NEW YORK IS UNDERWATER
Published February 22, 2026 · 8:54 · 59,737 views
About This Video
A 25-year-old Chinatown tchotchke: a scrolling New York skyline that looks like it's underwater through a little aquarium lid. Two film strips on spools spinning at different RPMs create a parallax effect. The motor is fried, the spool is crazy-glued to the hub. Van replaces the axle with a #2 sheet metal screw, taps and dies a new shaft for the replacement motor, builds a template, cuts and rebuilds the base.
When it finally works, it's silent for the first time ever. Listen. Van was on West 13th Street on September 11, 2001, and this creepy, prophetic little machine became something else entirely. Jeremy found Van on the Patreon. Five years of content on there. The alternative universe to the YouTube channel.
Transcript
All right, here it is. Wow, look at this. Look at that. This turned out to be a creepy and prophetic little machine, as you'll see in the end. Okay, so this is a 25-year-old I don't know what you would call this. Tchotchke. Well, here I'll show you. You turn it on. I think there's a lamp behind it. This thing scrolls by and it looks like it's underwater and it's in 3D and it's the New York skyline. So here, so here's the problem. You turn this switch on. It seems to be working. Oh, it seems to be working. All right, I'm going to crack this open anyway. It's very fast to disassemble. And I love things like this. This thing is ingenious. It's two little film strips. There's one, and there's one. This is the outside one. This is the inside one. And then it's two spools and a little motor in here. This is something you buy in Chinatown. They probably don't have these anymore. This is the inside film. And there's two different diameter spools. The inside spool spins the inside film, the skyline, slowly. The outside spool spins the outside film, the clear film with the balloons and stuff on it, quickly.
And so this goes on the inside one and this spins at whatever 30 RPM or whatever. Then there's the outside spool which is a wider diameter and it spins at like five or six RPM or whatever and the outside artifacts spin at a different rate and it's just this cool little thing and then you have this lid and it makes it look like an aquarium. And the problem is when you turn it on the motor doesn't work. So, there's two problems. One of them is relatively simple. There's a little axle right there on the top on the top spool and it locks into a little hole in there so that it can spin. Right? That's like the hub. And on this left axle, somebody, I'm not saying it was Jeremy, probably wasn't, crazy glued the spool. They thought that they could seize this into the hub there, but what that did was it stressed out the motor because it was stuck. Now, the second problem is this motor in here. I think it's fried. You can hear those gears. And we're going to crack it open. This is an 8 RPM motor. All right, let's turn it on.
So, now it's jammed. There's like a little clutch in there. All right, so I'm going to take this off. Oh, jammed again. Okay, there we go. Seems to be working. So, all right. Let me test to see if it still spins. Oh, it's nice and strong. Get the crazy glue off of there pretty good. Then drill a hole. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to make this number two sheet metal screw. I'm going to make this the axle. So the number two sheet metal screw is going to replace the this thing that broke off. The head is the same size as the shaft of the spool. And it will fit into here where it spins. It'll fit freely because this is the axle where the axle goes into. This is the hub. I've got the spool. It's going to be flipped upside down. And then this axle is going to go through here like this. It's so well done. And so you put this, then you put this. And so here's my fixed spool. Goes like this. So this is the inside. Really carefully on the outside of the spools here. So the this goes on top.
Puts the right amount of tension in the spools. This little armature, this plastic, this is like the aquarium, the water that you're looking through. Okay, so here's the moment of truth. Oh no. Oh no. That's all put back together. I was on West 13th Street in Manhattan on September 11th, 2001. And the payoff at the very end of this video is some kind of poetic prophetic haunting. And I'm not really even sure what it means, but I think this video tangentially has something to do with recovery from trauma and strength from recovery. Therapy helps me acknowledge and eliminate the excuses that keep me from my pursuit of purpose, even if I don't consciously know I'm making excuses. Therapy has helped me discover and to mitigate what we call character defects. Helped me to discover that maybe drugs and alcohol are not the solution to all of my problems. Therapy taught me that the debt I thought I owed to my parents, I actually owe to my children. BetterHelp has been a loyal supporter of this channel and is the sponsor of this episode. And in my experience, BetterHelp has been the fastest route to therapy.
Fill out a questionnaire and BetterHelp matches you with the therapist in as little as a couple of days. BetterHelp can connect you to a licensed therapist who is trained to listen and give you helpful, unbiased advice. And if the fit's not right, you can easily switch therapists at any time at no extra cost. Click the link in the description or go to betterhelp.com/vanneistat and get 10% off your first month of therapy. Thank you, BetterHelp. Well, I got the other motor coming, so maybe I can wait for the other motor. Oh, it looks a little bit too big. So, I have to position this output shaft in exactly the same position as this output shaft. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a little template like this. I'm tapping or dying the axle from the old motor so that I can screw it into the new motor. All right. This is the kind of thing you don't think about when you're conceiving this. I needed to put a screw in here to hold this threaded axle thing into this shaft so that it didn't slip. I made this template and that'll tell me that's where the axle thing has to be.
Now I'm going to have to kind of destroy this. I'm going to have to cut this out and put wood underneath it because this spindle comes up so much higher than the old one did. And so this thing has to be lower in the gadget here. So that line is the height of the old axle thing. And this is the new axle thing. And it's basically correct. I think I can get away with it. And then to center it, I need to center the axle on this thing. I honestly think I got it. I think I got it with that template. Lots of soldering. Okay, moment of truth. Inside one, outside one, and then this rig goes across the top. It seems correct. And then over. All right. It seems to fit. It seems to fit. Please work. Please work. Please work. Please work. Oh, wow. Whole new base. I had to replace the motor. This needs to find a permanent spot in the house. We haven't figured it out quite yet. Please work. Please work. Please work. Please work. And it's silent. It's silent. Listen. Oh my god, it's so wonderful. Okay, this is my favorite fix.
Amazing. Has it ever been silent for you? No. No. It was always like a little bit jittery and then one day it just stopped. Jeremy found me on our Patreon. It's where I interact with the audience. Click this to join. There's 5 years of content on there. It's the alternative universe to the YouTube channel.