Coordinating Dance Moves and Community in Brighton Beach

If your New Year's resolutions include getting more exercise, perhaps these gals in a Brighton Beach dance class can provide a little inspiration. Photographer George Cohen captured the scene in 1987 at the Shorefront YM-YWHA (Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association), a Jewish Community Center on Coney Island Avenue in Brighton Beach. 

The first YMHA was founded in New York City in 1874 to serve the American Jewish Community and is today known as the 92nd Street Y. Additional YM-YWHAs were established around the city; Shorefront was established around 1958. Collections at CBH including the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities collection help document Brooklyn YMHAs and other philanthropic organizations originally developed for the Jewish community. 

The classes at Shorefront YM-YWHA may have helped develop coordination, community, and endurance beyond the dance floor. Around this time, the Shorefront YM-YWCA was a hot spot for debate on the state of the Brighton Beach baths, which stood just across Coney Avenue from the Shorefront YM-YWCA and had been an important community fixture since 1907. Large crowds gathered at Shorefront to protest the proposed demolition of the baths, which developer Alexander Muss & Sons planned to replace with a high-rise condominium complex. Community members vehemently fought for many years to save the baths and oppose the complex they feared would cast long shadows over the sunny neighborhood. Not until 1994 were the baths, which had been facing decling membership, finally closed. Muss & Sons' Oceana condominium complex opened in 2000. 

Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal at Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at [email protected].