Freeport's Nautical Mile, back in business

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On a recent Friday at 2:30 p.m., a Harley Davidson rumbled up Freeport’s famed Nautical Mile, a.k.a. Woodcleft Avenue, followed soon after by a very expensive, very red Italian sports car, revving its engine. Couples strolled up and down the street in search of the perfect bar or restaurant to spend an 85-degree evening. Already the outdoor eateries, with their umbrella-shaded tables, had begun to fill up.

By all appearances, you wouldn’t know that 4½ years ago the Nautical Mile was a desolate shell of its former self, nearly wiped off the map by Superstorm Sandy, which flooded the street and leveled structure after structure.

“The Nautical Mile has been set back 50 years in time,” Jerry Bracco, owner of Captain Ben’s and Bracco’s, told Edible Long Island in October 2013, a year after the storm struck.

Ivan Sayles, who owns the iconic Rachel’s Waterside Grill and Nawlins Seafood Company with his partner, Rich Venticinque, told the Herald in 2015 that the damage caused by Sandy “was tremendous. Pretty much everything was wrecked.”

Today, however, new life has been breathed into the Mile, including into many, if not most, of its acclaimed eateries. Sleek powerboats are moored side by side with massive party vessels and fishing trawlers.

The fish markets are back, too. In a little room behind Two Cousins Fish Market, Norberto Flores was making quick work of the fresh fish that customers brought in for cleaning and deboning on Friday. With a single stroke of his knife, he sliced off all the scales on one side of the fish before quickly turning it over and repeating the procedure.

At Rachel’s, diners sat in comfort, lost in conversation, paying no attention to the gleaming white yachts that passed by in the canal.

It all seemed so normal.

There is still the occasional abandoned building or debris pile on the Mile, reminders of how Sandy had roared into Freeport. These days, though, those reminders are fading fast, and folks say the Mile is better than ever.