The arrival of June means a few things on the beach: the weather finally starts feeling like summer, our numbers start increasing, and of course, senior skip day.
Almost every weekday in June, flocks of NYC high school seniors take over stretches of Rockaway Beach, armed with only towels, alcohol, and aggressively loud speakers.
It’s still early, so the crowds have been lighter. Between 50-degree water and 20 mph winds, most people are sticking to the sand. On the chair, we’ve spent most afternoons bundled up in orange layers of parkas, hoodies, and sweatpants like it’s October, not June.
But this weekend, it looks like we might have a taste of real summer. The forecast predicts nearly 80-degree temperatures on Friday and Saturday, high 70s on Thursday, and public schools are off Thursday and Friday. A hot four-day weekend is sure to bring crowds down to Rockaway.
The first hot weekend means it’s just about time to take out our ropes and poles on Beach 97th Street to block off the areas around our chairs. Even without a real hot day yet, we’ve already seen what happens when the ropes aren’t up.
Just this Tuesday, a man walked right up to my chair without saying anything and began tying his dog’s leash to the chair. When I told him he couldn’t just leave his dog tied there, he looked genuinely baffled, as if I’d just volunteered to watch it and then backed out.
This guy was actually the second person this week to attempt to make lifeguards dogsitters. And of course, we also had countless people trying to set up their towels to sit right in front of our buoys, plenty of kids trying to make the chair their jungle gym, and entire families sitting literally inches from the chair. Personal space is a true novelty here. Sometimes I’m not sure if people know there’s a person in the chair, or if they think there’s just an orange mannequin with a whistle up there.
Juneteenth is right around the corner now, which is usually one of our busiest beach days. It falls on a Friday this year, which could mean an extra crowded day and I assume the party will carry over into Saturday. With the Fourth of July falling on a Saturday (and observed Friday), we’re basically looking at two back-to-back holiday weekends. On top of the holiday weekends, this summer is actually longer than usual. Memorial Day fell as early as it can, and Labor Day as late as it can, giving us the longest stretch of summer possible.
So if the beach feels quiet now, enjoy it. It won’t last long.
Photo by Katie McFadden.
