All Issues — Underwater New York

Down For the Day

The photographs in Down For the Day (2016-present) are made along a fifteen block stretch of Rockaway Beach, Queens. Less than a mile long, this section of beach is among the most utilized in New York City, hosting shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on summer weekends. The project title, Down For the Day, is the local description of day-trippers, frequently called DFDs. This term of derision, often meant to distance visitors from locals, is used here to describe the tangled bodies, cramped encampments, and flimsy tropical umbrellas as attempts at finding not only respite from the city heat, but perhaps a momentary paradise, imperfect but one’s own.

Issue 16: Governors Island Un-EarthedSusannah RayApril 3, 2020Issue 16, Art, Atlantic Ocean, Photography

Down for the Day & A Further Shore

This selection of photographs is drawn from two distinct bodies of work, “Down For the Day” and “A Further Shore.” Both series are part of larger cycle of projects that look at New York City’s intricate and complicated relationship with its waters: the beaches, bays, and rivers where its diverse citizenry comes in contact with nature and each other. While “Down For the Day” and “A Further Shore” frequently depict people engaging in leisure activities, those who labor on the water are also present, enabling the quest for respite, for a momentary paradise along our urban shorelines and waterways.

Issue 15: Labor IssueSusannah RayNovember 10, 2019Jamaica Bay, Pelham Bay, The Rockaways, Art

Underwater New York is a platform for writing, art, and music inspired by the waterways of New York City.