Music venue is of course not something that comes to mind when thinking about sewer infrastructure, but as a New York Times story recounts, that is exactly what New York City’s Combined Sewer Outfall #BB 029 served as recently for an audience of about 50.

People gathered on the shores of the East River where it meets the sewer outfall while musicians aboard a barge and canoe played, taking advantage of the unique acoustics produced by the sewer tunnel. It was the final evening of Drain Bramage, a four-night concert organized by co-founders of the Tideland Institute, which has a goal of reimagining how waterways might be used and encouraging New Yorkers to treat their surroundings as a maritime city. 

“The water in New York has just kind of become a backdrop to the city,” Danielle Isadora Butler, one of the Tideland Institute co-founders, told the New York Times. “When actually, it is the why, and the how, of how the city was made — and how the city still functions.”

Source: New York Times