[FIPS WAS THERE…] ANNUAL NEW YEAR'S CONEY ISLAND POLAR BEAR PLUNGE
Felicia | Thursday, January 2, 2014 at 12:00PM 
About 2,500 nutballs plunged into the frigid Atlantic Ocean at 1 PM on New Years Day. I’ve been going for years…as a spectator. My husband has been plunging (yes, head-under plunge) to ring in the New Year for 7 years. This was my nine year old’s 4th time. Why do they do it? The same reason thousands of others do: because they are masochists who enjoy shrinkage.
The event is sponsored by the Coney Island Polar Bear Club which has been around since 1903. The majority of folks plunging on New Year’s Day are merely wimpy one-day-a-yearers. The group’s full-time members swim every Sunday from November through April.
The club has booths set up on the boardwalk so folks can make a donation to Camp Sunshine, an organization that helps kids with life threatening illnesses. (It’s a zoo on the boardwalk so we always donate through the website beforehand.) Basically my kid gets frostbite and hypothermia but in return helps sick kids. It’s a good deal.
If you’ve never been, put it on your calendar for January 1, 2015. As per usual there were hot chicks dressed as super heroes, old fat Santas in red thongs, grown men in formal wear and top hats having tea (w/ a table) in the ocean – something for everyone.
A DJ blasted dance tracks on the boardwalk, the emcee bellowed over the PA that someone’s iPhone was turned in, sunglasses got crushed on the sand, people dribbled hot chocolate on their bare bellys like infants. It’s a spectacle and more fun than a Whole Foods run on New Year’s Eve. There is an energy in the air. I don’t know if it’s the 34 degree temperature or the slightly warmer 41 degree ocean that does it, but it’s contagious.
Afterwards I was excited to check out the new Grimaldi’s on Surf Avenue (Packed!) It was pretty cool to see the businesses thriving along Surf Avenue post Hurricane Sandy, even if one was an Applebee’s and even if I was going to leave without my Grimaldi’s fix.
I steered my brood back to the F train and made due with Park Slope’s good ol’ Smiling Pizza. Maybe next year will be the year I finally plunge, or at least the year I get a table at Grimaldi’s.
-->
