Underwater New York

Dead Horse Bay: Land of the Misfit Toys. And Horse Bones.

On a sunny and unseasonably warm Sunday in November, your intrepid UNY crew (Nicki, Helen, Nicole and Adrian) ventured out to the beaches of Dead Horse Bay in search of evocative objects to add to our list. We certainly were not disappointed.

Dead Horse Bay is named for the bones that still wash up there, remnants from the more than two dozen horse rendering plants on what was once Barren Island. From the 1850s through the 1920s, when horses were the cars clogging the streets of New York, their carcasses were used to manufacture glue and fertilizer, and the boiled bones were dumped in the bay. (Making horse bones the turn-of-the-century equivalent to stripped cars.) The glue factories were worked by mostly Polish, Italian and Irish immigrants, who lived on Barren Island without a public water or sewage system, connected to the rest of Brooklyn only by the putrid fumes of their work, which hung over the bay and gave nearby neighborhoods plenty to complain about.  In 1926, the waters surrounding Barren Island were filled in with sand, coal and garbage to make Floyd Bennett Field, and in the 1950s, the cap on a twenty year old garbage dump burst, littering the sand with eras of waste.

Luckily, we’re into that kind of thing.

Here’s a sampling of some of the objects we found at Dead Horse Bay:

A PLASTIC CLOWN. We were delighted, and more than a bit freaked out, to be greeted by this guy as soon as we stepped onto the beach. The text on his box says “Clara Bell”—the new “Rosebud”?

BABY DOLL HEADS. If you are the type to squeeze real, live babies’ chubby cheeks, these pre-squeezed plastic baby doll heads are probably your worst nightmare.

DENTURES and TOOTHBRUSHES. One half of a set of the former, scores of the latter. Whose mouths have they seen?

PRODUCE. Specifically, a tangerine, a plantain, a sun-bleached jalapeño pepper, and a plastic bunch of grapes. We haven’t had any recipe submissions yet, but hey—maybe you could make something tasty.

KANGAMOUSE. This toy appears to be a kangaroo-mouse hybrid. Although he is missing an ear, his little light bulb heart is still intact.

A SINGLE RED ROSE, AND A BOUQUET OF CARNATIONS. The flowers were so fresh that they couldn’t have been in the water for more than a day. Is it possible to tell their story while avoiding cliché and sentimentality? Try it—we dare you.

Want to see what else we found?

You can see a full gallery of Adrian’s stellar photographs here. And if spending a day sifting through old perfume bottles, leather shoe soles and horse bones sounds good to you, keep an eye out for an UNY-organized excursion to Dead Horse Bay in 2010. Make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter so you don’t miss out.

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Tags: Adrian Kinloch, Baby doll heads, Clara Bell clown, Dead Horse Bay, Dentures, excursions, Helen Georgas, horse bones, Kangamouse, Nicki Pombier Berger, Nicole Haroutunian, Produce, Rose and carnations, Toothbrushes