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Read the press release here.

Before Times Square's Topless Ladies, Wearing a Swimsuit Used to Be Banned

By Katie Honan | September 1, 2015 7:41am

This puts the brouhaha over Times Square's topless women into perspective.

Years before parading painted breasts was enough for Mayor Bill de Blasio to threaten a crackdown, it was considered indecent just to walk around in a bathing suit.

At least that's according to a series by photographer Sam Shere called "Indecent Exposure," which appeared in the August 1946 issue of Life Magazine.

Shere — who was best known for his photo of the Hindenburg disaster, but who had a prolific career with Life Magazine — captured men and women walking around the streets of Rockaway Beach in their modest bathing suits. 

A photo of a sign nailed to a tree by the Neponsit Property Owners' Association kindly asks beachgoers to wear robes to and from the beach. Those pictured in the series appear to boldly defy the request. 

Men are as topless as the Naked Cowboy standing on the corner of Beach 35th Street and in front of the current Playland Motel. Women are wearing high-waisted bikinis as they smile on the old wooden boardwalk. 

And the police officers writing the salacious sunbathers tickets are dressed in full uniforms.

 

indecent

(Life Magazine/Sam Shere)

(Life Magazine/Sam Shere)

It's not clear what the law was that required guests to cover themselves in a robe once leaving the beach, or when it stopped being enforced. 

It's now legal to be topless on city beaches. In fact, Riis Park and Fort Tilden feature spaces for sun lovers to bare almost all.

For the full series, visit Life Magazine's photo archive.