Imagine an urban beach club spread across 15 acres, with country club amenities like swimming pools, tennis courts, and live music and dancing—all accessible via the D train.
That was the Brighton Beach Baths and Racquet Club, known simply as the Baths.
This “subway Riviera” on Coney Island Avenue opened in 1907, when dozens of beach clubs lent an air of exclusivity to the public beaches from Brighton Beach to Coney Island. (Below, in 1920)
You could say the Baths really had its heyday from the 1930s and 1960s, when the handball courts hosted national champions and Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman entertained the crowd.
In the 1960s, a record 16,000 members played mah-jongg and rummy and heard Borscht Belt comedians yuk it up on stage.
As postwar Brooklyn changed, other beach clubs disappeared. Soon the Baths was the only one left—catering to a loyal community of Jewish Brooklynites who didn’t decamp for the suburbs or Florida.
What a scene this “happy anachronism” was, as the New York Times put it in a 1984 article.
“Enjoying the tennis, paddle-ball and handball courts, swimming pools, areas for canasta, pinochle and penny ante, a miniature golf course and an outdoor tent that is a regular summer performance stop for such Borscht Belt comics as Myron Cohen, Henny Youngman, Red Buttons and Pat Cooper, is a membership seemingly composed of about 5,000 comedians, all of them indefatigable exponents of the one-liner,” the Times noted.
“Some 20 years after this world of sports, card-playing, dancing, eating, social badinage and variants of courtship was supposed to have been replaced by high-rise apartment houses, it is still flourishing, with more than 10,000 members and a $175 fee for a 10 month season,” an earlier Times story in 1976 stated.
With the annual fee climbing past $700 and not many old-timers remaining in a neighborhood now populated by Russian immigrants, the Baths shut down in the late 1990s. (Above, the crowd in 1983)
Like Mrs. Stahl’s Knishes and the Oceana movie theater, the world of the Baths disappeared—replaced by a pricey condo community called Oceana that now commands the same beachfront real estate.
[Top photo: screen grab from “Brighton Beach Baths #1”; second photo: MCNY, 1920, 2001.35.1.235; third photo: Brooklyn Public Library, 1987; fourth photo: New York Daily News 1983; fifth photo: Getty Images]
Tags: Brighton Beach Baths, Brighton Beach Baths and Racquet Club, Brighton Beach Brooklyn, Brighton Beach Resorts Brooklyn, Coney Island Avenue Brooklyn, Summer Brighton Beach Brooklyn
Ephemeral New York 
May 27, 2019 at 2:48 pm |
My nana called it Brighton Private
June 11, 2019 at 2:58 pm |
Me too!!!!!
June 11, 2019 at 2:59 pm |
Me too!!!!
June 22, 2019 at 12:40 pm |
we called it brighton private also.
never had the money as a teenager to join so i would go to the apartment next store ,thru the lobby out the other side & climb over the fence.
tom w.
July 12, 2020 at 3:43 am |
Funny you admit that. I used to put vo5 hair gel on the back of my hand and go thru the beach door where you would put your hand under the black light. It lit up and I got in everyday.vi was 12.
September 8, 2020 at 4:46 pm |
I never knew anyone that could afford it — but I got my first lifeguard job there. I remember all the conversations about Blacklight fraud. As a lifeguard, we all agreed to look the other way…
Tommy – you should admit it, a good fence hop is a badge of honor.
September 22, 2021 at 10:47 pm |
The best second home there was. Never will there ever be a place like BBB. Will always remember the great times and memories.
October 4, 2021 at 4:57 pm |
I played paddle tennis for years there in the 60s and early 70s. My Dad was Big Max Gershon who helped run the weekend tournaments.
January 3, 2022 at 7:23 pm |
Not to mention, a great Social Studies teacher.
September 29, 2022 at 10:02 pm |
We called it Brighton Private too and couldn’t afford it either (lived on East 10th and Ave M) but my Aunt Ida and Uncle Hy from Brighton 7th Street “lived there.” Bob
May 22, 2023 at 6:11 pm |
Yes it was Brighton Private and what a wonderful thriving area it was! Across the street was Mrs Stahls knishes, (the best cherry cheese knish anywhere), Diamonds store (of Neil Diamond fame) was down the block, Israel’s kosher food and Royal pizza were a few blocks away, Brighton Beach Bay 1 where everyone hung out at night.
August 7, 2023 at 6:18 am |
My best summer memories with my Grandpa Herbie. As a 6 year old I had a lot of freedom. The pool and the paddle ball and watching my Grandma play cards with my aunt Sadie for hours. She would give me 50 cents to buy some candy and her Kent cigarettes which were 35 cents! Oy.