She’s been swimming against the tide her whole life — and she’s not stopping now.
The Big Apple’s first female chief lifeguard is calling on the city to do more to keep beachgoers safe — claiming it’s done a “poor job” interpreting a local law designed to prevent drownings.
Janet Fash, who started out helping to protect Rockaway Beach in 1979 and continued for 40 years, told The Post that for too long, the city has focused its lifeguards on patrolling only certain areas rather than spreading them out and opening more beaches.
“New York City still hasn’t figured that out, and you know what, it’s not like they haven’t been told,” Fash, 66, recently said by phone from her home in the Rockaways.
Under city law, at least one lifeguard is required to be present for “continuous visual surveillance for reach 50 yards of beachfront or fraction thereof” — meaning there must be one lifeguard for every 50 yards of beach open for swimming or bathing.
Fash, the author of a new memoir “Lifeguard: A Love Story,” said the city has done “poor job” of following the law by unnecessarily doubling or tripling up lifeguards in certain areas, leaving other beaches closed.
That means certain stretches get overpopulated and that some beachgoers are then more apt seek out less used spots, even if it means swimming unsupervised.
“New York City has really done a poor job of interpreting that law,” Fash said. “They’ll put the lifeguards even on rock jetties, on a chair, while the next [section over, involving] 10 beaches, [is] closed, creating drowning opportunities.”
Eight people drowned at city beaches in 2024, according to the most recent data available. That was the highest number in five years, officials said during that time.
The city Parks Department did not respond to a Post request for comment.
‘Something almost enchanting happens when New Yorkers get to Rockaway’
In “Lifeguard,” Fash — who started out at 19 stationed at the city’s most dangerous beach — starts out her ode to the Rockaways as a toast to the ’70s and ’80s before it breaks into a more serious story: shocking allegations of sex abuse and abuse of power — and a lifelong New Yorker’s quest to stop it.
“I worked Beach 97 — lots of rescues, and we were calling ourselves the ‘Lifegods,’ not the ‘Lifeguards,’ because we were worried about drownings,” said Fash, who writes in her memoir that she could sometimes have three rescues before noon.
The book, which is co-written by Clio Chang, also gives a sneak look inside a lifeguard shack.
“Lifeguards would spend the day out on the beach pulling people out of the water, then spend the night throwing the craziest parties. They even had a name for them: Caveman Conventions,” Fash writes.
“Shacks, of which there were nine along the peninsula, would compete to outdo each other, lighting bonfires on the beach, supplying endless kegs, and inviting live bands.”
Fash later became a whistle-blower exposing serious issues within the system, which have included alleged sexual harassment and abuse.
In the book, she also shares her experience with disgraced former chief city lifeguard Peter Stein, who controlled the Big Apple’s lifeguards for decades before retiring in 2025, just as a disciplinary trial into his wrongdoings was set to begin.
Waves of lifeguards quit because of politics during her 40-year tenure, but Fash said she stayed since it was her calling to “make a change” — even if she was punished for speaking out.
“They were taking manpower from me and over-deploying in other sections of the beach,” Fash said. “Some sections would have six, seven lifeguards per chair while I would have five to split three chairs.
“It was really stressful, and you know, my lifeguards were under duress.”
Tips for enjoying the beach this summer
Even in retirement, Fash still thinks about safety.
Here are a few safety tips she shared for beachgoers to consider when they head out to the city’s beaches this summer.
- Ask a lifeguard what the conditions of the water are before jumping in to swim.
- Be aware of high tide and low tide.
- Always swim at a lifeguard-protected beach.
- If you feel the pull of a tide, see if you can stand up: “Stand up first, and then if you can’t, float on your back,” she said.
- “If you are not a swimmer, don’t be the hero.”
- Hydrate. Skip the beer, and bring water to the beach.
