforts seem to be strongly focused on saving a piece of Long
Island's past. It is my hope that we do not have to loose every last
hint of our seafaring ways before we, as Long Islander's, begin to miss
this valuable heritage of ours. That Billy Joel can truly help to open
our eyes before it's too late to reach back and catch that which is
quickly slipping away from us. And, Billy ... that there may always
be an island for islanders like you.
Illustration by J.C. Johnson / Photos Courtesy Joy Scheller &
Coecles Harbor Marina
To
Read a Small Sampling of My Interviews with Entertainers Click Below:
Comedy Legends Mel
Brooks & Carl Reiner
CBS's King of Queens
Star Kevin James
Stand-Up Comedian
& Playwrite Lou DiMaggio
Roger Lodge — Host
of TV's Blind Date'
To Read
a Small Sampling of My Humorous Articles Click Below:
Taxing Times for
Americans
Talking Turkey
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