Weird Treasures Line The Bottom Of NYC's Murky Waterways

NEW YORK — Consider the giraffe whose corpse was reportedly found off the Brooklyn waterfront. Or the piano at the bottom of The Bronx River. Or the silver baby's rattle that washed up further south on Dead Horse Bay.

How did these things sink below the surface of New York City's murky waterways — and what accompanies them there?

Those questions are at the heart of Underwater New York, a sort of living journal that chronicles the funny, poignant and downright strange menagerie of things found on and below the city's shoreline.

Since its start in 2009, the publication's four editors have curated an online archive of underwater finds that now includes at least 200 items. The list has inspired numerous pieces of writing, music and visual art that aim to tell the objects' unknown stories, according to Nicole Haroutunian, one of the editors.

"There’s this idea of just going about our lives in New York City and we’re surrounded by kind of an unseen, underwater world, like the flip side to what we’re experiencing," Haroutunian said. "There’s a whole kind of life, a whole city surrounding us that we don’t necessarily see every day, and I think that’s inspiring to people."

Inspired by a 2009 New York Magazine article, Underwater New York maintains an admittedly unscientific archive that draws on reports from journalists, divers and fellow artists, along with institutions such as the Cultural Research Divers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The latter has been credited with finding the aforementioned giraffe, which was either headed for a zoo or fleeing a circus, depending whom you ask.

While the Army Corps of Engineers isn't explictly tasked with exploring the city's waterways, some of its missions do take personnel to the depths where such oddities can be found.

"Missions that would take us to the bottom of any waterway in the New York District are dredging operations, to keep the New York Harbor and other waterways deep enough for commercial and recreational traffic," Michael Embrich, a spokesperson for the agency's New York district, said in an email. "We also do sand placement operations that require pumping sand onto beaches to provide coastal storm risk reduction for local communities."

Underwater New York has also led explorations of the shorelines that have yielded some fascinating finds, Haroutunian said. She said some of the archive's "most iconic" pieces came from Brooklyn's Dead Horse Bay, named for the animals once processed at a nearby glue factory.

That was the home of the "Kangamouse," a strange pink toy resembling a cross between a kangaroo and a mouse with a missing ear. There was also a lizard skin pocketbook, a ragged smoking pipe and a ceramic figurine of a baby holding a sitar.

Underwater New York is built on the idea of "imagining into these objects what the story of how they got into the water is," Haroutunian said. "There’s also what life they could have once they’re in the water. It’s sort of the before and after."

As inspiring as the objects are, Haroutunian said, the Underwater New York crew often struggles with how bad they are for the environment. Moreover, climate change and extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy mean the water is "encroaching on space that used to belong to it," she said.

But the finds have nonetheless moved people from around the country and the world to submit work to Underwater New York, including some who are not regular artists, Haroutunian said.

Underwater New York publishes bi-annual issues comprising works inspired by the objects, and also sponsors an artistic residency on Governors Island in partnership with Works On Water. Poems frequently show up in the submissions, Haroutunian said, and there have also been photographs, personal essays and performances.

"The way that people approach this underwater archive to create work and send it to us, it’s just constantly surprising," Haroutunian said.

Here are some of the odd and awe-inspiring objects found in New York City's waterways over the years, according to the Underwater New York archive.

• A birdcage, found in the Gowanus Canal.
• A Formica dinette, reportedly sitting upright in the East River.
• A flying saucer, near Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens.
• A "half-decayed radio" at Coney Island Creek.
• A submarine, also in Coney Island Creek.
• A pan flute from Dead Horse Bay.
• A Battleship toy at Dead Horse Bay.
• The eyeless face of a baby doll, also in Dead Horse Bay.
• Tampon applicators at New Dorp Beach, where they are reportedly known as "beach whistles."
• A plastic yellow bear found at Dead Horse Bay.
• A scooter on the bank of Newtown Creek.
• A mermaid without its tail at Dead Horse Bay.
• An Ellis Island ferry in New York Harbor. It spent 40 years underwater before workers started to remove it in 2009, according to the National Park Service.

This story has been updated to note that Underwater New York's Governors Island residency is a partnership with Works On Water.