New York monument honors victims of giant octopus attack that never o...

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New York monument honors victims of giant

octopus attack that never occurred
Cast-bronze sculpture by Joseph Reginella, who made up the story of a Staten Island ferry
disaster, directs people to a fake museum nearby

A cast-bronze faux monument by the artist Joseph Reginella, dedicated to the memory of the victims of the steam ferry
Cornelius G Kol , is shown in the Staten Island borough of New York. Photograph: Ula Ilnytzky/AP

Associated Press in New York

Saturday 1 October 2016 16.07BST

A cast-bronze monument for the victims of the sinking of a steam ferry recently appeared in
Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, near other somber memorials to soldiers,
sailors and mariners lost at sea or on the battle eld.
There was, however, no such ferry disaster. The artist behind the memorial, Joseph
Reginella, made the whole thing up.
The 250lb monument, which depicts a Staten Island ferry, the Cornelius G Kol,, being
dragged under the waves by a giant octopus, is part of a multi-layered hoax that includes a
sophisticated website, a documentary, fabricated newspaper articles and glossy .iers
directing tourists to a phantom Staten Island Ferry Disaster Memorial Museum, across the
harbor.

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The project took six months to build. Reginella said the idea came to him while he was
taking his 11-year-old nephew from Florida on the ferry between Manhattan and Staten
Island.
He was asking me all kinds of crazy questions, like if the waters were shark-infested, he
said. I said No, but you know what did happen in the 60s? One of these boats got pulled
down by a giant octopus.
The story just rolled o, the top of my head, he said, and it evolved to become a
multimedia art project and social experience not maliciously about how gullible people
are.
Reginella, who usually creates artworks for store windows and amusement parks, said his
ferry monument never stayed in one spot for more than two days because the city will
come and take it away. It takes two people to break the piece down and move it.
Its de nitely an experience when you see people who dont know about it, Reginella said.
They get this strange look on their face, they stare out at the water and walk away. I sit
close by with a shing pole and sh. I eavesdrop on the conversations.
Sometimes, he said, when he overhears people saying, How come nobody has ever heard
of this? hell interject, o,ering that the disaster happened on 22 November 1963, a day
when the news was dominated by the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
It creates a plausibility for them, he said, and they shake their head, Maybe.
Puzzled tourists looking for the memorial museum on Staten Island and its supposed
collection of wreckage with strange suction-cup-shaped marks sometimes wander into
the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, asking for directions. Sta, at the nearby Staten Island
Museum admit they too were puzzled at rst.
We kind of scratched our heads and said we dont know where it is and started looking
further into it, and realized it was a hoax, said a spokeswoman, Rachel Somma.
Most people have the feeling that its not a reality. Its a treasure hunt for them. Its fun.
Thats what we love about it ... Its great that it gets people out here.
Melanie Giuliano, who produced a mock documentary for Reginellas website, used her
father in the role of a maritime expert and a neighbor as an eyewitness. A colleague of
Reginellas wife served as the narrator.
I thought it was an insane idea but I thought it was hilarious, said Giuliano.
One thing about the preposterous story is real. There really was a Cornelius G Kol, ferry,
which carried passengers for 36 years before becoming a .oating dorm for inmates at the
Rikers Island prison. It was sold for scrap in 2003.
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