Port Jefferson has a long history as a shipbuilding center and a strong connection to its past. Located more than two hours east of Manhattan, the station serves as a gateway to the historic village that lies to its north. 

David McQueen's stainless steel sculpture at the Port Jefferson station features three ships once built in Port Jefferson (a schooner, a yawl, and a sloop), and he wanted them to "sail through its consciousness." Each is positioned to curve as if sailing through the sea, and held aloft by 52 boat stands. The ships, fabricated by KC Fabrications, are modified re-creations of those built here during the mid-1800s at the Bayles and Darling Shipyards.  

The title of the sculpture is taken from the French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's writings in a passage about instilling a love of the sea. "If you wish to build a ship, do not divide the men into teams and send them to the forest to cut wood," he wrote. "Instead, teach them to long for the vast and endless sea."

The ships are presented as if they are in the process of being built, temporarily aground, but bound for the ocean. They are connected to the past, but look to the future, full with potential. 

David McQueen is a sculptor and installation artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been shown at Wave Hill, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Bronx Museum of Art, and the DUMBO Arts Center,  among others. His work uses nautical imagery and painstakingly hand- fabricated maritime objects to explore common emotional currents, and draws from the enigmatic space between science and romance. Often his objects, though traditional in construction, have abandoned their classical forms to declare new identities.