#phony ferry disaster

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This is so crazy:  Monuments & plaques are common around cities and tourist areas, giving insight into historic events or landmarks. The Staten Island Ferry Disaster Memorial blends in with these monuments, except that it’s completely phony. (Look, someone even left flowers.)

The monument, in Battery Park, Manhattan, was created by artist Joe Reginella and honors the “400 victims who perished during a giant octopus attack of a Staten Island ferry named the Cornelius G. Kolff on November 22, 1963.” (The same day that Pres. Kennedy was assassinated, so this disaster went almost completely unnoticed.)

The elaborate hoax was 6 months in the making, and is also seen by Reginella as a multimedia art project and social experiment.

The website, and fliers distributed around Manhattan by his team, gave a false location for a museum, ironically a place you must get to by ferry.

The story: It was close to 4am on the quiet morning of November 22, 1963 when the Ferry vanished without a trace w/nearly 400 passengers on their way to work. Eye witness accounts describe “large tentacles” which “pulled” the ferry beneath the surface only a short distance from its destination at Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan.

Nobody on board survived and only small pieces of wreckage have been found…strangely with large “suction cup-shaped” marks on them. The only logical conclusion scientists and officials could point to was that the boat had been attacked by a massive octopus, roughly half the size of the ship.

Phony newspaper story.

This man was so overcome with emotion, he’s crying.

The Monument is currently on display at Hypno-tronic Comics located at 156 Stuyvesant Place in Staten Island, NY every day through New Year's Day. Just a 2 minute walk from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

https://nycurbanlegends.com/octopus-disaster