The New York metropolitan area has one nude beach, and it is in New Jersey. Gunnison Beach at Sandy Hook, on federal land in Gateway National Recreation Area, has been clothing-optional by tolerance for decades and is the largest nude beach on the East Coast north of Florida. New York State's own beaches are top-free for women by court ruling but not nude, and the two historic New York nude beaches, Riis Park and Fire Island's Lighthouse Beach, were closed to nudity in 1983 and 2013.
Gunnison Beach, Sandy Hook, New Jersey
Sandy Hook is the seven-mile spit at the top of the Jersey Shore, a unit of Gateway National Recreation Area run by the National Park Service. Gunnison is Area G, near the northern end, and the park's own page says it plainly: "Gunnison Beach is a clothing optional beach." The regulatory wording behind that is more careful. The park's compendium says a portion of Area G (South Gunnison) is used by visitors as a clothing-optional area; while the area is not designated as clothing optional, there is no prohibition against the activity, and the park acknowledges the popularity and history of the use. Nudity outside the traditional area may be treated as disorderly conduct under 36 CFR 2.34. That is as close to legal as a nude beach gets on federal land, and it is why Gunnison draws thousands on a summer Saturday.
- Getting there. Drive in through Highlands or take the seasonal ferry from Manhattan to Fort Hancock and walk or cycle. Lot G is the Gunnison lot; the trail at the east end of the lot leads to the beach plaza.
- Fees. No entry fee. Parking is charged Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, 8 am to 6 pm; the charge is per vehicle, and season passes exist. Check the park's fee page or the beach's listing for the current rate.
- Facilities. Restrooms, showers and drinking water in peak season; a changing station and bike racks. No lifeguards at Gunnison itself; Areas C, D and E are guarded 10 am to 6 pm in summer.
- Rules. No alcohol anywhere on Sandy Hook, no glass, no pets on ocean beaches from March 15 to September 15, canopies only in specified areas and never enclosed.
The crowd is the most diverse of any nude beach in the country, and the park's tolerance depends on that crowd behaving. Photography is the fastest way to be reported, and the regulars report it. The etiquette guide is written with Gunnison in mind.
New Jersey law
Gunnison works because Sandy Hook is federal. On New Jersey's own beaches nudity falls under the state's lewdness statute and under municipal ordinances, which every shore town has, and there is no tolerated nude beach anywhere else on the coast. New Jersey also has no Santorelli-style ruling on toplessness, so the top-free freedom you have across the Hudson stops at the state line.
Lighthouse Beach, Fire Island, New York
Lighthouse Beach, the stretch of Fire Island National Seashore just east of Robert Moses State Park and the lighthouse, was New York's nude beach for forty years. The National Park Service had never enforced the state's exposure law there, but after Hurricane Sandy flattened the dunes that had screened the beach in 2012, complaints rose, and on February 5, 2013 the seashore announced it would begin enforcing New York Penal Law 245.01 on all federal beaches, Lighthouse Beach included. The park cited crowding, a lack of restrooms and trash facilities, the absence of lifeguards and a rise in complaints and crime. The notice applied only to federal land, left topless sunbathing permitted, and threatened citations of up to $5,000 and six months. Enforcement has been uneven since, and nude use continues quietly east of the lighthouse, but it is unlawful and the park does cite. Treat Lighthouse Beach as a top-free beach with a history.
Riis Park and Jones Beach
Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways, Queens, had a clothing-optional east end, Bay 1, from the 1960s, used first by the gay community and then by naturists and families. When the park joined Gateway in 1974 the Park Police tolerated it, a city bill to ban nude bathing was introduced the same summer, and a state law banning bottomlessness took effect on July 3, 1983, which ended it. Riis remains a popular top-free beach and nudity there is cited today.
Jones Beach, the great Robert Moses state park on Long Island's south shore, was never a nude beach and has no tolerated section; it appears on nude beach lists because people confuse it with Lighthouse Beach a few miles east. It is a textile beach where New York's top-free rule applies, and that is all.
New York's top-free law
Penal Law 245.01 defines exposure for women to include the breast below the top of the areola, but in People v. Santorelli (1992) the Court of Appeals dismissed charges against women who had removed their shirts in Rochester's Cobbs Hill Park in a 1986 protest, holding that the statute does not reach non-commercial, non-lewd exposure. Since then women have been able to go bare-chested anywhere in New York that men can, including New York City beaches and parks, though the statute lets localities adopt their own rules and police have at times ignored the ruling. For the national picture, including the circuit split that leaves New Jersey, Maryland and Illinois on the other side, see our guide to US nudity law.
Where to go instead
With one beach for twenty million people, New York and New Jersey naturism happens mostly at clubs: the New York resorts and New Jersey resorts in the directory include some of the oldest in the country, and our first-visit guide explains day passes. For the beach, the New Jersey beach listings carry Gunnison's parking and ferry updates and the New York beach listings track enforcement on Fire Island. New York City members and New Jersey members organize Gunnison days through the groups all summer.