Bathing Party
William P. Chappel American
Not on view
These swimmers are likely cooling off at a sandy beach known as Dandy Point, north of the shipyards where Thirteenth Street met the East River. Comments about urban swimming in this period often refer to rowdy groups of naked male youths, but Chappel illustrates what one historian later described as mixed groups—"the men at one spot the women at another, chang[ing] good garments for old ones." Still, some boys must have indeed been raucous, as the council passed a law in 1803 outlawing "the practice of swimming or playing and sporting in the water . . . between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m." on Sundays.
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