Many hearty souls joined the Welcome to Coney Island Polar Bear Club for the annual New Year's Day dip into the Atlantic. Lucky for us, some Gothamist readers were on the scene and have taken some great photographs. Here are a few. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club's Q&A answers the question, "Are you folks nuts?" with:Not particularly. We're just a group of people from all walks of life who deeply enjoy the activity......

Their day in the sun ocean is just around the corner, but the Polar Bear Club of Coney Island may be in too deep with one donation they recently accepted. The Brooklyn Paper reports that in spite of the club "growling in the anti-Thor procession during the Mermaid Parade," the Polar Bears have "made peace" with Thor. Polar Bears president Lou Scarcella explained that when Thor took condos out of their plans for Coney Island......

This year, the Coney Island Polar Bear Club really heated things up in their online video which features two topless ladies (backs turned to camera)! Will you make the plunge this New Years Day? Register or make a donation (money goes to Camp Sunshine) at Freezin' for a Reason. If you do participate, be warned, the water is usually around 33° degrees when the annual dip is made -- though they say "no member has......

Three NYC females are getting moved into a 22,000 square foot, multi-million dollar residence this spring, and getting a little male companionship this summer. Fortunately, this is not a public display nightmare of Trump- or Hefner-esque proportions. The ladies in question are sea lions and they're going to occupy a newly-renovated Bronx Zoo habitat. The areas being renovated include an Italian garden of boxwoods and roses; the Rockefeller Fountain, which has provided a welcome......

After a man suffered fatal injuries during this New Year's swim, the Coney Island Polar Bear Club has announced it will not be accepting new members. Further, the membership of Bears-in-training (the "Cubs") will be frozen. Polar Bear club president Louie Scarella explained to the Daily News, "I closed the membership just to cut down the number of people in the water. It has broken my heart and the heart of the board to......

A 32 year old journalist who suffered a neck injury during this year's Polar Bear Club New Year's swim died last week. It's unclear how Mohan Seneviratne injured himself; some witnesses believe he hit a sandbar when he dove into the water at Coney Island. amNew York spoke to his father Dr. Upali Seneviratne who said that Seneviratne was initially stable after the severe spinal cord injury, but his "condition deteriorated over a few days.......

What's a polar bear to do when it is 72 in January? Well, if you're a member of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, you stage a silent protest. The Times reports eight members of the club cancelled their Saturday swim, because the water was too warm. Perhaps more interestingly, the News reports it was nine members of the club and the Post says ten! According to Polar Bear Club treasurer Tom McGann, yesterday was......

Most New Year's Day Polar Bear Swims are just wacky fun, but yesterday, a Manhattan man was injured during the swim. Thirty-two year old Mohan Seneviruten suffered a neck injury and is in stable condition at Lutheran Hospital. His father arrived from Connecticut, asking, "What was he doing?" A witness told the Post, "It looked like he just dove head-first into a wave. When he didn't come up, people grabbed him." The Daily News......

And by polar bears, we mean the human Coney Island Polar Bear Club, of course! The intrepid Homo sapiens will be taking their New Year's dip today at 1PM. The Coney Island Polar Bears, who have been around since 1903, has partnered with Camp Sunshine for this year's swim - you can pledge money to the Bears and Camp Sunshine here. The Polar Bears also have a FAQ that answers questions about their habits,......

You thought we'd given up on the cute, eh? Left all that cute goodness those crazy kids who like to get so overloaded on the suff, eh? Well, for the most part you seem to be right. But then we get super adorable heads up tips like this video and what can we do? We share with you because we love. Why yes, yes those are the first Polar Bear triplets to survive in captivity!......

Looks like hundreds of people showed up for the Polar Bear Club's annual New Year's Day plunge in Coney Island. Great photos can be found in Flickr's ConeyIsland stream, and in photosets by YouCanSleepWhenYou'reDead, HollyP, and LittleBill (who shot the picture above.) The Post reports that the air temperature was in the low 30s-- anyone have a first-hand account of freezing your balls/ta-tas off?......

Cool experiment: - Take one polar bear. - Make sure it has some sort of skin condition. - Give it a medication for said skin condition that will tint the polar bear's snowy white fur an alarming shade of purple (depending on the light, as dark as Pantone 2715 or as light as Pantone 2587). - Turn purple polar bear into the biggest attraction at the zoo. Pelusa the Purple Polar Bear at an Argentianian......

A colleague of mine was telling me how she would be going to the Central Park Zoo over the weekend, and I asked her to let me know how Gus the Polar Bear was doing. She said I was the fourth person to mention Gus. Who is Gus? Gus is a polar bear who was famously diagnosed as being depressed, as he swam incessantly in the pool. Gus is better nowadays - thanks for various......