"You can't just use a list of ticket buyers to all Broadway shows," Chodor said. "Since 'Movin' Out' is not only for the Broadway audience, but also for the rock and roll audience, it was unique in that regard. The target audience included people who bought tickets, so we know they spend money to see concerts."

The e-mail opens with: "130,000 new tickets go on sale this weekend - but you can get them today when you use your Visa card! Don't wait! Be the first to get the best seats! This exclusive internet presale period ends Saturday, December 7th, 2002, so act today."

Visa is a sponsor of the show.

The e-mail included a letter from Joel, which Chodor's firm developed with a copywriter.

A link to MovinOutOnBroadway.com was provided where music from the show plays as reviews flash across the screen. The e-mail has links to a "send this e-mail to a friend" option; MovinOutCastMusic.com, where songs can be accessed and played; WPLJ's web-site and Ticketmaster's web-site to buy tickets.

Chodor said he did not have details on response rates or other numbers from the campaign.

"We had tremendous success with a previous e-mail campaign that we did when the show first opened, and Ticketmaster knows how powerful that last effort was," he said. "They make a fee off each ticket they sell."

Chodor credited the e-mail effort's immediacy for its success.

"The show has been ongoing for quite awhile with good reviews," he said. "For this campaign they opened up a whole new batch of tickets and struck gold."

"Movin' Out" tickets are priced at $100, $70 and $40.

"Not only is the show a blockbuster, but what we're starting to find is that other Broadway shows are looking to do this," he said. "Broadway usually has done little marketing with just local ads and postcards. Now they are finding that the return on investment for something like this is huge."

Chodor noted that Broadway shows typically operate on lean margins.

"They opened up more seats, and to market that, the cost to do radio or TV is out of the realm," he said. "Also, 60 percent of all Broadway seats are purchased by tourists. This was a push for New Yorkers to buy theatre tickets. An immediate blast like this can't be done for a national audience since you couldn't get a spike in sales."

"I didn't even know Billy Joel was Jewish," says Aviva Weintraub, a member of the film selection committee.

The film climaxes in a confrontation between the Joels (Billy among them), and the Neckermanns, the Germans who took over the family business. It screens January 20th, 2003 at 3:30pm and 8:30pm, and January 21st, 2003 at 9pm.

"Billy is dating Anne Maxwell," said Claire Mercuri, Joel's rep at Columbia Records.

The pop balladeer met Maxwell backstage during a September concert, according to the Boston Herald.

Maxwell works at the tony Ritz-Carlton on Arlington Street in downtown Boston. Sources say she is between 28 years-old and "her early 30s." Joel is 53.

Reached yesterday at the Ritz-Carlton, Maxwell politely declined to talk about her relationship with Joel, saying, "I just don't feel comfortable commenting on my personal life."

Friends say Maxwell's obviously got a way about her - and that she's lifted Joel from his much-publicized doldrums.

"The flowers keep coming, the diamonds keep coming," one friend told the Herald's "Inside Track" column.

Joel has reportedly given impromptu concerts in the hotel's piano bar in recent months.

Mercuri denied reports in the Herald and the National Enquirer that Joel had spent time with Maxwell's parents during the holidays.

"The Joel Files" is presented as a multigenerational film, and Billy Joel and his younger half-brother, European orchestral conductor Alexander Joel, appear frequently.

For the elder brother, the film and the research leading up to it were a revelation. "My first reaction was, so that's what happened," Joel said. "Because I didn't really know my father well when I was growing up, and by the time I met him again, he really didn't want to talk about it."

As for the younger brother, it was his acquaintance with Thalberg, who produced a program about Alexander Joel for a Vienna TV station, that led to the "The Joel Files." "I wanted to show a picture of him as a child," Thalberg recalled by phone from Vienna. "So we went to his father, who lives here in Vienna, too, and asked for a photograph." Looking through a family album, Thalberg came across "a picture showing a factory, a courtyard of a factory in the '30s. And this picture took me away."

Though Howard Joel (Billy and Alexander's father) was at first reluctant to talk about the picture, he eventually told Thalberg the story of the Joel factory. She followed up with a year of research into German archives, with help from Alexander.

Thalberg also understood the value of the Billy Joel connection. "I knew if I would have done the story about 'Bloch' and 'Schultz,' maybe nobody would have given me the money to do it," she said. But she also saw it as emblematic of what happened to so many families: "Every Jewish family lost everything - if they could save their life."

The Joels - Karl, his wife, Meta, and his son Helmuth (later changed to Howard) - did save their lives, escaping to Switzerland, then eventually entering the United States through Cuba. But "The Joel Files" documents how the noose of Nazism tightened around the family, breaking the proud Karl, who sold his firm - the second-largest textile mail-order business in Germany - after Nazi laws required the "Aryanization" of all Jewish businesses.

It was the Joels' particular misfortune to live in Nuremberg, where their mansion stood just a block away from the site of Nazi rallies. "What is a child supposed to do about that?" Howard asks poignantly in "The Joel Files." "What is a grown-up to do about such things? Withdrawing was the only option." Still hopeful, the family moved to Berlin in 1934.

Estranged for years from Billy (he left the family when the singer was a child, eventually resettling in Austria), Howard is in obvious pain when he recalls his own bitter schoolboy days - a fact that was not lost on his son. "It did give me some understanding of the mystery of the man who is my father," Joel said. "I know my father has a dark area in his life that he doesn't discuss. And I think this has a lot to do with his personality."

Equally fascinating are the Neckermanns themselves. We see file film of old Josef Neckermann, his face a mask of bland self-satisfaction as he reminisces, "It had always been my dream to get involved in the mail-order business...." We see Josef's son, Johannes, telling us that his father was just a driven businessman and "never a Nazi by heart and by convictions." (An avid horseman and eventual Olympic equestrian champion, Josef Neckermann was drawn to the Nazis, one former secretary says, because he was able to ride his horse in Nazi parades.)

And we see the three Neckermann grandchildren - US-educated, attractive and almost totally ignorant of their family history - as they meet with the two Joel brothers in a Vienna cafe.

That meeting seems to have been inconclusive, at least for Billy Joel. "I came away with the sense that they didn't really try in any way," he said. "If I was in their position, I would have to think of a way to rationalize my position in life. If I knew that it was due to another man being taken advantage of, I would have to do a good deal of soul-searching. ...I sensed that a lot of this was new to them, and they didn't know how to deal with it."

The meeting was arranged and taped by Thalberg. But why had Markus, Lukas and Julia Neckermann agreed to see the Joel brothers at all - especially in front of a camera? It was partly for the chance to meet Billy Joel, Thalberg believes. It was the filmmaker who told them of Joel's connection to their own family history. "They said, 'What do you mean - the rock star Billy Joel?'" Lukas Neckermann, in fact, is a huge Billy Joel fan who hosted a radio show devoted to the singer while in college.

If the meeting was something of a disappointment to Billy Joel, the movie wasn't. In fact, he sees in it a series of historical ironies, with the Joels ultimately faring well. After all, if Josef Neckermann hadn't "at least made the pretense of buying my grandfather's business," wouldn't the Nazis have simply expropriated it in the end and sent Karl, Meta and Howard to their deaths?

"In a strange way," mused Billy Joel, "I might owe Neckermann my existence."

"I've learned that the more questions you've answered, the more tabloid stories tend to come out. I made the mistake once of revealing a little about my personal life, and it turned into a tabloid story. It was horrible. That's the last time I'll ever do that. They turned it into a one-note samba, and I was horrified. It was The New York Times Magazine. I assumed they had some journalistic integrity, but I read this story, and it could have been in The Star. It was shocking, and I said, 'That's it. I don't trust anyone anymore.'"

Hmmm, he must trust Joan Jedell just a little bit. He's on her cover.

"That's the reward for it all. Watching that emotional response to the show every evening."

Twyla Tharp's talking, which means you listen.

This brisk, bright 61 year-old woman has been one of the most respected and successful choreographers in the world of modern dance for more than 30 years. Her musical theatre efforts, however, were less triumphant, consisting only of the 1979 Milos Forman film Hair ("It just didn't work") and the flop 1985 stage version of the movie classic Singin' In The Rain ("They told me the script was carved in stone. Well, the show sank like one.")

It's no wonder that when she came up with the idea that the songs of Billy Joel would be the basis for a Broadway show told in dance, she felt a bit nervous.

"A bit? I spent two years staying awake at night thinking that people were going to stay away in droves. What do I know about commercial? I just know what I feel."

And what she felt was that Joel's songs held the key to unlock something that she had needed to say for a long time.

"I wanted to talk about betrayal on a grand scale, the betrayal of a whole nation. You remember how Homer's Iliad begins? 'Sing to me, goddess, of the rage of Achilles.' Well, I wanted to say `Sing to me, goddess, of the rage of the generation that lived through Vietnam.'"

We're sitting on the West Side, in an Italian restaurant, but there's no "bottle of white, bottle of red" on the table. Just a litre of mineral water and a plate of pasta that Tharp seems to inhale, rather than simply eat.

Her conversation only ventures into the past when she's dragged there, and when I mention something she said in her 1992 autobiography, "Push Comes To Shove," she lowers her fork long enough to give me a no-nonsense look."Forget that," she commands, her dark eyes blazing, "I change every 10 years."

And so the woman who grew up in a stern Quaker family who taught her "storytelling was lying," finally learned "to go past that. I knew that I needed a narrative to communicate my vision."

But it all began with Joel's songs. "I sat down one weekend and listened to them again, everything he ever wrote." She lights up with a realization. "You know what his songs are like? They're like shards of pottery. You see, from a shard you can reconstruct the pot, from the pot, you can reconstruct the culture. And that's what I did.

She crafted a tale about three friends who serve in Vietnam and come home, their lives changed. While it's not the fun, "Mamma Mia!" sort of nostalgia ride some people might have been expecting, Tharp is unrepentant.

"Look, I'm all in favour of people being joyous about things, but real art offers you new perception, not just redundant entertainment."

She took her vision to Joel. "He said 'Go for it,'" she remembers, with one of her rare smiles.

"It's all about bringing these guys home. Many of them felt when they came back that they weren't really welcome. Sure, go on a journey, learn on a journey, suffer on a journey, but for God's sake, bring them home!"

The intensity she displays makes it easy to understand where the passion in the second part of the show comes from. But getting there proved to be a problem, as she discovered when it opened last summer in Chicago to confused audiences and negative reviews.

"Just before the first preview, I finally sat back, looked and said 'Oh shit, we don't have it!'"

The fatigue of that period resurfaces in her face. She slams down her fork angrily. "I knew I'd need time to fix the show, but in order for my producers to get the revenue from all those performances in Chicago, I had to endure the criticism of trying out in a highly public place. I told them I wanted to go to Reykjavik, but they wanted Chicago. "So I fixed it," she says, jaw tight. I had all these little bells and whistles. I took them out. Stay with the story, Twyla, that's what will make it work."

She did just that, and when the show finally opened on October 24th, 2002, the critics cheered, the audiences lined up to buy tickets and Billy Joel drops by to see it almost every Friday night.

But Tharp knows there's no such thing as a totally happy ending, and she pushes away her plate.

"I'm worried about this whole business going on right now with Iraq. Some people are taking our show as an allegory about the evil that war does and how we have to keep out of it at all costs. How fucking hard is it to pull yourself up and out again? Do we really have to go through this one more time? Haven't we learned anything?"

The waiter brings the cheque. "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant." Curtain.

"It's really the artist," said Jill Weninger, director of marketing at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville. "A lot of them do that. They do fan club sales, where they can purchase tickets early."

Weninger said some regular concert-goers are offered the opportunity to buy tickets in the days before the event's announcement.

"That's fairly typical of most arenas," she said.

So, are Elton John and Billy Joel coming or not?

"Well," said Paquette, pausing for a moment, "you know that a show's scheduled."

"Piano Men" Elton John and Billy Joel bring their "Face 2 Face" tour back to the area at 7:30pm May 2nd, 2003 at The Palace of Auburn Hills.

Last year's "Face 2 Face" Tour grossed $65.5 million, good for fourth on Pollstar magazine's list of top-grossing tours, behind Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and Cher.

Tickets will sell for $47.50, $87.50 and $197.50. They go on sale at 10am Saturday, January 18th, 2003, at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets, online, and by phone.

Buyers will be limited to eight tickets apiece.

"We're elated at the opportunity to bring two of the biggest names in rock and roll history together again in Indianapolis," says Andy Wilson, publicist for concert promoter Clear Channel Entertainment.

Joel is known for hits such as "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me," "Uptown Girl" and "Just The Way You Are." John has topped the charts with "Candle In The Wind," "Crocodile Rock" and "Philadelphia Freedom."

On their occasional "Face 2 Face" Tours, which began in 1994, the stars sing some selections as duets, as well as cover each other's tunes.

With the $197 price attached to the best seats, Joel and John fall just shy of being the fifth concert to hit the $200 mark in Conseco Fieldhouse's four-year history.

In relation to other stops on the "Face 2 Face" Winter Tour, Indianapolis tickets are comparable to prices set in one of America's largest cities and a bit higher than the going rate in others.

In Houston, tickets range from $196.35 to $46.35. In Dallas, Pittsburgh and Birmingham, AL, the peak price is $175.

"An artist makes all the final decisions on the aspects of a tour, including ticket prices in each individual market," says Pam Fallon, national public relations director for Clear Channel. "The history of the artist in the market - things such as record sales and radio play - is one determining factor."

Joel performed a solo date at Conseco Fieldhouse in December 1999.

All tickets were $49.50. Attendance was a near-sellout at 15,900.

John's most recent local appearance was an April 2000 show at Conseco Fieldhouse. Tickets ranged from $65 to $35. Attendance was 14,500.

"Billy's in love with a gorgeous blonde he met in Boston," a gal pal told the Enquirer. "She really has mended Billy's broken heart and he's talking marriage."

The Enquirer reported last summer that Billy was devastated when his former lover; TV news star Trish Bergin, spurned him to marry another man. Reeling from his loss, Billy began drinking heavily.

On the day pregnant Trish married, Billy checked himself into alcohol rehab at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut, and stayed 10 days. After he left rehab, Billy admitted he was lonely and told a reporter he wanted to move to Manhattan to meet women.

But he never made the move - because when he met Anne in Boston, he knew he'd found the woman he was searching for; friends say.

"Billy had to do a make-up concert in Boston in September, performing with Elton John at the FleetCenter," said the pal. "Anne went to the show and a friend took her backstage and introduced her to Billy.

"It was love at first sight."

Soon Billy, 53, was dating Anne, 28 - who works in sales for the posh Ritz-Carlton hotel - and bombarding her with flowers and love notes, the pal said. He bought her a gorgeous pair of diamond earrings," said the pal. "And when Anne flew back to New York for Thanksgiving with her parents, she invited Billy to meet them. Billy was nervous but they liked him and invited him back for a family Christmas.

"Now Billy says Anne has given him a reason to live again."

Buoyed by love, Billy is rebuilding his life, those close to him say.

A friend of Billy told the Enquirer: "We've all been praying for Billy. And now he's in love, and everyone is hoping for a formal engagement and then a spring wedding.

"Billy's daughter Alexa knew her dad was lonely when he suddenly fell for Anne, she saw his spirits change almost overnight. She loves him very much and wants to see him happy - and now her wish may finally have come true."

Alexa, 17, is the product of of Billy's nine-year marriage to Christie Brinkley.

"We were but one family out of countless others whose lives were decimated during these times," Billy Joel wrote in a statement last year about the film. The songwriter describes the making of the "The Joel Files" as a "search for closure." Talking to his long-estranged father, Howard, a US army veteran and former manager with General Motors, about his childhood experience "brought his life into a new perspective for me," Joel wrote.

In fact, Joel reunited with his father in the 1970s and only then learned he had a brother in Vienna. Neither he nor Alexander knew much about their family’s fateful odyssey, until Thalberg started asking questions.

In 1998, she was working on a portrait of Alexander Joel, then 26 and a rising star in Vienna, for her regular television show, "Treffpunkt Kultur" ("Culture Meeting Point"). While looking through photograph albums at Alexander’s parents’ house, Thalberg came across images from the 1930s that showed the courtyard of a factory.

"I saw those photos and I said, 'Hey! What’s this?'" Thalberg told The Jewish Week during a recent trip to New York. "I knew there was something going on, but I couldn’t know, I didn’t know what," she said between sips of a large latte at an Upper West Side restaurant.

A native of East Berlin with family roots in Poland, the filmmaker said that among her generation, "everybody grew up with a little silence, or a big silence. It’s the same whether you’re the grandchild of a Nazi or a Jew. They don’t talk: the parents don’t and the children don’t."

So, during subsequent conversations with Alexander and Howard, Thalberg began gently to probe. "I didn’t want to force it," she said. I would say, 'Hey, tell me about this company.' And one day, at the Joel house, Howard told me more."

The story that emerged is both extraordinary and typical of the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.

In 1938, Karl Joel, then 49, was running a successful business and living in a fashionable section of Berlin with his wife Meta and 15 year-old son Helmuth (now Howard). A few years earlier, the family had been driven from their hometown of Nuremberg by a smear campaign launched by Julius Streicher, the infamous editor of the virulently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stuermer.

Boycotts of Jewish businesses were forcing many Jews to sell out at undervalued prices. In 1937, Joel’s business was still profitable, but soon "Aryan suppliers" cut off their shipments and Joel’s goods were marked with a "J" for "Jewish goods." In the summer of 1938, Joel was forced to sell, and through the Aryan lawyer he was required to hire, negotiated a price of 2.3 million Reichmarks for his life’s work. (His lawyers would later estimate the company’s value at six times that amount.)

The purchaser was Josef Neckermann, a 25 year-old Wuerzberg native and Nazi-party member who earlier had bought out the Jewish department store king, Siegmund Ruschkewitz. Without realizing the significance of his actions, Neckermann reportedly wrote in his memoirs, "I just carefully stirred my cup of coffee...and thus became an aryaniser."

Fearing for their lives, the Joels fled to Switzerland. Then, after being swindled by a Berlin city official who had promised to help them get more money from Neckermann, they left for England, then Cuba, and finally New York. There, Karl Joel opened a small store, but his life remained a constant economic struggle.

In Germany, Neckermann maximized on Joel’s successful business, turning production over to the Nazi war effort and even using labor from the Lodz ghetto. After the war, Neckermann served time for having illegally appropriated property during the Nazi reign. Once freed, however, he made his company a household name. Hailed as a postwar industrial leader, Neckermann also won six Olympic medals for horseback riding.

In 1949, Joel successfully sued Neckermann for compensation in a Nuremberg court. After eight years, the parties settled and the files were closed. Only days later, and without legal recourse, Joel discovered a letter proving that Neckermann had cheated him a second time.

(Karl Joel died in the early 1980s at age 92. Josef Neckermann died in 1992, shortly before his 80th birthday.)

Half a century later, Alexander Joel went to the municipal archives in Ansbach, near Nuremberg and uncovered the files that determined his grandfather’s destiny.

The younger Joel bears a strong resemblance to his older sibling, but speaks with a British lilt instead of a Long Island accent, the product of a European upbringing. "The important thing is to not be bitter about what happened," he says in the film. People of his generation, "have to be even more aware of what happened."

But, of course, some people remain passively ignorant.

For Thalberg, one of the most difficult aspects of "The Joel Files" was the meeting in Vienna between Billy and Alexander Joel and the Neckermann grandchildren, Lukas, Markus and Julia.

"They didn’t get it," Thalberg said of the Neckermanns.

Raised in the United States and now living in Germany, they had read their grandfather’s autobiography and knew of the Joel family. They were even eager to meet with Billy Joel, and, naturally were intrigued by their connection, however bitter, to the pop superstar.

"But they didn’t ask," Thalberg said. "They never asked at home how it was really in the past. I started from zero with them."

At one point in the meeting, Julia says, "My grandfather’s way of fighting the [Nazi] regime was to help people have jobs."

Off camera, Thalberg said, "Billy Joel’s face goes down, and he didn’t say one word after that, except 'OK.'"

In his May 2001 letter to the filmmakers, Billy Joel thanks the Neckermann family for their willingness to participate in the film. On camera, he, like his brother, stresses the importance of remembering without bitterness. Otherwise, he says, "the bad guys won."

But Thalberg begins her film with an enigmatic quote that sets the tone for the intertwining stories that unravel in "The Joel Files."

Sitting in front of a piano, Billy Joel says: "You have the same characteristics as your family did, whether you want to or not. What you do with all that equipment is really what the difference is between you and who came before you."

"I told my daughter that I recognized I was having a problem. And my gift to her for Father's Day was going to be cleaning up my act," Joel told People magazine.

"It's a miracle he's alive," said Winthrop Barrett, 45, who was in his home on Route 114 when he "heard the thump outside."

"He only sideswiped a tree. If he hit it head-on, he'd be dead," Barrett said.

"I came out and saw the car sitting in the middle of the road. It's a miracle someone didn't hit him," said Barrett, who didn't recognize Joel behind the wheel of the wrecked car. "He was either in shock or something."

Joel wound up slamming into a 15-foot tree bearing a sign "Trail's End."

"That tree is hit so many times," Barrett said. "Coming off this hill, it's a very dangerous curve. They call it 'Dead Man's Curve.'"

"Me and my mother put the sign 'Trail's End' in the tree because [this] was going to be our last home, but it's taken on a whole new meaning now."

One source involved in the case told The Post that a blood test showed that Joel had not been drinking at the time of the crash.

"I didn't smell any alcohol," added the source, who arrived at the scene shortly afterward.

Joel, who last year underwent treatment at a Connecticut substance-abuse rehab facility, "was coherent," although "he was talking a mile a minute" while stuck in the car, the source said.

Another source said that because there was no smell of alcohol on either Joel or in the car, police did not give him a Breathalyzer test at the scene.

Joel's blood was drawn later at University Hospital at Stony Brook, and a test showed he was not drunk, one source said.

Joel, who was wearing his seat belt, didn't remember what led up to the crash, a source said.

It took Sag Harbor firefighters about 15 to 20 minutes to get Joel, who lives in nearby East Hampton, out of the car.

Joel was taken by ambulance to nearby East Hampton Airport, where he was flown by helicopter to the hospital. He was released at about 9am yesterday, and was not charged.

Around noon yesterday, Brinkley went to the Sag Harbor firehouse, where his car was taken after the crash, to photograph the wreckage. She and Joel have a 17 year-old daughter, Alexa.

Joel was involved in a major accident in 1982, when his motorcycle hit a car in Huntington, LI.

"Piano Man" Billy Joel is lucky to be alive after smashing his new Mercedes-Benz into a tree on a Long Island road, authorities and witnesses said yesterday.

While the $121,000 car was totaled, Joel, 53, escaped the Saturday night crash in Sag Harbor with a possible broken nose and cuts to his face. Joel, who had to be cut out of the wreckage, was alone in the car.

"I'd say he's a very lucky man," said Sag Harbor Fire Chief Matthew McAree. "What probably saved him was the fact that his car is new and well-equipped with air bags and safety equipment."

Police did not give a breath test for alcohol to the musician, who did a stint in a rehab clinic last year.

"There was no indication of a problem, no indication of drugs or alcohol," said Sag Harbor Police Detective Paul Fabiano. "A lot of accidents occur there. It must be a magnet for accidents."

"There was no alcohol involved," said Joel spokeswoman Jane Arginteanu. "He had an accident on a bad stretch of road."

It was the second car accident in 7 months for Joel, who left Stony Brook University Hospital early yesterday and went into seclusion.

Joel's latest brush with death came about 10:30pm Saturday as he was driving south along Route 114 on the East End.

Lawrance Thomas of Baltimore said he was parking his car when he heard "a God-awful noise. The car made such a thud hitting that tree, and there was the sound of glass breaking and metal twisting."

Thomas rushed across the street and saw the Mercedes just beyond the tree it had struck. A wheel was wrenched from its axle, the passenger door was ripped open and a form was slumped over the passenger seat.

"He had blood coming down his face, and I thought the brother was in bad shape," said Thomas, 57.

"I didn't know who it was at the time, but I thought, 'This person is gone,'" Thomas said. "If he doesn't know there is a God, he found out real quick. It was a nasty-looking accident."

McAree said Joel was conscious and was extricated from the car by rescue workers using the jaws of life.

"In my opinion, this was a hard crash," McAree said, adding there were skid marks along the road.

Joel was taken by ambulance to East Hampton Airport, where a Suffolk County police helicopter took him on a 15-minute flight to the hospital.

Daughter Urged Treatment

In June, Joel escaped serious injury in a similar crash in East Hampton, LI, where the Long Island-reared entertainer lives.

Shortly after that accident and at the urging of his daughter, Alexa, Joel sought 10 days of treatment at Silver Hill Hospital, a New Canaan, Connecticut, a rehab clinic favored by the rich.

Last March, he rambled about American military battles, slurred his words and nearly nodded off during a concert with Elton John at Madison Square Garden. Joel cut the tour short, blaming inflamed vocal cords, a chest infection and laryngitis.

After he got out of rehab, Joel complained in an interview about his troubled love life.

Despite his personal woes, Joel has enjoyed the recent success of "Movin' Out," a Broadway smash based on his music. A top concert draw, he has had more than two dozen hits, including "New York State of Mind," "Just The Way You Are" and "Uptown Girl."

Veteran rock-star Billy Joel crashed his car over the weekend on Long Island's "Dead Man's Curve."

Joel, who walked away from the crash with only some facial cuts, was driving in his Mercedes-Benz S600 near Sag Harbor when his car spun out of control, causing the singer to hit a 15-foot tree.

Winthrop Barrett was in his home when he "heard the thump outside."

"It's a miracle he's alive," said Barrett. "He only sideswiped a tree. If he hit it head-on, he'd be dead."

Barrett, who came outside to see Joel still inside his crashed car, added: "That tree is hit so many times. Coming off this hill, it's a very dangerous curve. They call it 'Dead Man's Curve.'"

Joel was the only passenger in the car at the time of the crash. He was taken to the hospital and has since been released. There are no charges against him.

"It's a miracle he's alive," local resident Winthrop Barrett, 45, told the Post after he "heard the thump" caused by the collision outside his home.

"He only sideswiped a tree," said Barrett. "If he hit it head-on, he'd be dead."

Joel reportedly sustained minor facial cuts. He had to be taken by helicopter to the hospital, said the Daily News.

No charges were filed, police Officer Hugh Caulfield told AP Sunday. Joel wasn't given a Breathalyzer test, he said.

Last summer, Joel voluntarily checked into the Silver Hill substance abuse and psychiatric center at New Canaan, Connecticut, reportedly after becoming "very depressed" when a respiratory infection forced him to cut short a tour with Elton John.

Joel told People Magazine in July that he had begun "what I ultimately realized was a prolonged period of overindulgence. I don't want to get any more specific."

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely destroyed," Brinkley said in a statement issued by her publicist.

Brinkley and Joel, 53, were married for nine years and maintain an amicable relationship, friends tells Newsday. Alexa is in the custody of her mother, who is now married to architect Peter Cook.

"I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be," Brinkley's statement went on to say. "I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

Newsday could not immediately reach Joel for a comment on his ex-wife's actions.

At the time of Saturday night's accident, Joel, who reportedly sustained minor facial cuts, had to be taken by helicopter to the hospital, the New York Daily News reported. No charges were filed against the musician, police Officer Hugh Caulfield told the Associated Press. Joel wasn't given a Breathalyzer test, the officer added.

Last summer, Joel voluntarily checked into the Silver Hill substance abuse and psychiatric center at New Canaan, Connecticut, reportedly after becoming "very depressed" when a respiratory infection forced him to cut short a tour with Elton John.

Joel told People Magazine in July that he had begun "what I ultimately realized was a prolonged period of overindulgence. I don't want to get any more specific."

"She was away on business," said our spy in the lobby. "But everyone expects she'll be running off to take care of him."

The Grammy Award-winner, who's been wooing Maxwell since September, suffered facial cuts in the crash on a notorious stretch of road Sag Harborites call "Dead Man's Curve."

Joel, who battled booze last year in a Connecticut rehab, was not given a Breathalyzer at the scene. But the New York Post reports that blood was taken at the hospital and a source told the paper that the "Piano Man" wasn't drunk.

Joel, who complained about his love life to the New York Times shortly before meeting Maxwell, hasn't had much luck in the driving department either. Before Saturday night's crash, he had been in two other motor vehicle mishaps.

In 1982, Joel was involved in a serious accident when his motorcycle hit a car on Long Island. And six days before he checked into rehab last June, Joel crashed his car into a pole in Sag Harbor on his way to the Songwriters Hall of Fame dinner.

Leading us to wonder: How many more stationary objects must die?

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely destroyed," Brinkley said in a statement issued by her publicist.

"I’m worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child’s safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

Joel, an East Hampton resident, is believed to have been coming from an event in Sag Harbor Saturday when he crashed a blue 2002 Mercedes-Benz into a tree on Route 114 shortly after 10:30pm. He was taken by ambulance to East Hampton Airport, where he was airlifted by helicopter to Stony Brook.

He was released from the hospital early Sunday morning.

Joel could not immediately be reached for comment on his ex-wife's actions.

Saturday's accident marked the second time in less than a year the Long Island musical legend was involved in a one-car wreck.

Shortly before midnight on June 12th, 2002, Joel lost control of his 1999 Mercedes-Benz in Sag Harbor near the intersection of Hands Creek Road and Springy Banks Road.

He was not seriously injured in the mishap, but checked himself into a Connecticut substance abuse hospital shortly thereafter to be treated for what friends called a reliance on alcohol.

On Monday, Sag Harbor police reaffirmed their belief that Joel was sober after the latest incident.

"We did not have probable cause to arrest him for DWI," Detective Paul Fabiano said.

Brinkley, has custody of Alexa Ray with her husband, architect Peter Cook. But the teen regularly sees Joel, and Billy's relationship with Brinkley is amicable, friends say.

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely decimated," Brinkley said. "I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

Brinkley's publicist would not comment further.

Claire Mercuri, Joel's spokeswoman at Columbia Records, did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.

Brinkley was photographed Sunday taking her own pictures of the demolished car near the Sag Harbor firehouse.

Joel, who owns a home in East Hampton, swerved into the tree as he drove south along Route 114 in Sag Harbor Saturday about 10:30pm, Sag Harbor Village Police Chief Thomas Fabiano said.

No summonses were issued as a result of the crash, and Joel was not given a Breathalyzer test, which measures blood alcohol levels.

Joel, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, escaped serious injury in a similar crash in East Hampton last June.

He later checked into a New Canaan, Connecticut, substance abuse and psychiatric center, reportedly after becoming "very depressed" when a respiratory infection forced him to cut short a tour with fellow piano player Elton John.

Joel and Brinkley were married in 1985. The couple divorced in 1994. Alexa Ray is the couple's only child together.

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely destroyed," Brinkley said. "I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

On Saturday, Joel plowed into a tree near Sag Harbor at about 10:30pm, on the far east side of the Island, after losing control of his Mercedes-Benz. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter - whose car was so totaled, he had to be pulled from the vehicle by emergency crews - was sped to the local hospital and wound up being airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital to be treated for unspecified injuries.

Though the 53 year-old entertainer was released the following morning and is apparently fine, the crash is his second major accident in less than a year. Last June, while driving late at night, he lost control of another Mercedes-Benz in the same area and sustained minor injuries. That, coupled with his recent stint in the Silver Hill rehab clinic in Connecticut for what he later described as "a prolonged period of overindulgence," has got Brinkley steamed.

Joel could not immediately be reached for comment, but the Sag Harbor cops swear the rocker wasn't drunk at the time of the accident, which might appease his ex-wife a little bit. "We did not have probable cause to arrest him for DWI," Detective Paul Fabiano told New York's Newsday, although he admits Joel was not given a Breathalyzer test.

Brinkley, the inspiration for Joel's late-'80s hit "Uptown Girl," was married to the singer for nine years before they amicably divorced in 1994. She currently has custody of their daughter and is remarried (to architect Peter Cook) but reportedly remains close with Joel, who sees Alexa often. It remains to be seen if that will continue post-accident.

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely destroyed," Brinkley said in a statement issued by her publicist.

"I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

Joel, who lives in East Hampton, is believed to have been coming from Sag Harbor when he crashed his blue 2002 Mercedes-Benz into a tree on Route 114 shortly after 10:30pm. He was taken by ambulance to East Hampton Airport, where he was airlifted by helicopter to University Hospital at Stony Brook.

Joel was released from the hospital early Sunday morning and the cause of the crash remains unclear.

Joel could not be reached for comment on his ex-wife's actions.

Saturday's accident marked the second time in less than a year the Long Island music legend was involved in a one-car wreck.

Before midnight on June 12th, 2002, Joel lost control of his 1999 Mercedes-Benz in Sag Harbor near the intersection of Hands Creek Road and Springy Banks Road.

He was not seriously injured in the mishap, but checked into a New Canaan, Connecticut, substance abuse hospital shortly afterward to be treated for what friends deemed a "reliance" on alcohol.

At the time, friends said he admitted himself to Silver Hill Hospital "for the sake of his teenage daughter."

On Monday, Sag Harbor police reaffirmed their belief that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was not intoxicated at the time of the latest incident. "We did not have probable cause to arrest him for DWI," Det. Paul Fabiano said.

Brinkley has custody of Alexa Ray with her husband, architect Peter Cook. But the teen, an aspiring songwriter herself, regularly sees her father, and Joel's relationship with Brinkley is good-natured, friends say.

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before the latest crash was completely decimated," the supermodel said in a statement released by her spokeswoman.

"I'm worried about Billy, but, like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

The couple tied the knot in 1985, two years after Joel wrote his hit song "Uptown Girl" for her. The musician and the model split in 1994.

Joel's spokeswoman did not return repeated calls for comment on Brinkley's remarks.

On Sunday, the day after Joel's powerful Mercedes-Benz S600 swung out of control around 10:30pm and sideswiped a tree in Sag Harbor, Brinkley was out snapping photos of the crushed car.

There was some speculation that the worried mom took the photos so she could use them to ask a court to stop Joel from driving Alexa.

But Brinkley's spokeswoman yesterday declined comment about any legal action.

Joel was not given a Breathalyzer test at the scene after Saturday night's crash because cops "did not have probable cause" to administer one, Sag Harbor Police Chief Thomas Fabiano said yesterday.

Asked if it was routine for cops to ask someone involved in an accident if they had been drinking, the chief replied: "Sure."

When asked if his officers had done so, Fabiano said, "I'm not quite sure what they asked him."

He said he would contact the cops to get that information and then call The Post - but he didn't.

On Sunday, a source said Joel's blood was drawn at University Hospital at Stony Brook and a test showed he had not been drinking at the time of the crash - but the hospital, citing privacy regulations, has refused to say whether he was tested or not.

Joel escaped serious injury in a similar crash in East Hampton on June 12th, 2002, and a cop then was quoted as saying "there was no sign of alcohol."

Days later Joel checked into a New Canaan, Connecticut, substance-abuse and psychiatric center for a 10-day stay.

In an interview with The Post's Dan Aquilante in September, Joel said he went into rehab because "I was on a bender. I was drinking too much, and I said, 'This is stupid.'"

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely decimated," said Brinkley in a statement. "I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety after this frightening pattern of accidents."

Brinkley was spotted on Sunday taking photographs of Joel's mangled Mercedes-Benz, impounded at the Sag Harbor firehouse.

Brinkley's rep declined to say whether her client was hatching a lawsuit against her former spouse, with whom she's been friendly since their divorce.

But several sources claimed yesterday that on the night of his accident, Joel, who recently went through rehab, had been drinking wine at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor.

Joel's rep, Claire Mercuri, declined to comment on Brinkley's statement. But she insisted that he did not drink alcohol during his dinner with friends.

Joel, who was riding alone, was extricated from the wreck with a jaws of life device and had to be airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital, where he was treated and released the following morning.

A hospital spokesman declined to confirm press reports that a blood test performed hours after the accident showed Joel was not drunk.

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely decimated," Brinkley said in a statement issued yesterday. "I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I'm alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

Alexa lives with Brinkley, husband Peter Cook, and their children in Bridgehampton. The supermodel was spotted the day after the accident taking pictures of the wrecked car outside the Sag Harbor Firehouse.

Joel was driving alone on Saturday night when his blue 2002 Mercedes-Benz swerved off the road heading south on Route 114 and struck a tree. Neighbors heard the loud crash and ran out to the scene, calling for help.

Sag Harbor Fire Chief Matthew McAree, who arrived at the scene with about 50 firemen and heavy rescue equipment, said they found Joel lying on the front seat of his car. "He was awake, and although the door on his side was locked, he opened it for us," he said. "He had facial cuts and maybe a broken nose."

Very Bad Shape

But McAree said the passenger side of the car, which had hit the tree, was "in very bad shape." He said the rear door on the passenger side was ripped open, and the front seat side was "totally destroyed."

McAree said the firemen removed Joel from the front seat and got him on a stretcher to the Sag Harbor ambulance. "All I can say is that he's a very lucky man to survive this hard crash," said McAree. "I'd say because his car was new that the air bags and other safety equipment helped to save his life."

He said there were skid marks on the road, and the car was totaled, with the windshield cracked and the sides smashed in. The ambulance rushed Joel to East Hampton Airport where he was transported by Suffolk County Police medevac helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital, the usual destination for people who might have suffered head trauma. The car was impounded for further investigation.

McAree said this 15-20 minute flight was necessary because "with an impact like that, and with facial injuries, they need to check out any possible internal injuries."

Magnet For Accidents

Sag Harbor Detective Paul Fabiano said his department, which handled the accident, "did not do a breathalyzer test at the scene because we didn't think it was necessary. There was no indication of alcohol or drugs. He was not charged in the accident." He emphasized that the tree which Joel hit, across from Walker Avenue on Route 114, is the scene of many accidents.

"This curve and this tree must be a magnet for accidents," Fabiano explained. "A lot of accidents have occurred there."
For this reason, neighbors have nicknamed the area "Dead Man's Curve," and have hung a sign there reading, "Trail's End."
Joel crashed another car in the northwest woods of East Hampton last June. But following pleas from his daughter Alexa, and following a self-proclaimed depression, he checked into Silver Hill, a substance-abuse rehabilitation facility in Connecticut, shortly afterward. He was released about 10 days later.

Dan Rosett, a spokesman at Stony Brook University Hospital, said Joel was checked in on Saturday night around midnight and was discharged in "stable condition" on Sunday around 7:30am. He would not say whether Joel had taken a blood test or what the extent of his injuries were.

An employee of the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, who declined to be identified, confirmed that Joel had eaten dinner there earlier on Saturday night. Tom Allnoch, a manager there, said he felt badly upon hearing of the accident. "We're all big fans of Billy, and we wish him a speedy recovery," he said on Sunday.

At the time of the accident, Joel was heading toward East Hampton where he has a home, in addition to a home on Centre Island near Huntington. He also has a boat business on Shelter Island, and is renovating a commercial building on Bay Street in Sag Harbor that he bought last year.

"I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents," Brinkley said in a prepared statement.

Joel is believed to have been coming from Sag Harbor when he crashed his car into a tree. It was his second car wreck in less than a year.

Brinkley has custody of Alexa Ray with her husband, Peter Cook, but the teenager regularly visits her father.

"I'm sure his other dinner companions were drinking but he was not," Joel’s representative, Claire Mercuri, said emphatically. "He abstained."

Stepanian did not return calls. Beegan refused to comment, as did the hotel bartender on duty that night.

Joel, who had another car accident seven months ago and recently went through rehab, had to be extricated from the wreck with the jaws of life. He was not given a Breathalyzer test on the scene because the cops did not have probable cause.

Reports yesterday said Joel's blood was drawn at University Hospital at Stony Brook where he was admitted after the crash and it tested negative for alcohol, but the hospital refused to confirm it.

A week before the wreck, Joel underwent sinus surgery for a deviated septum, and may have been taking pain-killers.

"I don't know," Mercuri says. "My guess is that he was, but I haven't been able to reach him to confirm it."

Joel's ex-wife Christie Brinkley released a statement Tuesday blasting Joel over concern for their daughter Alexa, who was sitting in the decimated passenger seat of Joel's car only hours before the crash.

"I'm worried about Billy, but, like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents," Brinkley, who photographed the wreck the next day, said in her statement.

Mercuri said Joel had "no comment" on Brinkley's statement.

"They said he didn't recall," said Fabiano. "He didn't recall being in the accident." The chief declined to say whether his department was contemplating a DUI investigation.

Claire Mercuri, a spokesman for Joel, who had dinner earlier that evening with former girlfriend Carolyn Beegan and another woman, denied an iHamptons.com report that his friends asked him not to drive.

Mercuri said that Joel did not have alcohol at dinner. She said a hospital blood test established he had not been drinking.

"The seat Alexa was sitting in only hours before this latest crash was completely destroyed," said Brinkley in the statement. "I'm worried about Billy, but like any mother would be, I am alarmed and concerned about my child's safety by this frightening pattern of accidents."

Joel was admitted to the hospital after last weekend's crash and has since been released.

There have been no charges brought against him.

"I knew it. I've heard that sound before," said Barrett, an upholsterer who was the first to notify police of last Saturday's accident involving musical legend Billy Joel. "The way I heard the car hit the tree, he had to be speeding."

According to Barrett, the dipping S-Turn is not incredibly drastic, but it poses a particular danger when traveling at high speeds - a commonplace occurrence on that strip of Route 114 where the speed limit is 40 miles per hour.

The frequency of accidents occurring because of the bend has prompted Barrett to call the New York State Department of Transportation at least once a year to complain, he said.

Barrett, who has lived on the property for nine years, has witnessed numerous accidents, and said that on the average two or three vehicles plow into that specific oak tree every year. Barrett said that people have been killed hitting the tree - although that was not confirmed by police - and, ironically, perhaps, a sign hangs from the tree reading "Trail's End."

"It's not a hard turn, but it turns and drops," said Barrett. "I think it needs to be graded down."

At one time, said Barrett, his yard was separated from the road with a concrete wall. But he said the wall became too dangerous for drivers. There is a yellow sign warning drivers of the turn, "but it's after the turn that's the problem," said Barrett.

Sag Harbor Police Chief Tom Fabiano concurred with the dangers of the turn, saying that numerous drivers have lost control of their vehicles while rounding the bend and plowed into the tree, which currently sports a one foot scar.

"That accident could have happened to anyone driving at 40 or 50 miles per hour, if you're speeding," said Barrett. "I know the road. Now that it happened to him, maybe they'll do something about it."