In hot pursuit of New Year’s chill
Despite icy water, hundreds take the harbor plunge
The gorilla suit Jeb Banks was wearing felt as heavy as chain mail when he donned the costume - but the full weight of his decision to go incognito was only fully realized as he plunged into the icy Atlantic waters with hundreds of others for Boston’s annual New Year’s Day dip into Boston Harbor.
“I almost drowned,’’ the South Boston resident, who has done the L Street Brownies’ swim for almost a decade, said yesterday morning as he thawed out in a white bathrobe at Woody’s L Street Tavern. “It was warm outside, but the water was cool.’’
Fred Ahern, director of the Curley Community Center, estimated that about 700 swimmers braved the waters, as another 1,300 watched. “The L Street Brownies are like Red Sox Nation - it’s a state of mind,’’ Ahern said, noting that each year, more and more young people, many from South Boston, join in the tradition that the Brownies have kept going for more than a century.
“It gets better and better every year,’’ said former mayor Raymond L. Flynn, who did not venture into the water this year but has fond memories of going in when he was young.
“We all grew up in this tradition. You meet people, it’s healthy, it’s fun, and it does a lot of good for charity,’’ he said.
Banks said the anticipation is often worse than the actual plunge. “Getting out of bed in the morning is the worst part,’’ he said.
But first-timer Nick Jaworek, 30, of Marlborough, found the water numbing, particularly to his feet. “I thought I would be able to maneuver in the water, but the sensation of pain I felt told me to get out,’’ he said, adding, “It’s a New Year’s cleansing.’’
His wife Renee, 27, who watched from the shore, keeping whiskey in hand, said they had heard the swim started at 11 a.m., but while en route, they heard on the radio that it actually started at 10, so they arrived just in time to use the Curley Community Center, formerly known as the L Street Bathhouse, before it closed at 11 a.m.
There was some confusion this year about the start time - with many arriving an hour after the official plunge.
Among them was Janice McDonald of Hyde Park, who was wearing a Santa hat. She said that the start varies from year-to-year, depending on the tides, and that she missed the camaraderie of the bathhouse changing rooms. “We had to be rogues this year,’’ she said.
Attending at least one New Year’s Eve house party in South Boston came with a stipulation: that attendees make the plunge the next morning “Everyone peer-pressured me in,’’ said Laura Delorenzo, 27, of Manhattan, standing amid her group of friends - only one of whom did not muster the courage to head into the water.
While the annual swim raises money for the South Boston Sports Hall of Fame Scholarship Fund, the tavern was using it as a way to raise research funds for scleroderma, a connective tissue disease that owners say has affected a number of people in the neighborhood.
At noon, the bar was packed wall-to-wall with patrons, many of them with hair still drying out.
“It’s like last call,’’ Susan Woods, L Street Tavern owner, said of the New Year’s Day crowd.
Banks and his friends said they planned to stay until last night’s last call.
