Glen Cove's Crescent Beach Opens Its First Summer Since 2009

Crescent Beach in Glen Cove opened to swimmers on May 15, ending a 17-year closure that began when Nassau County health officials ordered the beach shut in June 2009 after coliform bacteria in the water exceeded safe limits for public swimming.

The reopening restores one of Long Island's few urban swimming beaches to a North Shore city where the waterfront has long defined summer. Crescent Beach, set within Morgan Memorial Park along Glen Cove's waterfront, drew families from across the city before the county's closure order kept it shut for nearly two decades.

Nassau County health officials traced the contamination to a feeder stream draining toward the beach that carried bacteria from surrounding runoff sources. Coliform bacteria levels in June 2009 exceeded safe thresholds for swimming, and the closure order came with no firm date for reopening. For residents who had grown up using the beach, the shutdown stretched from a single summer into a decade and a half.

Nassau County Legislature Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton spent years pressing for the cleanup and secured nearly $1 million in county-level bonds to fund the work. The City of Glen Cove, working under a remediation plan approved by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, carried out the infrastructure improvements.

City crews installed Helix water filtration systems at the contamination source. They built a box culvert near the base of the feeder stream to redirect bacteria-laden runoff before it could reach the swimming area. Shoreline plantings went in along the waterline, using vegetation that naturally absorbs and neutralizes bacteria. The work unfolded over several years as the city tracked water quality samples to build a record demonstrating that the remediation was holding.

The Nassau County Department of Health reviewed water quality samples taken in 2024 and 2025 and found bacteria levels consistently within safe ranges. In April 2026, the department issued formal clearance to reopen the beach, citing the completed infrastructure and the multi-year water quality record as the basis for its decision.

DeRiggi-Whitton, whose legislative district includes Glen Cove, called the approval the result of sustained work by city staff, county officials, and environmental regulators stretching across more than 15 years. Securing the funding was the first challenge. Convincing the county health department, which operates under strict water-quality standards, that the remediation had truly held was the second.

The beach officially opened May 15, one week before Memorial Day weekend. Residents who had not swum at Crescent Beach since before the 2009 closure returned on opening day. Some brought children who had no memory of the beach being open. The day drew people who had grown up on the North Shore and watched the beach sit idle through the 2010s and into the 2020s, unavailable while the city worked through the process of fixing it.

Glen Cove sits on Hempstead Harbor between Sea Cliff and Oyster Bay Cove. Much of the local shoreline is private or inaccessible to the public, making a restored urban swimming beach a meaningful addition to what residents of this small city can access without leaving town. The return of Crescent Beach also closes a chapter in Glen Cove's relationship with its own waterfront, a relationship that has been complicated for decades by the industrial history of the harbor and the water quality questions that history raised.

With Memorial Day weekend now past and summer underway, Crescent Beach begins its first full season open to the public since 2009. Lifeguard schedules, parking information, and park amenity details are available through the City of Glen Cove at glencoveny.gov.