Underwater New York Essay

Rules for Underwater New York contest:

Underwater New York is looking for stories inspired by our list of found objects. These are objects discovered by divers or chanced upon by everyday New Yorkers. They are objects with documented histories and objects unexplained. We are not looking for explanations, but rather for the stories these objects evoke, in whatever form such stories might take.


“What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.”

-Joseph Cambell

We enter from light to dark, falling deep into its murky depths rather quickly. We know, as we enter, that the ride is only temporary, and that we will almost indefinitely emerge on the other side in the same condition that we have entered. The shadows eventually subside, and light breaks through the dark, and no matter whether the trip was terrifying or terrific, we are transported safely back into the light. Each experience, is different, yet the same. We come to understand the process; we come to expect certain aspects of the journey— in one side, out the other— a beginning and an end. Sometimes, we remember the details, and sometimes we’re oblivious to the specifics of the adventure. Hell Gate, offered what Dreamland quintessentially stood for in its final hours. An escape from reality; a voyage into the depths of hell, that is, technically, a perfect doppelganger of the process of dreaming. A soon-to-be disillusioned component of an overall magical structure; Hell Gate turned into a literal nightmare, one that ended the beauty of Dreamland just as its full potential was set to wake in just a few short hours.

It was fitting, really, that the fire started at Hell Gate. Dreamland, a name that implies such a saccharin connotation, within a few short hours, just fell into the sea. It was a dangerous year for dreams and the sea; as less than eleven months later, the Titanic, proudly prophesized as the “Ship of Dreams,” also met its demise at the deepest depths of the Atlantic. Like our body houses our mind, which facilitates a structure for the ability to dream, so did these ground-breaking structures; housing achievements of grandeur which turned the mundane into the fantastical—the wheel of progress in motion. Like our dreams, which, more often than not, are a pleasant escape, these early 18th century innovations offered the same escape to their inhabitants. They showcased their wildest imaginations, their most vivid imaginable realities— if only for a moment. But much like our transition from sleep to wake, the fantastical is fleeting, and reality always startles you, even from the sweetest slumber. The light at the end of the tunnel sometimes seems to be lit much less brightly by the time we finally wake.

Now, Dreamland is a lingering ghost, haunting the New York border of the Atlantic, like a maiden waiting for a lover lost at sea. Dreamland’s skeleton of 18th century avant-garde, like most illustrious grandeurs of time past, is the stark reminder of imminent reality of dreams—the luster doesn’t last. Almost a century later, we still grasp at these “dreams” of the human condition. No matter how many times failure comes to pass. We believe, and find hope, in not only things tactile, but also things imagined. Decade after decade, more dreams are tried and tested, and while some foster success and revolution, others mark irrefutable failure, like Dreamland. It begs the question, why is it that our dreams, mere fleeting thoughts that play out during our most silent hours, make up the drive for success of the human experience?

We base our ideals as a country on the idea of an elusive dream. This, “American Dream,” still chased each day, whole-heartedly, by millions of people. And no matter what the cost of that dream, we see, time after time those hopes, especially those of grandeur, seem consistently fatally flawed. Whoever controls the capturing of dreams has no bias towards where they take them from. Both places and persons alike have met their demise at the hands of their search for something better. Relics are lost, lives are lost, and like Dreamland, these dreams seem to disappear into the sea. Into the confines of time and space, sometimes resurfacing, sometimes lost to the depths forever, but always lingering in unseen places, deep in a consciousness that may, or may not ever be reached again.

As humans, maybe all of our dreams are lost in the sea. It makes perfect sense from both a literal and a figurative perspective. Sometimes, we cast a line, we pull out a fish. Sometimes, we cast a line, we pull out the weeds. But with more persistence, and as more of these cobwebs of the sea are fished out, it tends to lend room to find more fish. The grander ones, the ones hiding in those murky depths, the ones we never dreamed we’d see. We live for those. For those big fish, for that snag on the line. For that adrenaline that pumps through cold and tired veins. That little bit of strength that keeps us believing that we will finally see our reward, to find the process had been worth it. It seems to prove true; however, that our dreams can only be as large as the fish we can carry. Our burden to create our own dream has to be a load that we are willing, and able to bare. If we try to reach the unobtainable, chances are, we will end up in the belly of the whale; not with the whale on our line.

Or maybe it’s not that at all, maybe it is that spark that disregard for fear and safety, which bring even our most implausible hopes to reality. Whatever it is that sparks our need to dream, it assures that we will keep building. We will keep dreaming. We will keep fishing. And every once in a while, instead of pulling out a fish, or, a weed, we will discover a piece of the past— a relic of someone else’s dream, and we will continue their same search in the hopes that we can find our own unique experience, our very own Dreamland. An uncommon denominator that will differentiate us from the rest of dreamers. We will create our own proverbial sea; one that, undoubtedly, if only for during the darkest hours of night, will lull us to sleep, and facilitate our ability to dream.