Frank Sabatino - FISHERMAN New York Works: Audio Portraits of a Vanishing City Produced by: Emily Botein & Joe Richman The Next Big Thing (NPR) 3/2/2002 Dean Olsher: If Frank Sabatino could have things his way he'd spend everyday fishing on his own boat, but given the realities of a commercial fisherman's life, he's often captaining somebody else's clam-boat or else working as the engineer on the casino boat or else diving to check moorings - Whatever it takes to make some extra cash. Frank's own boat, the Tammy Gale, is a Shrimper. Small wooden modest, functional, well-worn, but well tended too. It really stands out next to all the fancy fiberglass pleasure boats next to it in Shell Bank Creek in Jamaica bay. Frank Sabatino, fisherman: we're at the dock right now we're leaving a little late. It's seven o'clock in the morning. Beautiful day. . Frank Sabatino: Yup. This boat here, she's getting there now. She's 30 years, old this boat. I'll come down here and talk to her all the time. How you doing? You know. Good girl. You know? How's everything? Miss my boat. Treat me good today. You know. . JAZZ FADE IN . Frank Sabatino: I got the engine running. Now I just kicked on the radar. [BOAT MOTHER HUMMING] just trying to get away from the dock here without bumping into anything. Okay, we're on our way. [JAZZ FADES OUT] . BELL PEALS . Frank Sabatino: I grew up approximately like one or two blocks way from here. You know my folks lived over here. I had a Huckle Berry Fin childhood I really did. I had my tree houses here; rafts; had underground forts. . Frank Sabatino: Everybody was involved in the fish business One way of the other: there was Cow High Charlie, there was Joe Black, pineapple mike flounder foot, another fellow named bushel mike. These were guys that used to put straw, newspaper in their boots! Not because they were cheap, that's the way these guys were taught. They were good people. I used to bring my report card down, because if I didn't, they probably wouldn't let me in the boatyard. . Radio Announcer: Monday. Wind southwest around 15 nauts. Becoming west and increasing to increasing to 20 to 25 nauts....[FADE OUT] . Frank Sabatino: It is a little cloudy right now, a little, but you could see the whole outline of New York. You can see the empire states building, the Crysler Building, you're right at Kennedy airport. You got to give a little more juice there. . Frank Sabatino: This is Venice Marina. This is one of the largest marinas' in Brooklyn right here. I was involved with that marina almost 35 years. They changed hands. The United Artists Movie Theatres bought it. And they turned around, one day, one day I come down, and they tell me, we don't want the boat here anymore. It doesn't go with the decor. We don't want a smelly old fishing boat at our dock. . JAZZ FADES IN . ENGINE HUMMING . Frank Sabatino: What we're going to do now, we are going to engage the hydraulics. Getting ready to put the net in the waters. There's almost 400 feet of cable, chain that's connected to that. It's slacking out. Okay. Now we're fishing. It is blowing pretty well. You had a good 35 to 40-mile wind here. . JAZZ AND ENGINE FADES OUT . Frank Sabatino: I will say something if I catch you in the wheal house, because what you're doing is calling the wind, and you don't want that. Accidents do happen. I was on a boat years ago, and it sank. We broke a world record for sinking. We were coming back from the Verrazano Bridge, we were stripe bass fishing. It was howling, and the boat broke up on us. We had no lifejackets on or nothing. We had no time to do anything. We were holding onto the boat and we were fortunate enough. There was a work barge going by and the captain on that boat notified the coastguard and we were rescued. . Frank Sabatino: I was shaking for three days. I couldn't talk, my vision was blurred. And we were only in the water, believe it or not, we were in the water, believe it or not, Id say every bit of a half-hour or 45 minutes. We were lucky. When it's just your head sticking up out of the ocean it's a big ocean. . JAZZ - FADE DOWN . Frank Sabatino: Okay, now here comes. We are pulling back. We are pulling everything back the cable is winding up. . Frank Sabatino: It's the fishing that got me in the beginning. It's the fishing that I love to do. . Frank Sabatino: Here's a nice flounder, this is beautiful. What they call a winter flounder. Got some weakfish in some trout, we got a couple of exotics. Here come your little fishies. [FISH FLAPPING ON THE FLOOR] hey! . Frank Sabatino: You know when you are fishing you get paid, you get a percentage of what you catch. If you got paid by the hour you'd be pretty rich. When is the last time you when to a fish store, and got for 15 cents a pound? [JAZZ - FADE OUT] because that's what we got paid for it. My kids used to come up to me, or whatever, and they ask me for a few dollars. And you tell me not today because you are broke. It didn't mean that like I was too lazy to go to the cash machine and take some cash out of the bank. It meant that I was broke. . JAZZ . Frank Sabatino: We are headed back into the creak right now. Put the old boat to bed for the night. Coming home is coming home. Whether you are sitting on a train or on a boat. Whether you have two days of steaming to do or an hour. There is nothing like coming home at the end of the day. . Frank Sabatino: This was a fishing community. Sheep's Head Bay. . Frank Sabatino: There's only two-fulltime fisherman, dragger- men, left in Brooklyn as of right now. It's like a chapter of history that's closed, gone. Fishing has its price. If I am the last of the Mohicans, I'm 50 years old. I guess when I'm gone, it'll just be a topic of conversation. Maybe we'll be in a book somewhere. . JAZZ FADES OUT . © 2002 Emily Botein & Joe Richman