Gilgo Beach, located in Babylon, Long Island, is a small town with a rich surf history dating back to the 1930s. Its unique name is said to come from the people in the area wanting to go to the fishing spots that a fisherman named Gil would use: “Where Gil goes,” which over time became Gilgo.
The Origins of Surfing in Gilgo Beach
The East Coast Surfing Championships
In the summer 1934, Tom Blake, a Wisconsin born surfer, visited Jones Beach and shared his latest and greatest hollow surfboard designs and spent time out in the lineup with locals and lifeguards, and the sport of surfing began to pick up speed in Long Island. Still, it was slow-growing in New York and took time to really catch on.
In 1959, Long Island native John Hanon began selling surfboards out of his garage, and opened a surf shop near Gilgo the following year. In the summer of 1961, the first (unofficial, albeit) surf contest in Gilgo Beach took place.
A group of teenagers, including John Hanon, returned home from California and Hawaii with brand new surfboards and hosted a private surf party in Gilgo Beach that included an impromptu surf competition.
A year later, John Hanon organized the second version of the competition, dubbing it the East Coast Surfing Championships. It took place on September 8, 1962, and locals George Fisher and Donna Snodgrass won their respective divisions.
As per the New York Daily News, “Five thousand spectators lined Babylon Town’s Gilgo Beach as 175 men, women and junior surfboarders rode the waves like Hawaiians.”
While the East Coast Surfing Championships would move to Virginia Beach in following years, the Gilgo contest would continue on as the Gilgo Beach Surfing Championships.
Bunger Surfboards
In 1961, 20 year old Charlie Bunger started shaping surfboards, merely as a hobby, for neighborhood kids. The result was Bunger Surfboards, arguably the most famous East coast board shaping business in the game.
Within just a few years, Bunger was cranking out 1,500 boards a season. Bunger Surf Shop is still up and running today, and still shaping beautiful boards nearly 80 years later.
Back in the 60s, Eric Eastman, Bob Hawkins, George Fisher, Rollie Eisenberg, Hank Heckel, and Jim Hanley rode for Bunger, and in the 70s, Ricky Rasmussen was a Bunger surf team member. He won the 1973 East Coast Championships (juniors division) and the 1974 U.S. Surfing Championships (men’s division).
Bunger Surf Shop is still up and running today, with no change in ownership. Although Charlie passed away at the age of 77 in 2018, his legacy is lived on through his son Tommy, who has taken over his board shaping business, and through the rest of his family, who run the 4,000-square-foot Bunger Surf Shop in Babylon, which is the oldest surf shop of its kind to still operate from its original location.
The No Surf Summer
In 1986, town supervisor Anthony Noto announced a complete surfing ban in Cedar and Gilgo Beaches, due to an insurance liability crisis.
It was like making dancing and rock ‘n’ roll music illegal in a midwestern town: the surfing ban was the Footloose story of Gilgo Beach. Well, except for the fact that Kevin Bacon wasn’t there.
Fortunately, Eric Eastman was. Eastman, along with 200 other passionate Long Island surfers, attended many public hearings to stop the ban. Eastman “contended that ‘surfing is a basic freedom.’
And P. Kevin Brosnahan, an attorney representing the Eastern Surfing Association, accused the Babylon Town Supervisor, Anthony Noto, of playing politics with the surfers. ‘God, not the Babylon Town Board, gave us the Atlantic Ocean,’ Mr. Brosnahan said at the meeting, ‘and only God, not Anthony Noto, can take it away’” (NYT).
Noto gained the nickname of “the supervisor who stole summer” among the surfers. He was trying to take away the heart of the surf community in the area.
A compromise was in the works by June: The Eastern Surfing Association would promote new safety policies and the town of Babylon would drop the surf-ban.
Eastman’s final, non-negotiable demand before agreeing to the terms was that he would be able to donate a surfboard from his own collection, the very one ridden by the legendary Hawaiian surfer, Duke Kahanamoku, and it would be hung above the map of Long Island in the board meeting room, as a reminder of surfing’s role in the community.
I was able to have a brief conversation with Eastman about the surf scene in Gilgo back in the mid 60s. Eastman understood surfing as a beautiful experience between ocean and man.
He founded the East Coast Surfing Association, and then quit the next day. “Surfing contests are like beauty contests,” Eastman said.
While surfing in a contest in Huntington Beach, he swung his foot out while noseriding and spun around. “Eastman’s completely out of control, he’ll lose this one,” he overheard the judges saying.
And that’s when he knew that surf competitions did not capture the true essence of surf culture -- the sport was about so much more than performing for judges.
The surf culture in Gilgo -- the community, the camaraderie, the excitement of it all -- that was the truly special aspect of surfing.
Surfing in Gilgo Beach
To jump back to the modern day surf scene of Gilgo Beach, it is still a great spot, and one of the liveliest surf communities on Long Island. It is a beach break similar to much of the rest of the island.
It isn’t terribly consistent, but things heat up during hurricane season and through the winter. It does well with swell directions from the south and southeast, and winds from the north and northwest.
In the summertime, the water and air temperature will allow for surfing in just a bathing suit, but you’ll have to suit up for the rest of the year, especially in the winter months.
Like many inconsistent beach breaks, the board you pluck from your quiver will depend entirely on the conditions.
Be sure to check out Bunger Surf Shop for all of your surf-related needs and to discover a slice of Gilgo’s surf history.
Surfing in Gilgo Beach: The Bottom Line
The surf culture of Gilgo Beach has had a hand in shaping surf communities across the east coast and beyond.
It was the Gilgo crew of the 60s and 70s that began branching out from Long Island to Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and many more prominent surf spots today, and opened doors for surfers all over the world.
While it may not have had the waves or the weather of California or Hawaii, no one can deny Gilgo’s production of surfers has been right up to par with the west coast.
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