New York’s Hottest Club Is . . . the Jacob Riis Bathhouse?
Say what you will about Robert Moses, but the man had an eye for bathhouses. For Jones Beach, he insisted on expensive brick for his “people’s palaces” because it complemented the sand. His follow-up, a giant Art Deco complex in Jacob Riis Park, in the Rockaways, introduced generous amenities to Depression-era New Yorkers: a solarium, an open-air dance floor, a skating rink. After the city ceded control of Riis to the federal government, in the nineteen-seventies, the monument to public recreation was shuttered. Since then, it has lain dormant, hovering over the People’s Beach like a ruin.
This month, the Jacob Riis Bathhouse is reopening as the Rockaway Ocean Club. The project began with the firm behind Brooklyn Bazaar, which once threw warehouse parties in Williamsburg and now runs some boardwalk concessions. Overhauling the historic building required eighty-eight million dollars in investment, along with some upscaling of the original mission. A portion of the complex is now a private club, with members-only access to a new pool, a co-working space, and other perks. Annual memberships start at two thousand dollars, not including a hefty joining fee. The club offers discounts for locals and people under thirty. To some on the peninsula, the rescue was a betrayal.
“It seems like the government is selling off our public property,” Janet Fash, a Rockaway resident and the city’s first female chief lifeguard, said the other day. The club had reached out to Fash, who is sixty-six, about hosting a reading of her new memoir, “Lifeguard: A Love Story.” A few days before the soft opening, a tour was arranged for Fash and her husband, Bob.
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Ursula Damani, a co-owner of the club, was leading the tour and had been trying to get ahead of the criticism. “People keep talking about how the bathhouse was free, it was public,” she said near the entrance. “But actually it wasn’t free.” She stopped at some original limestone ticket windows, where beachgoers once paid a quarter for a locker or fifty cents for a dressing room.
Fash, who had on a turquoise bucket hat and a floral-print dress, read from a plaque, dated 1932: “Erected by the city of New York for the recreation of its citizens.”
“This has guided everything in our project,” Damani said. They passed through a courtyard into a restaurant that will serve Mediterranean cuisine. Bob, who wore a polo with the logo of an F.D.N.Y. motorcycle club, asked about the dress code. “We just had this conversation about whether we’re requiring shoes,” Damani said. “We have to, because of insurance.”
When the government took over Riis, the east wing of the crumbling bathhouse was given over to the National Park Service lifeguards. “People joked the chief lifeguard used it like it was his garage,” Fash said. She recalled going to parties in the asbestos-filled building as a teen-ager: “All the Rockaway girls would come. One night there was nitrous. Everyone was talking like a duck.”
After a recent boardwalk heckling incident, Damani said she had been consoled by Fash’s memoir, which traces her long battle against corruption and sexism in the lifeguard union. “I learned that if I give the shit back to them, they respect me,” Damani said.
On the second floor, a construction crew worked on finishing twenty-eight hotel rooms, set to open next summer. A private lounge, clad in original aquamarine tiles, faced the sea. The shoreline below has been fenced off for more than two years, pending the removal of old wood pilings. “They have not maintained the park,” Fash said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.” Damani blamed bureaucracy, which she said had also delayed the club’s opening: “It took us six years to sign the lease. I’ve probably dealt with every acronym in the federal government.” She was less concerned about a boycott by a coalition representing the beach’s long-standing queer community, which has called the club a “flimsy privatization scheme.” “Once we open and they see this,” she said. “I’m not too worried about it.”
Next stop was a roof terrace, with views of the Manhattan skyline. Damani said, “We made sure the public has access to the best part of the building.” She had envisioned something like an Italian beach club. “They don’t overprice things,” she said. “It’s very democratic.” Fash signed a copy of her book and agreed to be in touch about the possible reading.
Away from the guide, the couple compared notes. “It makes me happy to have such a beautiful building coming back to life,” Fash said. “Am I going to be shelling out money? I don’t think so. But I already live at the ocean.” Bob said that he might join. His wife looked surprised.
“I love having all-access,” he said. “I’ll bring you for dinner once in a while.” ♦