Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City's Forgotten Waterfront
Edited with text by Elizabeth Albert. Text by Bill Cheng, Susan Choi, Elizabeth Gaffney, Nelly Reifler, et al.
Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City’s Forgotten Waterfront transports the reader into the extraordinary past and present embedded in New York City’s more than 600 miles of coastline through a stunning selection of rare photographs, history, new fiction and contemporary art.
Each of the ten chapters centers on one of New York City’s lesser-known waterfront spaces: Dead Horse Bay, where the pre-automobile city’s legions of horses once met their maker; Hart Island, New York’s still-active potter’s field, where over 800,000 of the city’s unclaimed dead have been laid to rest; and Sandy Ground, one of the earliest free black communities in the nation, made prosperous through oystering and strawberry farming.
Elizabeth Albert's historical texts and striking images resonate with Underwater New York's selected new fiction and poetry, setting a stage where history, image and fiction coalesce into a powerful and haunting experience. Silent Beaches features the work of internationally known and notable contemporary artists and writers, including Joel Meyerowitz, Mary Mattingly, Carrie Mae Weems, Spencer Finch, Susan Choi, Nelly Reifler, Ravi Howard, Antoine Wilson and others.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City's Forgotten Waterfront.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Jennifer Egan
Silent Beaches, Untold Stories is a lush, inspired reminder that New York’s waterways were once its lifeblood. Dense with fanciful discoveries and hidden treasures, it evokes—and echoes—the richness of the New York waterfront itself.
Author of The New York Waterfront
Kevin Bone
A truly beautiful work. At a time when progress on the waterfront is measured in miles of promenades and acres of vertical developments, Silent Beaches reminds us that even the most robust products of human labor are no match for the agencies of time and the eternal cycles of nature.
Author of Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City
Eric Sanderson
... a fascinating and poignant combination of art, poetry, photography, essays, historic drawings, and short stories about New York City on the margins. In the early 21st century city we are so focused on growth, and the consequences of that growth, for better or worse, that we forget how the city also leaves places and people behind. Sandy Ground, Hart Island, Gowanus Creek, Dead Horse Bay, and other off-the-beaten track locales, remind us that abandonment, decay, isolation, and death, are also part of our experience on this particular verge between land and sea. [Silent Beaches] give[s] voice to the bright dreams and restless forces that transform.
Vol.1 Brooklyn
A book that offers great prose along with impressive visuals.
Artnet
Eileen Kinsella
With an engrossing mix of art, photography, and writing, Silent Beaches tells the stories and histories of the lesser-known and forgotten stretches of the New York area’s more than 600 miles of coastline.
The New York Times
Sam Roberts
a stunning guide to 10 offbeat and pristine sites that have so far been spared the incursion of high-rise condominiums or private swim clubs.
Joel Meyerowitz's 2006 photograph of North Brother Island, NYC, is reproduced from Silent Beaches, Untold Stories, launching tonight at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. Located in the East River between Rikers Island and the Port Morris section of the Bronx, the island was once "either a refuge or a hell for those suffering from various afflictions," according to author/editor Elizabeth Albert. Its most infamous resident was Typhoid Mary. More than 600 bodies washed up there following the 1904 sinking of the General R. Slocum steamship. It later housed post-GI Bill college students and teenage drug addicts in rehab. Abandoned since 1963, it is currently "a sanctuary for birds, including black crowned night herons, great and snowy egrets, and glossy ibis, all making their homes amongst the ruins." continue to blog
Marie Lorenz's 2005 photograph, "Coney Island Creek" from the Tide and Current Taxi project, is reproduced from Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City's Forgotten Waterfront, launching tomorrow at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn. Once known as Gravesend Creek, author and editor Elizabeth Albert writes, Coney Island Creek is home to "an assortment of ghost ships, rotting piers, and a small stranded submarine. One comes across this strange and haunting sight by walking through a thicket at the southern edge of the little-used Calvert Vaux Park. It was reported that Vaux, the celebrated co-designer of Central Park, became depressed late in life from lack of appreciation of his work. On a foggy evening in November 1895, he visited his son, who lived in the area, went for a walk along Coney Island Creek, and was later found floating in the water. It is unknown whether he took his own life or, disoriented in the fog, lost his balance. Coney Island Creek is the only remaining creek in the vicinity that was not filled in as Brooklyn developed." continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 128 pgs / 60 color / 20 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $39.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $53.95 ISBN: 9788862085007 PUBLISHER: Damiani AVAILABLE: 9/27/2016 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City's Forgotten Waterfront
Published by Damiani. Edited with text by Elizabeth Albert. Text by Bill Cheng, Susan Choi, Elizabeth Gaffney, Nelly Reifler, et al.
Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City’s Forgotten Waterfront transports the reader into the extraordinary past and present embedded in New York City’s more than 600 miles of coastline through a stunning selection of rare photographs, history, new fiction and contemporary art.
Each of the ten chapters centers on one of New York City’s lesser-known waterfront spaces: Dead Horse Bay, where the pre-automobile city’s legions of horses once met their maker; Hart Island, New York’s still-active potter’s field, where over 800,000 of the city’s unclaimed dead have been laid to rest; and Sandy Ground, one of the earliest free black communities in the nation, made prosperous through oystering and strawberry farming.
Elizabeth Albert's historical texts and striking images resonate with Underwater New York's selected new fiction and poetry, setting a stage where history, image and fiction coalesce into a powerful and haunting experience. Silent Beaches features the work of internationally known and notable contemporary artists and writers, including Joel Meyerowitz, Mary Mattingly, Carrie Mae Weems, Spencer Finch, Susan Choi, Nelly Reifler, Ravi Howard, Antoine Wilson and others.
