CityState : Reporter l by Ellen Liberman
Changing Tides
Block Island has long thrived on its pastoral isolation , but skyrocketing home prices and changing tourism patterns are shattering a way of life even as new technology delivers modern conveniences .
The Block Island of Keith Lewis ’ boyhood was a spare place , hardly bothered by anyone other than its 500 or so inhabitants . Times were hard in the 1960s as the town crawled out of the twin sloughs of the Depression and World War II . But Block Islanders had always been adept at making use of whatever was at hand : farming , fishing the great schools of cod or combing the beach for marine salvage . Lewis , seventy-six , remembers a happy place , where life was centered on potlucks at the Harbor Church and on the people , who valued their independence and the generational continuity that came with learning from the same teachers who taught their parents .
In some respects , the view from his living room windows has scarcely changed . At midday , sunlight blesses the rolling meadows of the family farm , freckled with dandelions , and brings up the blue of the sea . On this bluff in the island ’ s southwest corner , one can forget the hullabaloo that is downtown Block Island on a nice afternoon . But the wind turbines just off to the east are spinning reminders of how little remains of the island of his memories .
“ It ’ s changed dramatically in the last twenty years . There ’ s a lot more construction here . The economy is booming . When I was a child , transportation was marginal . There were two boats a day in the summer and one in the winter and no boat on Sunday ,” he recalls . “ Now , there ’ s far too many cars , and when the [ ferry ] ties up , it ’ s just one big , ugly parking lot . They come out here supposedly for
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION : EMILY RIETZEL AND GETTY IMAGES . the rural atmosphere , but they seem to want to turn it into another suburbia .”
Lately , Lewis is taken with the notion of the shifting baseline , which posits that the degree of change one perceives is influenced by where one starts . A sixth-generation islander , Lewis ’ s baseline was set seven decades ago , but even relative newcomers feel the island ’ s accelerating pace of transformation . Technology has made life easier : The community e-bulletin board is now the place to make invites or requests , and islanders can order groceries online from mainland supermarkets for home delivery . Reliable green energy from the wind farm means that appliances don ’ t die after two years from brownouts . Broadband is finally delivering reliable internet service .
But Block Island ’ s popularity has challenged residents ’ willingness to share its charms .
There are no official counts of the number of tourists , but at summer ’ s peak , 20,000 individuals visit the island daily , according to an April 2022 sustainable tourism report commissioned by the Block Island Tourism Council . The money sloshing in has priced full-time residents out of the housing market and replaced the old cottagers , who came for the quiet and accepted its privations , with a new type of tourist who travels with a fleet of cars and high expectations for amenities . The mom-and-pop hotels that once passed to family members or an enterprising line cook who rose through the ranks are
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l AUGUST 2023 35