She’s been swimming against the tide her whole life — and she’s not stopping now.
The Big Apple’s first female chief lifeguard is calling on the city to do more to keep beachgoers safe — claiming it’s done a “poor job” interpreting a local law designed to prevent drownings.
Janet Fash, who started out helping to protect Rockaway Beach in 1979 and continued for 40 years, told The Post that for too long, the city has focused its lifeguards on patrolling only certain areas rather than spreading them out and opening more beaches.
“New York City still hasn’t figured that out, and you know what, it’s not like they haven’t been told,” Fash, 66, recently said by phone from her home in the Rockaways. Under city law, at least one lifeguard is required to be present for “continuous visual surveillance for reach 50 yards of beachfront or fraction thereof” — meaning there must be one lifeguard for every 50 yards of beach open for swimming or bathing.said the city has done “poor job” of following the law by unnecessarily doubling or tripling up lifeguards in certain areas, leaving other beaches closed.
That means certain stretches get overpopulated and that some beachgoers are then more apt seek out less used spots, even if it means swimming unsupervised.
“New York City has really done a poor job of interpreting that law,” Fash said. “They’ll put the lifeguards even on rock jetties, on a chair, while the next 10 beaches, closed, creating drowning opportunities. ” Eight people drowned at city beaches in 2024, according to the most recent data available.
That was the highest number in five years, officials‘Something almost enchanting happens when New Yorkers get to Rockaway’ In “Lifeguard,” Fash — who started out at 19 stationed at the city’s most dangerous beach — starts out her ode to the Rockaways as a toast to the ’70s and ’80s before it breaks into a more serious story: shocking allegations of sex abuse and abuse of power — and a lifelong New Yorker’s quest to stop it.
“I worked Beach 97 — lots of rescues, and we were calling ourselves the ‘Lifegods,’ not the ‘Lifeguards,’ because we were worried about drownings,” said Fash, who writes in her memoir that she could sometimes have three rescues before noon. “Lifeguards would spend the day out on the beach pulling people out of the water, then spend the night throwing the craziest parties. They even had a name for them: Caveman Conventions,” Fash writes.
“Shacks, of which there were nine along the peninsula, would compete to outdo each other, lighting bonfires on the beach, supplying endless kegs, and inviting live bands. ”Fash later became a whistle-blower exposing serious issues within the system, which have included alleged sexual harassment and abuse. Waves of lifeguards quit because of politics during her 40-year tenure, but Fash said she stayed since it was her calling to “make a change” — even if she was punished for speaking out.
“They were taking manpower from me and over-deploying in other sections of the beach,” Fash said. “Some sections would have six, seven lifeguards per chair while I would have five to split three chairs. Tips for enjoying the beach this summerHere are a few safety tips she shared for beachgoers to consider when they head out to the city’s beaches this summer. Always swim at a lifeguard-protected beach.
If you feel the pull of a tide, see if you can stand up: “Stand up first, and then if you can’t, float on your back,” she said. Hydrate. Skip the beer, and bring water to the beach.
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