Going Coastal

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

With the opening of a beach at 67th Street at Rockaway Beach in Queens yesterday, surfers have an alternative to a beach at 90th Street.

New York City surfers put up with more than their share of indignities, from flat water and floating trash to seemingly unending rides on the A train, subway passengers jostling their surfboards along the way.

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

With city surfing on the rise, officials opened a second surfers-only spot Friday at Beach 67th Street at Rockaway Beach in Queens. The first, at Beach 90th Street, was such a hit that it became crowded.

But yesterday, the parks department made life a little easier for city surfers when it opened New York’s second surf-only beach, two years after opening the first, 20 or so blocks up the boardwalk in the Rockaways.

Surfers say the waves at the beach, at 67th Street, are not nearly as good as those at the surfing beach at 90th Street — where the swells are not particularly consistent either. But they’ll take what they can get.

“It’s New York City,” said Rob Press, 23. “On a good day, it doesn’t break too bad.”

The scene yesterday at the shoreline at Beach 67th Street might have been disconsolate for a surfer: swells no higher than three feet, onshore winds from the southeast making the modest waves choppy and practically impossible for a sustained ride and the prospect of an early high tide that promised to make conditions even sloppier than usual.

But the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, the water was warm and New York City surfers are valiant.

“It’s sloppy, pretty lackluster, considering the event,” said Aaron Mindel, 30, an emergency medical technician. “It’s going to reinforce the image of surfing in New York: that you can’t surf here, that there’s no surf and the people who surf here are crazy.”

Until 2005, surfing was technically illegal in the city because of a Catch-22 that barred surfers from beaches that had lifeguards on duty because of the danger to swimmers. On the other hand, state law prohibited anyone, surfers included, from going into the water without lifeguards.

For years, surfers took to the waves — such as they were — clandestinely. Most of the time however, sympathetic lifeguards pretended not to notice the surfers in their midst, as long as they did not get too close to swimmers.

The practice was illegal, but on many summer mornings in the past decade, dozens of wet suit-clad surfers straddled their boards and peered wistfully behind them in the hope that even a mediocre set of swells would materialize.

Then two years ago, Queens lawmakers were finally able to persuade the State Legislature to change a provision of the state health code dating to 1850 that prohibited people from swimming without a lifeguard.

Since then, interest in surfing in the city has increased. On afternoons when waves are breaking at Beach 90th Street, as many as 40 surfers are in the line-up, awaiting their turn. Surfers say that in the four-block beach area, as many as 140 surfers can be in the water at one time, which has led to overcrowding and the occasional fistfight.

That popularity, said Warner Johnston, a parks department spokesman, led the city to decide to make the beach from 67th to 69th streets open to surfers only as well.

“The surf community has loved the first surf beach,” Mr. Johnston said. “The location and the sport has continually increased in popularity. And yes, the site has become more crowded, especially on the weekends, which was a catalyst for opening the second surf beach.”

For now, the beach at Beach 67th Street lacks direct access to the water via the street because of housing construction in the area, though Mr. Johnston said a road would eventually be built. To get there now, surfers with cars must carry their boards several blocks from the nearest parking place.

While surfers who drive might have a difficult time finding parking, subway riders can take the A train all the way to the Beach 67th Street station, though they must transfer to a shuttle train to get to the 90th Street station.

Will Halett, 46, a pharmacist, whose nose was bandaged after recent skin cancer surgery, could not go into the water yesterday, but looked on longingly. He said that on some days, the surfing in the Rockaways is as fine as just about anywhere.

“You can have swells to double over head,” he said in describing a good wave, but then admitted, “but most often, we’re looking at waist-high waves.”

Ann Farmer contributed reporting.

NY Times