This past weekend was the beginning New Island Festival, a giant celebration of Dutch art and performances that will run through Sunday, part of the city’s observance of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam. As we wandered, open-mouthed, through the festival, we saw sights we can’t fully describe here–suffice it to say, there were accordions, beheaded dolls, wind-up stuffed bears, a dirt-covered fat man, a woman decked out in a spangled Elizabethan-era collar singing Britney Spears covers, and a flying piano.

My favorite part of the day though, hands down, was the Archaeological Dig taking place just beyond the bright noise of the festival. Cordoned off by traffic-cone orange ropes, the Dig snares visitors with placards along a path detailing the history of Goverthing, the island’s only civilian settlement, evacuated for safety reasons in 1954 and subsequently paved over by the government. By the time I reached the ticket window, my curiosity was piqued, and I was all too happy to pay the required $5 to find out what a team of Belgian archaeologists had been working to uncover about this secret buried town. Hell, I even put on the hard hat and orange mesh vest they require you to wear.

The Dig begins with a temporary museum, full of facts about the island’s history, starting with the Dutch exploration hundreds of years ago and soon segueing to newspaper articles chronicling the evacuation of Goverthing, the town of 25 residents permitted to live on the island as long as they complied with the strict military regulations. Glass cases house dusty artifacts culled from the town–a woman’s tarnished hairbrush, a child’s toy, a rusty spoon. Typewritten signs elaborate on the history of the found objects, handily slipping in more and more intimate details about the town’s residents and their daily lives. We learn about the infamous “Plague of Birds,” during which hundreds of birds came to roost on the Island, terrorizing residents with their screeches and their shit. We learn about the only industry in town–a factory that produced snowglobes that were exported to the mainland and commemorated life on the island. Under the glass, we see the factory owner’s children frozen in smudged, freakish globes of dirty water. We learn about the Island’s gas station attendant, a Navy man who fell in love with a dramatically beautiful songbird who ran away with the snowglobe factory truck driver. Yellowed photos, faded record sleeves, and shit-encrusted bird houses tell a weird and wonderful tale of a bygone era, one in which the visitors desperately want to believe.

The “excavation site” itself is housed in a large field where the tops of streetlamps and buildings jut out of the grass. There is a “working” water tower, a church steeple outfitted with a carillon, and a replica of a 1950s gas station, complete with a jukebox and rusting car carcasses blooming out of the ground. The snowglobe factory is represented as well, with a statue of the founder (proudly displaying a snowglobe, of course) and a smokestack, still eerily choking out gray puffs of smoke. The entire tableau is impressive in its scope, spreading out like a real-life Tim Burton movie. “Archaeologists” staff the site, wearing hard hats and blue vests, and cheerfully answering puzzled visitor queries like “Why would the military cover the town?” and “What are you hoping to find once you uncover all of these buildings?” Though the true nature of the “Dig” became apparent to me somewhere between the specially designed “scrotum protector” (to ward off bird attacks) and the buried cars (who needs a car on a tiny island of less than 100 inhabitants?) it was clear from the expressions of wonder on most people’s faces that they had been totally charmed by the story of the town and its eccentric inhabitants. For me, that was the most amazing part–the artists’ ability to weave a tale so terrifically strange that we can’t help but ache to believe in it. Because aren’t we all waiting to uncover some magic underneath the dirt?

The Dig is open through October 11, 2010.