Thursday, October 1, 2026
Jeff Buccacio first saw Billy Joel’s house when he was looking across the Oyster Bay Harbor at Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park on a cold fall day in 2022.
Buccacio, a 53-year-old sculptor, has been a fan of Joel’s since he was a kid. For the past few years, he has been working on a statue that combines his love of the water and his admiration of the six-time Grammy-winning musician.
“It’s very personal,” Buccacio said. “For me, as an artist, that needs to come first for the work to be true.” He added that when he was first approached about building the monument, he felt moved. “I knew that these people needed a voice. And we could do that through sculpture, through monument making.”
The proposed monument, a bronze depiction of a bayman pulling his catch of shellfish onto his boat, with his rake and poles pointing toward the sky, was first presented to the Town of Oyster Bay Board by the Baymen’s Heritage Association in 2022. The association was founded in 2020 to preserve and honor the history, culture and influence of professional fishermen in Oyster Bay.
The monument will also feature engraved lyrics from Joel’s “The Downeaster Alexa,” whose subject is an impoverished Long Island fisherman: “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.”
Buccacio, a sculptor for over 35 years, owns Buccacio Sculpture Services LLC, a foundry in Canton, Massachusetts, that he opened in 2015.
The monument, overlooking the harbor at Roosevelt Park, will be surrounded by four benches offering a panoramic view of the landscape. Fiberglass panels will display historical and educational information, including protection and conservation tips for shellfishing resources.
Baymen have been an integral part of Oyster Bay’s history since its founding — they are named for the body of water that attracted settlers to the region in the mid-1600s. But the last several decades have seen a decline in their numbers, due to the difficulty of the job and the overfishing and over-clamming of local waterways.
Bill Painter, the association’s president, explained that the inspiration for the memorial was the death of Michael Kennedy, a 57-year-old Bayville bayman who died while he was on the water in 2020. But Painter emphasized that the monument was not intended to honor just Kennedy, but instead should be seen as “recognition of the tradition that’s been here for hundreds of years.”
“It is a dirty and hard occupation,” Painter, a bayman for over 40 years, said. He acknowledged that while the job is challenging, it “gives these guys a freedom out there that they just don’t leave. Whether it’s good times or bad times, they stick it out.”
Painter announced two years ago that the association had raised nearly $300,000 of the goal of $525,000 to build the memorial. The fundraising is continuing, and the group will host a golf outing at the Town of Oyster Bay Golf Course in Woodbury on Sept. 2. The plan is to complete the project by the end of the year — a year later than initially planned.
“We submitted a lot of paperwork,” he said. “We failed to realize that the regulatory process is a lot longer than just giving an official OK.” Painter added that the statue itself is roughly 80 percent complete, and, he said, “We’re waiting for the thumbs-up from the town to say we could start site preparation.”
Marta Kane, a spokeswoman for the Town of Oyster Bay, said that the project is still awaiting approval from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, but is expected to be completed soon.
Once the site is cleared, concrete footings will be added to support the the statue, as well as a pedestal, brick pavers, benches and lighting, according to Painter.
Buccacio said that he cast the bayman from a solid block of granite. “I’ve always been very traditional in the materials that I choose,” he said, adding that he selects materials that will last the longest.
“I tell people that we design and build monuments to last the next 500 years,” he said. “If you maintain it, it’ll last the next 1,000.”
