Workers on the Waterfront

By David Berson

This is a collection of pictures culled from an exhibition about waterfront workers in the village of Greenport, Long Island. These people all share one thing in common; they are at the bitter end of a long maritime tradition in the village.

There was a time when such an exhibition would have been physically impossible to mount. So many people’s lives were tied to the waterfront, that to have all their photographs displayed, would have required a space many times larger than any available in this small village. It is probable, as well, that had such an exhibition been hung 20 years ago that it wouldn’t have attracted any notice, for in a community built of shipwrights, fishermen, ship-yard workers, who would have thought that they deserved special notice? 

Ironically, it is only because these trades are at risk of disappearing that we care to champion them. Even if we can’t articulate the importance of their loss, we recognize that every time a boat-builder lays down his plane, or a fisherman hangs up his trawl, that another part of the collective tradition of the community vanishes.

For generations this community prospered facing the east and the water. Slowly it moved west until its gaze turned more to the city and away from the sea.

Now in the first decade of the 21st century Greenport barely sustains its maritime community. The numbers earning their livings from water-related activities has been reduced. It should be noted, though, that those few might be the best ever to have put to sea in a boat, or beveled a plank, or trapped for lobster, or built a dock. They have to be, in order to survive.

Though many of the people pictured here hope that their children would find an easier means of making a living, a surprising number of them have already taken on their children as co-workers.

It is the unyielding nature of time that has spurred this project. Many old friends are gone and the moment was right to record the names and photographs of some of those who are still working the waterfront. It is to the memories of those that came before them that this show is dedicated.