Silent Beaches, Untold Stories

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 often 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 City's still-active potter's field, where over 800,000 of New York City's unclaimed dead have been laid to rest; Sandy Ground, one of the earliest free black communities in the nation, made prosperous through oystering and strawberry farming. Elizabeth Albert has written historical texts on each location, and Underwater New York has selected ten new works of fiction, setting the stage where history, fiction, and image 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.