Cold-water swimmers rush out of the Atlantic Ocean during the annual New Year's Day swim of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club. (AP Photo / January 1, 2003)
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NEW YORK - For the libertine, New Year's Day is for recovering from the staggering hangover. For the Polar Bear, it's for invigorating the soul.
So while many of us will linger in bed, members of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club will dive headlong into the chilly waters of the Atlantic Ocean, celebrating an annual tradition that dates back 100 years.
"Only in Coney Island would you meet a group of people like this," said John D'Aquino, a Manhattan sound engineer who joined the club 4{ years ago.
And a disparate group they are _ from computer animators to postal workers, all linked by the singular belief that swimming in frigid water is good for one's health.
"We have no scientific evidence to back this up; it's all anecdotal, of course," said Ken Krisses, the club's president for the past 15 years. "But we don't ever get sick."
Dennis Thomas, a computer animator from Brooklyn, praises the virtues of clearing one's head. "It's not about jobs, sex or money _ it's so detached from everyday life."
The New Year's dip is the club's premier event, drawing more than 100 swimmers. But every Sunday from late November to late April, 20 to 25 Polar Bears trundle down to the sands of Coney Island and after a round of calisthenics to get the blood flowing, splash around in the frigid water.
"The best time of the year is the end of February, when the water is the coldest," said Krisses, a Long Island electrical engineer.
How cold?
"About 30 degrees. You can't really stay in that long, but I can only describe it as sensory overload," he said, standing last Sunday in nothing but his dripping wet swim trunks on the wind-swept beach.
"I like to air dry," he said.
The Coney Island Polar Bear Club was founded in 1903 by Bernarr MacFadden, a flamboyant entrepreneur who became well-known for railing against prudery and promoting the virtues of bodybuilding and physical fitness, especially among women.
Now, 100 years later, the club is still going strong, with about 50 dedicated members, about 20 percent of whom are women. The New Year's swim draws nearly all the members, plus a good number of first- and, perhaps, only-timers.
Each member was drawn to the club for a different reason.
"I was walking around one winter and I saw all these old-timers in bathing suits lifting stones and swimming and I thought 'I've got to try this someday,"' said Thomas, who joined 17 years ago.
"This is my winter excitement," said Bill Guernsey, a postal worker who commutes from Milford, Conn., every Sunday. "In the summer I do extreme things like riding roller coasters. Thrills, spills, that kind of thing."
"I never liked to wear a hat in wintertime, so my parents always said I should join the Polar Bears. Go figure," Krisses said.
The reasons for the attraction may vary, but the love of the water is the common denominator.
"It's really a group of oddballs who maybe have only one thing in common," Thomas said while eating a post-dip hot-dog at Nathan's Famous. "It's not a competitive thing; it's not about who can stay in the water the longest. It's about drawing some energy out of this, and that's what ties us all together."
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On the Net:
The Coney Island Polar Bear Club: http://www.winterbathers.com
Biography on MacFadden: http://www.riverflow.com/macfadden/index2.html
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