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......

It's opening day on Coney Island's boardwalk and there's still time to hop on a D,F,N, or Q train to Stillwell Avenue before things get started. 11 a.m. marks the Blessing of the Rides at Deno's Wonder Wheel with a ribbon cutting and live music. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will break the ceremonial egg cream at 11:30 a.m. to open the rides and the first 100 people on the Cyclone get to ride free.......

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......

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,......

We didn't make it to the Central Park Zoo for the icy food-for-animals competition, but luckily Julia Meredith Levy did. She sent us a detailed report:Ice replaced Iron in a Chef competition yesterday at Central Park Zoo. Fittingly, the contest's taste testers were Polar Bears Gus and Ida, weighing in at 1,000 and 700 pounds respectively. In the wild, their diets consist mainly of seals, eating as much as 100 pounds in one setting. On......

Normally we run op-ed pieces on Sunday, but this one is about Earth Day, which is today! It was written by Molly Dobkin, the twin-sister of the publisher. Even though they are twins and share a telepathic bond, the opinions expressed in it belong only to her. Today is Earth Day. Usually, Earth Day is greeted with all the fanfare and celebrations of, well, Arbor Day (April 28, Peeps!). This year, however, Earth Day is......

This is an animal and human interest we can all appreciate: Somehow, a dog fell into the East River; his owner ended up jumping in to pull him out, and then onlookers helped pull the dog and owner out. Aw. While excitement may be why Tracy Loughlin's Shiba Inu named Cho fell into the river (he was running towards the retaining wall; she told the Daily News that he "skidded, and he went 'bonk!'" in......