As pop icons, L Streeters mark 100 years of cold swims

"Elvis" stripped off his blue stage suit and dived into the gray choppy water off South Boston yesterday morning. "Superman" chickened out and got in only up to his shins. Nearby, an elf stayed submerged, Houdini-like, for more than a minute in the 36-degree water.

In 1904, when a small but dedicated group of South Bostonians called the L Street Brownies began an annual New Year's Day swim to invigorate the body and soul, few could have imagined its centennial or that a scene such as the one yesterday would mark it.

More than 500 people, many of them wearing costumes of their favorite pop-culture icon, rushed the water as if it were a stage at a rock concert. There were dozens of children. A bagpiper band. Two Santa Clauses and one green frog. Even a baritone trumpet.

Most of all, there were squeals, yelps, and howls, as winter water met warm skin.

"I like it, because you get cold," said Danielle DiDiego, 11, of Arlington, as she prepared to jump into the water behind the Curley Recreation Center, better known to locals as the L Street Bathhouse. "And you have a reason to cry if you lose your towel."

Once on shore, though, the weather was an almost balmy 40 degrees, compared with subfreezing temperatures swimmers had to brave other years. Some bathers didn't don towels, because they said the air felt warmer than the water.

L Street Brownies -- so named because they develop a golden bronze from tanning year-round, often in a dugout behind the bathhouse -- call themselves world famous. They are believed to be the country's oldest winter-bathing club. Residents began dipping into the winter water, sometimes hacking through shore ice to do so, in 1865.

Some Brownies believe the 100th anniversary occurred two years ago, because the L Street Brownies formally incorporated in 1902, but the oldest photo anyone can find of the New Year's Day swim is dated 1904.

Still, yesterday's celebration was good timing: It also kicked off South Boston's 200th anniversary, a year that will be marked with more than a dozen events. In all, about 1,000 spectators attended the swim, organizers estimated, and it drew one of the biggest swimming groups ever.

"I tell you I think we have six heats of swimmers; they keep coming," said Jack Dever, the president of L Street Brownies, as he watched wave after wave of latecomers stream down the beach, stop briefly at the shore, square their shoulders, and jump in. "It's wonderful. Everyone is invited."

There were swimmers yesterday from as far away as Ireland and Cape Verde, and quite a few from elsewhere in Massachusetts. Devers is part of a local group of about 75 men and women who regularly go in the water, 12 months a year.

The reason has its roots in European tradition, where a dip in cold water followed by a sauna or steam bath was believed to build up the immune system and chase away illness.

The group customarily dips in two to five times a week in the winter, sometimes in groups, sometimes individually. No one is in the water for long, because hypothermia is a danger. Afterward, swimmers head to the bathhouse for some sauna heat.

While little hard evidence exists to show that this regimen achieves its purported goals, many Brownies declare they are rarely sick.

"We just really believe in the health benefits," Dever said.

Yesterday, most of the swimmers warmed up not by sauna but by jumping up and down and wrapping themselves in towels.

"Brisk," said Patsy Chappell of Cambridge, describing the water after her dip. Chappell was making her debut swim and jumped in the water along with a large contingent of family and friends, including grandchildren.

Feet seemed to suffer the greatest freeze among yesterday's crowd, in large part because swimmers tended to linger, nervous, on the water's edge with their feet submerged for far longer than their bodies were.

"It's fun," said Mike Cofsky of Stoughton who took the dip with his son for the second year. But "It's seriously freezing."

The cold water may have contributed to the death of one swimmer this week. A 54-year-old unidentified man collapsed Monday after taking a dip at Carson Beach.

Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.