30 The Courier sun • april 9, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com Surf’s up at the Silver Gull Beach Club The Silver Gull Beach Club and Breezy Point Surf Club are places where families and friends can enjoy the summer, take part in fun activities and make memories that will last forever. The Silver Gull, which opened in 1963, has played host to people and families looking for summer fun without having to travel too far. The club is conveniently located at 1 Beach 193rd St. in Breezy Point, steps away from the surf. Breezy Point Surf Club, located at 1 Beach 227th St., opened in 1937 and added a second half in 1952, is approximately two miles from the Silver Gull Beach Club. The clubs offer seasonal passes, which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, for frequent summer visits, as well as daily guest passes for those who want to try the experience for the first time. Members of the beach club come from all over New York to enjoy fun in the sun. Once there, people tend to come back year after year, with some members coming to the Silver Gull since 1963. “We have members from Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Long Island… some of them have been coming since we opened,” Jamie Blatman, General Manager of both the Silver Gull Beach Club and Breezy Point Surf Club, said. This loyalty has brought beachgoers back to both clubs for years. Over the last two seasons though, the beach clubs’ membership has been steadily growing. “We’ve really been growing our membership with new, younger people to keep the tradition alive,” Blatman said. The reasons new members are joining every year and people continue to come back are the family-friendly atmosphere and the wide array of amenities offered. At the clubs, members can rent cabanas; enjoy a multitude of food and beverage options; drink at the tiki bar; visit the beach; relax by one of the pools; and much more. Members can also partake in some fun and games while at the Silver Gull and Breezy Point clubs. There are tennis courts, basketball courts, bocce courts, paddle tennis, softball and more, all available free of charge. Kids ages 3-15 can be registered for the clubs’ day camps. At the camps kids can play sports, go for a swim, play games, swim in the kids’ pool, do arts and crafts and a wide variety of activities all monitored by the clubs’ staff and on duty lifeguards. “We really try to make it some place where people can have a good time,” Blatman said. It has not always been fun, sun and good times for the clubs. After Hurricane Sandy hit in October 2012, both the Silver Gull Beach Club and Breezy Point Surf Club were left in disrepair. Some of the clubs’ buildings and pool decks were destroyed and they lost depth on the beaches when some of the sand was washed away. “Since we took over, we put a lot of money into refurbishing both clubs, the infrastructure as well as the offerings that we make,” Blatman said. The clubs are also involved in the community that they call home. Last year, active military personnel and their families were invited to the clubs for a day and they were treated to the use of a cabana and enjoyed the clubs free of charge. This year, the clubs will host the Wounded Warrior Project in July. “It’s part of us giving back. We certainly believe in giving back,” Blatman said. “It’s a program I started last year and we’re happy to be moving forward with it and expanding it from just local military to more of a national project.” This year the clubs are also starting a recycling program, in which they will recycle some of their own items and donate a majority of the proceeds to the local Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department. The clubs are opening Memorial Day weekend and operate until Labor Day weekend. “The beach club is a great place to develop memories for the rest of your life,” Blatman said. “You meet friends that you will keep forever.”
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