Results tagged “beaches”

When the Health Department first announced a plan to ban smoking in public parks and beaches run by the city, Mayor Bloomberg seemed caught off guard, and backed away from a full ban, saying, "Our Police Department has enough to do. They can't be going around giving tickets [for smoking]."

Yesterday Mayor Bloomberg stepped back from a plan to make smoking in public parks and beaches illegal, cautioning that the proposal would stop short of completely outlawing smoking on Parks Department property. Bloomberg boasted at a press conference, "Nobody is more of a believer in saving lives and stopping smoking. In fact, we already ban smoking, for example, in playgrounds." However! "There's also the practical aspect of how we can enforce it. Our Police Department has enough to do. They can't be going around giving tickets." Not with all those photographers and superheroes on the loose, anyway. The mayor explained that the ban would not cover entire parks, only select areas where large crowds might gather. He also acknowledged that if you, the embattled smoker, are "sitting in the middle of Sheep Meadow and you’re the only one there, are you doing any damage to anybody other than killing yourself? Probably not." At the same time, Bloomberg reaffirmed his tough anti-smoking stance: "Make no mistake about it. This city is not walking away from our commitment to make it as difficult and as expensive to smoke as we possibly can." So smoke 'em while you can still (barely) afford 'em.

One day after city health commissioner Dr. Thomas A. Farley revealed his intention to expand the city's smoking ban to parks and beaches, something terrifying happened: We woke up this morning to find ourselves in complete agreement with conservative NY Post demagogue Andrea Peyser. Obviously, this means that we were wrong in supporting the ban and ought to start smoking Lucky Strikes at once. Peyser opines:

Visiting the beach or the park should no longer require an oxygen mask. If one wants to smoke, there are places to freely enjoy that activity. Like China... The idea won't sit well with the pathologically addicted few who continue to force innocent citizens to unwillingly breathe their poisons. But this is a scenario whose time has come... Few things are more aggravating and disgusting than being forced to swallow fumes emitted by a mother, father, grandpa or stalker whose bond with nicotine prevents them from stepping outside the city's precious, toddler-filled recreation areas in order to slowly kill themselves.

First they came for the smokers in bars and restaurants, and we said nothing—we simply enjoyed breathing air without carcinogens. Now the Mayor is coming for the smokers on park benches and beach towels, and we're still saying nothing! As part of an ambitious new public health initiative, city health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley announced that the Bloomberg administration would seek to ban smoking in all city parks and beaches. Public health advocates like Dr. David A. Kessler are elated; he tells City Room, "The issues with secondhand smoke are very real and the majority of the population today doesn’t want to be breathing in tobacco smoke, whether indoors or outdoors." Farley says the proposal to proscribe cigs may require the approval of the City Council, and health department spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti tells Bloomberg News that officials haven’t yet devised "a specific strategy for reducing smoking in parks." But if cops can be as militant about busting smokers as they are ticketing people for public drinking, we're sure this'll be a big cash crop for the city.

For the second weekend in a row, Parks officials did end up going ahead and closing down city beaches along the coasts of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island due to the residual effects of what was Tropical Storm Danny (yes, they are closed to swimming today, though sunbathing and some surfing is okay). Long Island beachgoers didn't have much better luck with Nassau County shutting down 20 of its beaches and Suffolk following suit with a couple more. Well there's always Orchard! WCBS 2 also says that Suffolk officials discouraged swimming at 64 other spots along the Sound due to "sewage discharges and elevated bacteria levels" that occur sue to storm runoff water. While the storm itself did not create much of a stir, it managed to rough the tides up once again, just a week after Hurricane Bill drew out hordes of surfers looking to catch 10-foot waves. One Mastic Beach resident said, "You feel like you're gonna break your neck or something. The waves are strong, you can feel the current tearing at your feet."

Danny has been downgraded from "Tropical Storm" to "Tropical Depression," but it'll still cause dangerous surf this weekend. 1010 WINS reports that "Danny had been mostly absorbed by a low pressure system associated with a cold front over North Carolina," with hurricane specialist Lixion Avila explaining, "We were expecting that that was going to happen sooner or later. It happened a little bit sooner. Basically Danny has been swallowed by the big low." The NYC Parks Department hasn't closed beaches, but warned that "beachgoers [should] exercise caution at all city beaches due to Tropical Storm Danny. Large swells are expected to produce dangerous surf conditions and life-threatening rip currents during the next day or two. The coastal impact may result in temporary restrictions, including requirements that swimmers remain in shallow waters and closures at city beaches during this weekend." (More details here.) And beach-side businesses will be taking another hit this weekend—the manager of the Jones Beach food court said, "It's been exactly like this. It's been like a ghost town."

Though Hurricane Bill is weakening and spinning away from New England's coastline, nearby beaches were still closed, due to rip current threats and flooding. While NYC preemptively closed most city beaches on Friday, Long Island and NJ beaches weren't closed until yesterday. NYC beachgoers were threatened with tickets if they tried to approach the water while Long Island's Robert Moses Beach had to be closed—a state parks spokesman told Newsday, "The entire sand part of the park is under water" (the beach did reopen later for sunbathing). In NJ's Ocean Grove, lifeguards told the Star-Ledger, "We're only allowing surfers that seem competent. We've had pretty bad rip currents," but one in Ocean City told WCBS 2, "People are walking and it's ankle deep and get swept out because ankle deep goes to knee deep goes to chest deep."

As Hurricane Bill heads north and not too close to our shores, there are still concerns about rip currents from the storm. The Parks Department said that it is "closing Rockaway Beach, Coney Island Beach, Manhattan Beach, South Beach, Midland Beach and Wolfe’s Pond Beach to swimming due to the approaching hurricane. Orchard Beach in the Bronx remains open assuming conditions do not deteriorate and the city’s 63 pools and 650 spray showers offer opportunities to cool off."

Despite increasing warnings from Parks officials and a drowning death toll that continues to rise, swimmers are still finding their way into the Rockaways after lifeguards are off-duty, often into the night. The Times goes out to the Queens beaches to discover that "police officers patrol the area until 9 p.m. or so...but daring swimmers know to wait until the police leave to dive in, stepping past signs in English and Spanish warning against nighttime swimming." And one local resident tells the News, "Kids think it's just a big bathtub." City Councilman James Sanders held a community "brainstorming" session this week to discuss how to put an end to a deadly summer that has already claimed six victims, three times as many as all of last year. A Parks deputy described just how dangerous the waters can be by saying, "In certain weather conditions, particularly with a lot of south wind, the waves can create an opening in the bar. When that happens, it's like turning over a 5-gallon water cooler bottle and ripping the lid open - all the water comes rushing out." Here's a tutorial on what to do if you're caught in a rip current.

A deadly wave of drownings in the Rockaways has prompted the Parks Department to encourage heightened caution while swimming in what have been strong rip tides throughout the Queens shoreline this summer. Jose-Luis Olivares became the sixth swimmer to drown this summer while rescuing his wife and daughter; only two people died from drowning out there all of last year. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe points out that all six swimmers died at an unguarded beach or when there were no lifeguards on duty. With the first real heat wave of summer arriving this week, Parks officials called on swimmers to only go in while lifeguards are around. Benepe told the Post, "We have over 300 lifeguards and supervisors in the Rockaways. We also have 50 security personnel who patrol the beaches both before and after hours to prevent people from going into the water. There aren't many other municipalities that do that. We've sometimes been called beach Nazis."

A Queens man trying to rescue his wife and daughter became the latest victim to drown in the Rockaways this summer. 36-year-old father of two Jose-Luis Olivares of Ozone Park became the sixth person to fall prey to the rough tides along the Queens beaches, the second to die at Jacob Riis Park. Olivares went into the water after his wife and ten-year-old daughter around 7 p.m.—an hour after life guards go off-duty. An off-duty park ranger pulled Olivares out and he was airlifted to Peninsula Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Both his wife and daughter survived; it was unclear how they managed to get out of the water. The victim's brother told the Post, "We're all feeling very bad right now because he was a hero today. He saved his daughter and his wife. He is a very good father — he loves his daughter. She is devastated." Parks officials continue to search for the body of Heyward "Winky" Patterson, who was pulled in while swimming late at night on a nearby beach earlier in the week.

While the Parks Department's solution to the city's garbage is a giant Dumpster amongst the trees, the same thing can't quite help our water. The Daily News has a report card on our beaches, and of the 13 rated in the annual "Testing the Water" guide... things aren't looking so good.

Officials in Babylon have announced that the town will become the first on the Atlantic seaboard to offer free WiFi at beaches, parks and pools. The Suffolk County town will be opening four separate internet cafes at its various beaches over the next few weeks, the first one debuting this weekend at Overlook Beach. The cafes will also offer three free laptops as loaners and the signal will be strong enough to reach nearby boaters. Babylon Supervisor Steve Bellone told the Post, "For the first time you'll be able to surf the Internet. It is very cool. We're very excited. You can take it down to the water, you can go into the water, if you want to." Less cool news recently came out of nearby Robert Moses State Park, where the only signal beach goers were getting was from Park officials telling them to head elsewhere since large portions of the shore had to be closed off due to erosion.

Yesterday, a number of beaches, including Coney Island and Manhattan Beach, were closed after concerns that raw sewage, which overflowed from a sewage plant, had contaminated the water. But one beachgoer at Coney Island ignored the many announcements and actually decided on a swim—only to be "cited for failing to comply with an officer" (the Daily News also has a photo of him being restrained from possibly heading back to the water). Others were disappointed, telling the Daily News, "We were looking forward to this day all week. It takes two hours to get here from the Bronx. The water looks okay to me," and "In New York, they exaggerate. They see a mosquito flying near the water, and they make a big deal." Beaches are reopening, but swimming is not allowed.

Those out in Coney Island today for the all-day Coney Island Bordwalk Party may have jumped the gun by wearing their swim trunks. The Parks Department closed off the water in Coney due to possible raw sewage overflow from a local treatment plant. Nearby Manhattan Beach was also shut down for the same reason, but both beaches remain open to sunbathers. Earlier in the weekend, Nassau County had shut down 22 beaches because of the heavy rain on Friday and yesterday it was revealed that a sizable chunk of Robert Moses State Park would have to close down due to erosion.

After years of spot erosion accumulating on Field 5 of Robert Moses State Park, the beach's deterioration has been so severe this spring that half of the popular Babylon site and its parking area are going to be closed down for the summer. Off-shore storms and possibly the ghost of Jane Jacobs have left the beach in a state where at high tide, the surf goes right up to the dunes, which have now been replaced by an eight-foot cliff. A state parks director told Newsday, "The surf cut into the dunes and at high tide there is no beach for people to put their blankets on. This is the worst erosion at that section of Robert Moses that we have seen since at least two decades." Field 5 can usually play host to up to 10,000 sunbathers and its parking lot holds 1,200 spaces. In order to accommodate, Field 4 has begun taking on some of its lifeguards and will now be open on Thursdays and Fridays starting in July. Just last summer the Suffolk park celebrated its 100th anniversary.

It may not feel like the time to think about the beach, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has cleanup crews combing the sand of Surf City, NJ—so far, it's found over 450 "potentially explosive fuses and ordnance" (from the World War I period) since late January. The AP reports, "The corps unwittingly sucked the munitions from the sea bed and pumped them ashore as part of a beach replenishment project begun in late 2006. Beachgoers began finding them in 2007." D'oh! While some people are upset they had no idea there was a sandbag bunker nearby, one woman told NBC 10, "I don’t think they’ll explode -- they’re old and they’re rusted." Over a thousand have been found in the past two years and it's hoped the cleanup will be completed by May for this year's beach season.

It appears that it will be more difficult for New Yorkers to use the Jersey Shore as an easy, affordable getaway as courts are restricting how much of the beach is available to the public. State legislators had been attempting to free up more beaches along the Shore, but appeals courts lately have been overturning them, leading to what the State Island Advance says "may add up to a confusing summer next year, with people unsure of which stretches of sand they're legally allowed to be on, and when they're allowed to be there. "People come down to the shore, decide to party, get tipsy, go for a swim at 2 in the morning, and if they drown, the first thing their family will do is sue the town because we allowed it," said Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi about laws forcing him to keep his beaches open all night. Let's just hope that the mayor of Belmar doesn't get involved in this again.

The Parks Department says beach attendance fell to 9 million this year. This is way down from the 20 million that went to city beaches in 2006--and in 2007, 8.6 million went to Coney Island alone! This year, only 4.5 million went to Coney, and businesses noticed. One pizzeria employee told NY1, "We had maybe three, four busy days through the whole summer." Hmm, does that means staycations mean staying really close to home? Or could it have been the unseasonably cooler weather this August? At any rate, today is the last day of city beaches and pools till next year, so if you want to have one last chance, head out soon!

Newsday called yesterday a "deadly day for the Island's ocean beaches," given two people drowned and two are still missing after being dragged into the waters. Two men went missing off Jacob Riis Park in Queens; one 21-year-old was rescued by divers, bu a 23-year-old is still missing. At Long Beach, 18-year-old and 22-year-old cousins were swept out; the older cousin was rescued but later died while the younger is still missing. And 25-year-old man drowned off Southampton. The Coast Guard said "riptides were particularly strong [yesterday]," and a meteorologist told Newsday, "If you become caught in a rip current, stay calm and don't fight it. Swim parallel to the shore until you break free from the current," and when you're out, swim at an angle towards the beach, "A lot of people panic. You should float or tread water."

The 26-year-old Yale graduate who walked around Times Square naked on Thursday spoke to the NY Post, which made him its cover boy, about his experience. Josh Drimmer denied that it was a stunt and said - from his hospital bed at Bellevue - "It was an extreme panic attack brought on by days of not sleeping...I'm all right. Tell everyone I'm OK. I had a bad day."

One reason for the unpredictability of a hurricane is that the storm gets big enough to perturb its surrounding environment. When that happens you get a contest of equals in the atmosphere, the tropical system can start to deform the atmospheric around it, and the outcome is uncertain. That didn't happen with relatively weak Tropical Depression Gabrielle. She briefly intensified to tropical storm status, but weakening after touching the Carolina coast she never had the oomph to compete with the rest of the atmosphere. Now she is being squeezed out to sea by a high pressure system over the mid-Atlantic and a weak cold front along the east coast. At best the beaches will sea a bit of rough surf and riptides.

What a wild weekend for area beaches! On Saturday, a shark washed up at Rockaway Beach. Yesterday, a bunch of medical waste and trash was swept in onto the Jersey shore, causing beach closures.

Happy Labor Day! Today, government buildings and post offices, financial markets and banks are all closed. Alternate-side-of-the-street parking is suspended and there is no garbage or recycling collection. Mass transit is running on a Sunday schedule. There a number of events today (though we think that the West Indian American Day Carnival is the best bet) and it's also the last day of the year that city beaches and pools will be open.

WCBS reports that, according to an Animal Department Supervisor at the New York Aquarium, the shark was a thresher shark, not known for attacking humans. Its attempts to swim onto shore are considered abnormal so the shark could have been sick. In fact, a 10-year-old witness said, "It was like freaking out. Its tail was flopping everywhere...Maybe it got separated from its family. It looked sick."

If you were looking at the Gothamist Newsmap, you might have noticed this alert: "Shark Sighting | Beach 108th St X Ocean Side Queens, NY | 9/1/2007 11:41 a.m." Well, we guess the sharks wanted to make an appearance before the beaches closed for the year!

This Labor Day weekend is not just the unofficial last weekend of summer - it's the official last weekend to enjoy the city's beaches and pools. After Monday, the 14 miles of beaches and 52 outdoor pools (including the Floating Pool - which will be heading to the Bronx for the summer of 2008) will be closed.

Josh Schwartz left the sunny beaches of O.C. to bring his brand of teen drama to the gritty city. His new show, Gossip Girl, will premiere on the CW September 19th, and it's been filming all over town lately.

Looks like New York State beaches have become just as dirty as the thoughts you have while lying there sunning yourselves (and we're not just talking about hypodermic needles). A new report from the NRDC says there's been a serious rise in the number of health-related advisories and beach closings thanks to pollution. New York beaches experienced over 1200 days of closings and advisories last year (that's up from about 830 in 2005). You can read the report here.

Jill Cunniff keeps a blog (a "MamaLog") about being a mom and a musician in New York, but you probably know her best as the lead singer and bass player of early-90s band Luscious Jackson. The band broke up in 2000, but Jill is still creating and performing music - all while being a mom, a wife, and doing her part to clean up New York's beaches.