Dead Horse Bay

Yes, this is Brooklyn.

Dead Horse Bay, just west of Floyd Bennett Field, was at one point a marshland that the city of New York found to be an opportune area for a garbage dump. Some time in the 30s, this usage ceased, and the landfill was covered over with sand from Jamaica Bay; it was left alone this way for decades, in order to allow a natural beach to form.

But instead, the landfill rejected her cache - spitting relics of another time back into the ocean. And in return, the ocean bandied them about, and tossed them back to shore. This is where we wandered, over the weekend; a virgin beach marred only by the mementos of a foregone age.


A number of tires have washed up on a corner of the beach still littered with porcelain and glass.


Shoe leather wades in the currents.


A large rusty nail, still anchored into wood, provides a glimpse of a disparate shipwreck, one piece of which found the Bay.


It's not all a story of regurgitated relics. Here, the landfill beach seems almost normal; a tree has grown its roots into the dirt of ages.


A ship's prow sticks out boldly into the horizon, not minding the fact that it was forgotten a long, long time ago.


The landfill beach regurgitated these ribbons, which found their way back to the beach, to be caught up in the roots of a stalwart sapling.


The remnants found on this beach include everything, including the kitchen sink. Here, one of the spigots is still attached.


An old bottle dances in the sun and the current of the ocean.


One of several derelict boats finds itself half-buried in the sand.


That same boat takes on an ominous character under the skies which threaten storms.