Adaptive Use Design Study: Jacob Riis Bathhouse
Beyer Blinder Belle, Architects & Planners. 1984. Adaptive Use Design Study: Jacob Riis Bathhouse. Historic Structure Report. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Denver Service Center, Denver, Colorado
Jacob Riis Park, located near the western end of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens County, New York, is historically significant as a relatively unaltered example of a publicly-planned and designed municipal bathing beach in the 1930s. Named after Jacob A. Riis, a journalist and social reformer who did much to alleviate the plight of the New York City slums, the park was established to provide an inner-city beach and other non-commercial recreational facilities for the residents of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. The bath house is the most important historic structure in the park and is an excellent example of beachfront recreational architecture of the early twentieth century. Given the parameters of the Jacob Riis Project–i.e., that the NPS cannot independently finance its rehabilitation and on-going operation–it seems clear that any adaptive use study must offer potential concessionaires scenarios for a range of uses which might be economically feasible. This Adaptive Use Design Studies presents four potential design schemes for adaptive use for the Jacob Riis Bathhouse.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Beyer Blinder Belle, Architects & Planners
- Date of Issue
- 1984-04-15
- Publisher
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- GATE , SER
- Keywords
- adaptive design, bath house, bathing beach, golf course, Historic Resources, Historic Sites, Historical, History, Jacob Riis, Jacob Riis Park, recreation, Structures
- Subjects
- CRIS-HS: 008425: Jacob Riis Park - Bathhouse - Entrance Pavilion