Jacob Riis Bathhouse

The Jacob Riis Bathhouse, fronting a beach also named for the Gilded Age reformer, is a puzzling example of recreation architecture. It’s almost, but not quite, beautiful. Walking up from the beach, it often seems to me like the Wizard of Oz has landed in Queens, albeit stripped of its many emeralds. This artifact of the Robert Moses era, designed by John L. Plock, completed in 1932 with many alterations made during the ’30s, is an un-self-consciously strange mixture of Neo-Moorish arches and Art Moderne styling. Moses’s aesthetically blunt involvement is obvious–the broad concrete façade is better suited to a mid-century airport. He even burdened the once-delicate towers with a strangling turtleneck of unadorned brick. Decades of neglect have been reversed, and today the conspicuous building has become something of a destination in and of itself. So much so that through October, you can rent a tent for the night from Camp Rockaway, stare up at those heavy bricks, and fall asleep to the sound of ocean waves.