COURIER LIFE, JAN. 7–13, 2022 21
OUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BOROUGH OF KINGS
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
Hundreds of New Yorkers washed
off the ichor of 2021 in the freezing Atlantic
Ocean at the annual Coney Island
Polar Bear Plunge on New Year’s
Day.
“It’s a fantastic way to start the new
year, a plunge in the cold ocean will
really leave everything behind that
you want to leave behind,” said Dennis
Thomas, president of the Coney Island
Polar Bear Club, ahead of the plunge.
“And I know a lot of people want to get
past this year.”
The icy fundraiser was canceled
last year because of the pandemic, and
returned to celebrate the new year with
precautions in place: the swim took
place over a number of hours and across
a wide stretch of beach, a departure
from the traditional stampede down a
narrow pathway into the frigid waves.
Hosted by the Coney Island Polar
Bear Club, who bill themselves as the
country’s oldest “winter bathing” organization,
since 1903, the swim is free
to participate in but encourages donations
for the neighborhood’s nonprofi ts
and community organizations, including
the Coney Island History Project
and the Alliance for Coney Island.
While the seaside nabe is best
known for its oceanfront amusement
parks and historic boardwalk, with a
poverty rate near 30 percent and recovery
from Hurricane Sandy still in
progress nearly a decade after punishing
fl ooding and winds devastated
the coast, donations are much-needed
and well used. More than $47,000 was
raised by chilly bathers this year, and
donations are still open, with a goal of
$80,000 for any Coney Island enthusiasts
with a resolution to be more philanthropic
in the new year.
But, of course, what the plunge is
best known for is its fun. Long-returning
swimmers mark the start of each
new year with a salty shock to the system,
and Brooklynites gather with
friends and family, in bathing suits or,
in some cases, full-body polar bear costumes
to brave the Atlantic’s embrace.
This year’s weather was a little
warmer than usual, with the air hovering
around 55 degrees on New Year’s
Day. And while the ocean’s temperature
was about two degrees above average,
it was still a much-less-thancomfortable
46 degrees when the polar
bears waded in, and relieved swimmers
wrapped themselves in towels
and sweatshirts as they huddled on the
beach once their plunge was done.
“Everyone missed it last year. We
were so sad but the conditions just
weren’t right but things are all looking
good for January 1,” Thomas told
Brooklyn Paper when the club decided
the 2022 plunge was going ahead.
“There is no better way to separate
the past from the future than a brisk
plunge in the frigid Atlantic with fellow
New Yorkers.”
Just chillin’
New Yorkers plunge into the new year
at annual Coney Island Polar Bear event
(Above) A man emerges from the water during the Polar Bear Plunge. (Center) Orion Trujillo,
with her daughter, Leyla, stays warm on the beach after her fi rst Polar Bear Plunge.
Photos by Lloyd Mitchell (above) and Caroline Ourso (left)