By Andrew Hackmack
Due to cutbacks, the East Bathhouse will be closed, while the more popular West Bathhouse will remain open.
The park’s West End II beach will also be closed for the season. The Zach's Bay swimming area will open on Memorial Day weekend, but will not open again until June 27 and will close on Aug. 16 -- three weeks earlier than the rest of the park. Finally, the Field 1 beach will be open only on the Memorial Day, July Fourth and Labor Day weekends.
John Kowalchyk, deputy regional director of the Long Island state parks region, said the reductions are expected to save about $480,000, and emphasized that cuts were made to facilities that were less utilized.
The East Bathhouse pool typically draws 10,000 to 13,000 people over the course of a summer, Kowalchyk said. "Relative to everything else that goes on at Jones Beach, it's relatively low use," he said.
The West Bathhouse, in contrast, has more than 60,000 visitors each summer.
Ed Fare of Valley Stream, the pool manager at the West Bathhouse, said it is by far the more popular of the two destinations. He noted that the west complex is the first stop for the buses that bring patrons to the park and, as the older of the two facilities, is better known.
Fare added that he doesn't expect the closure to affect the crowd at the West Bathhouse pool during the week, but it could force it to restrict entry earlier on weekend days. The pool typically reaches its capacity by about 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, Fare said, predicting that this year, the cutoff will be closer to noon.
Kowalchyk said that the majority of weekday East Bathhouse users have been visitors from summer camps, and noted that they would not be shut out. "The opportunity still exists for them to utilize the West Bathhouse," he said.
The price of daily admission at the pool will rise to $3 for adults, but will remain $1 for children, Kowalchyk said.
Jones Beach brings in about $7.77 million in revenue each year. Kowalchyk said that only a fraction of that — less than $30,000 — is fees at the East Bathhouse pool.
Jones Beach is the second-highest-grossing state park on Long Island behind Bethpage, which brings in about $10.3 million annually.
Five other state parks on Long Island — Caleb Smith in Smithtown, Caumsett in Huntington, Hempstead Lake in Rockville Centre, Heckscher in East Islip and Robert Moses in Babylon — will also be impacted by service cuts.
Across the state, more than 100 parks face reductions, but none will be closed entirely. “State Parks, like all state agencies, is responding to the current economic realities," parks Commissioner Carol Ash said in a statement. "We have been charged with making many difficult decisions. By concentrating the changes to the shoulder seasons, off-peak hours or facilities where similar services are available nearby, we hope to minimize the impact on our patrons."
