With a line-up almost too good to be true, Underwater New York presented a reading at Bryant Park's Word for Word series on June 30th, 2010.  

Readers included Jennifer Egan, Said Sayrafiezadeh, Ed Park, Deb Olin Unferth and Nelly Reifler. If that wasn't enough, Ben Greenman presented a letter-writing activity to the audience and Michael Hearst played some songs for underwater animals. Ed Park cracked a joke about Bryant Park being named after his grandfather and Michael's thermin drew curious stares from across the park. The event was absolutely amazing, and luckily  Stacey Szewczyk, a journalist and multimedia producer and the mind behind Hudson River Stories, an excellent blog “dedicated to the stories that flow from the Hudson River and the New Yorkers who draw sustenance and inspiration from it,” was there to film it. 

Underwater New York launched on October 7th, 2009 aboard a once sunken ship, now docked in the Hudson River: The Lightship Frying Pan.   We took over the rusty, barnacled boat with an evening of performances of original work created for the project, including a reading by Ben Greenman, sketch comedy by Alex Scordelis  and Chris Schell of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, art by  Mary Mattingly and Nura Qureshi, musical performances by Supergood! and  Lawrence Kim & His Boss, and Michael Hearst Underwater: a Songs for (Underwater) Ice Cream Trucks installation. Nautical music was spun by DJ Dan Selzer, who also made an underwater audio montage of authors reading excerpts from fiction written for the project, which leaked from a hidden speaker into one of The Frying Pan’s creaky cabins. 

Photo by Adrian Kinloch

Listen to the audio montage here: 

Lawrence Kim and His Boss perform an original song written for Underwater New York. Editor Helen Georgas describes the objects - 1600 bars of silver, and Coney Island Dreamland, that inspired this song.

Ben Greenman reads his story, "Wet Work," which was inspired by the object "bodies," and is set on a party lightship much like the Lightship Frying Pan, site of the UNY launch.

Supergood! performs "Booty of the Deep," an original song written for Underwater New York.