Dead Horse Bay

No one will tell you how to get there. Google it and you'll find blogs and articles mentioning it, but hardly any directions. It shows up on a map, but no roads will take you there. Only accessible at low tide, Dead Horse Bay is the body of water separating the crest of southern Brooklyn from the lovely beaches of Breezy Point in Far Rockaway. Once the dumping ground of New York City, the Bay area housed horse rendering plants, fish oil factories and landfills from the mid-1800's to the 1930's. Almost a century since it's abandon, the shores of Dead Horse Bay are marshy and overgrown. But the salty water still churns up relics from the past, leaving the narrow beach littered with glass and other artifacts. Old bottles, shoes, and pieces of 20th century table settings still remain, washed up on the sand. An ancient puddle of tar, heated by the sun, releases a suffocating odor. All is quiet except for the delicate 'wind chime' sound of bits of glass clinking together as the waves drop them on the shore. I spent the entire low tide in the hot July sun with my nose to the ground, picking up antique bottles, reading their embossed labels and speculating on all of the stories spread around me. I brought a few bottles home and gave them an overnight soak in bleach. My favorites are below- I love the one that looks like a little 'Empire State Building." The others I was able to identify via vintage ads.