The Private Club Opening at Jacob Riis, "The People's Beach"

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC, we're going to end today with a hyper local summer beach story, not necessarily a happy one, and see if anybody listening right now is personally affected and wants to call in and share your thoughts. Here's the story, a new private club is set to open at Jacob Riis Park, that section of the Rockaway Peninsula that's known as The Peoples Beach. But after almost a decade of construction on the long defunct Art Deco style bath house, the owners of the upcoming Rockaway Ocean Club, as they're calling it, have pushed back its opening date several times this summer.
Now they say it'll be open before the end of August. That would be the private version, the Rockaway Ocean Club. The renovated building would include restaurants, a concert space, beach shops and eventually a hotel, they say. And it'll also house a members-only club with a pool and a lounge. So of course, there's some debate over whether that kind of thing really belongs on public land because Jacob Riis Park is public land, federal land. Some say the developers are rightly bringing a long abandoned landmark back to life.
Others argue it's privatizing a beloved public space, that it's going to push long time beachgoers out of. And in fact, it's one of New York's oldest LGBTQ gathering places as it happens on the eastern side of the beach there. Here to unpack it and to see if anybody out there wants to chime in, is Liam Quigley, Parks and Sanitation reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Hey Liam, always good to have you on the show.

**Liam Quigley** (1:48)
Hey, good morning.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:49)
And listeners, is anybody listening affected by this or potentially so? Or on either side of this question, 212-433-WNYC.
If you're a regular Riis Beachgoer, we'd especially love to hear from you, but our phones, as usual, open for anybody. Maybe you're a Rockaway resident, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. All right Liam, for people who haven't been following the story, in addition to what I said in the intro, what exactly is this club that's supposed to open at the Jacob Riis Bathhouse?

**Liam Quigley** (2:27)
Yeah, if you've been to Jacob Riis Beach, it's federally operated. It's between Fort Tilden and the Rockaways, and a centerpiece for it is this long abandoned bathhouse that is right in the middle of Riis Park, and it's been empty since the 70s, so that's what's been under renovation. You may have seen the construction fencing go up, and that's where they are building this ocean beach club, which like you mentioned, will eventually include 28 hotel rooms, concessions and event space and a pool.
So that's kind of the focus of the construction right now, and like you mentioned too, it's been delayed a bunch of times. So it's kind of like that's what we're looking at having here on the beach.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:16)
Who who uses the area now is concerned about getting locked out?

**Liam Quigley** (3:22)
If you're familiar with Jacob Riis Beach, you know that at the end of it, towards the Rockaways, there's Gay Beach, it's like The Peoples Beach. It's a long time queer gathering space going back decades.
People were facing real violence, found respite there, and it's been a safe haven for a long time. It's a really important community space that has felt to a lot of people more threatened, especially after 2023, when the city demolished an old hospital that shielded that space from the public view there. So that's the context in which this partial privatization is kind of raising some real concerns among people who really cherish The Peoples Beach there.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:16)
So critics have described the project as privatizing public space or accelerating gentrification.
The developers say they're restoring a landmark that had been abandoned for decades. Lay out their point of view. Are they saying the people who use The Peoples Beach, so-called Gay Beach, will still be able to use it in the way that they have?

**Liam Quigley** (4:37)
The developers behind the project say, yeah, it's a narrative that just because we're turning something that's been totally abandoned for decades into a really nice place, that anyone, if you want to become a member, you can apply. There'll be spots, they say, that are open to the public. They'll be selling concessions on the beach.
There'll be public concerts that they really object to the framing of a gentrification of the area. At the same time, they do say a lot of it is public, but it's public if, public if you can afford to pay. So that's where they're coming from.

**Brian Lehrer** (5:22)
Right. Here's a text from a listener who writes, says, a long time, Jacob Riis, go or this is going to ruin the whole allure there. Suddenly, it'll belong to those who can afford it and the rest of us will be velvet roped out of a beloved, quiet and peaceful beach.