After Sitting Boarded Up for 50 Years, a N.Y.C. Landmark Is Reopening This Summer — But There’s a Catch

The beachside landmark underwent a three-year $88 million renovation

NEED TO KNOW

• The Jacob Riis Park Bathhouse will reopen this summer after an $88 million renovation, including public and private spaces
• A private club with an ocean-view restaurant, lounges, and a pool will offer memberships starting at $1,000 annually
• Other upgrades to the beach complex include a boutique hotel, rooftop restaurant and revamped boardwalk with shops and dining options open to all

Closed to the public since 1972, the Jacob Riis Park Bathhouse in Queens, N.Y., is finally preparing to reopen.

The 60,000-square-foot Byzantine and Moorish-style Art Deco building will reopen this summer after undergoing a three-year, $88 million renovation.

And while much of the bathhouse will be open to the public, the revitalization also includes The Rockaway Ocean Club, a private members-only club with an ocean-view restaurant, private lounges, and a 162-person swimming pool.

Membership fees for the private club will range from $1,000 a year for local peninsula residents to $3,500 for families outside of those ZIP codes, according to The New York Times.

Membership perks include lockers, beach setups, and programming such as bocce tournaments, old-school aerobics classes, and craft sessions.

“It's going to be very, very family-oriented,” Pierre Antoine Dourneau, the club's chief operating officer, told the Times. “It's catering to the people who five years ago were dancing in Montauk and now live in a townhouse in Brooklyn or Queens and want a place for their families.”

Located on the Rockaway Peninsula, Jacob Riis Beach is colloquially known as "The People's Beach," historically serving as a safe haven for the LGBTQ community. The beachside bathhouse was popular with the public after opening in 1932, but it was closed in 1972 after the city struggled to maintain it. It was then handed over to the National Park Service.

Ursula Damani, a co-owner of The Rockaway Ocean Club, told The New York Times that the club will partially serve to quell overcrowding at the beach, which can see tens of thousands of visitors in a day.

"There are 35,000 to 45,000 people a day on a busy weekend at this beach,” she told the outlet. “There had to be some type of mechanism to provide a control for the population flow in and out of the space.”

But not everyone is happy about the new club. “Jacob Riis Park has always been known as the People's Beach, and it should remain a place that is accessible to everyone, not the base for a private club,” Mary Farias, 65, who lives in Marine Park, Brooklyn and uses Jacob Riis Park year-round for swimming, running and spending time with her family, told The New York Times.

“The existing building should be restored and maintained by the government so it can serve all visitors," Farias continued.

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Aside from the members-only club, a slew of other upgrades are coming to the beach complex, including a refreshed boardwalk with a new juice bar, coffee shop, gelato shop, pizzeria, dive bar, and a convenience store, a vast central courtyard with new furniture, and a rooftop restaurant open to all.

Inside the bathhouse, a 28-room boutique hotel is also planned, per the Times.

All of the interior courtyard spaces and some of the boardwalk spaces will be open beginning the Fourth of July weekend.

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