The club, eight hours before Sandy hit.

The Silver Gull Beach Club likes to do things the old-fashioned way. When The Observer first saw the club it was the Fourth of July and there was a band of hefty middle-aged men in Hawaiian shirts playing "Sweet Caroline" and little kids flinging themselves into the pool and leathery old women in loungers deepening their already very-deep tans. Having wandered over from the hipster-strewn stretch of Breezy Point, the club seemed like a mirage—a vision of an earlier Brooklyn, another Brooklyn. In fact, it was—the club opened in 1963 and has managed to stay largely as it always has been, a cabana club long after cabana clubs' cultural moment passed.

Nor does the club intend to let Hurricane Sandy do what time could not. While the storm destroyed some 200 of the club's 460 cabanas—particularly those built on a pier that juts out into the sea—club management intends to rebuild the whole shebang, against the wishes of Gateway National Recreation Area, which owns the club and the rest of the beach, reports The New York Times.

The club management, Ortega Family Enterprises, has a 10-year contract with Gateway that started last year. Ortega was trying to get the whole operation up and running again by Memorial Day, but plans may be put on hold due to a federal stop-work order mandating that the cabana pier not be rebuilt (the rest of the cabanas are slightly set back from the water, up a short, but steep, rise).

As for the decision to rebuild the cabanas, general manager Bob Ordan pleads the "it's our money, why shouldn't we be allowed to do something stupid with it?" defense. Which seems, on the face of it, perfectly reasonable: Ortega is funding all the repairs to the wiped out pier, and understands that it may be wiped out again, why shouldn't it, as lease-holder, be allowed to rebuild?

“It’s our risk,’’ Mr. Ordan told The Times. “If it gets destroyed again next year, then it’s our money gone.”

He estimated that the club has already spent $2 million of the $3 million needed to rebuild after Sandy, money that management will not be reimbursed for given that it did not have flood insurance. And a cabana club seems, at least to us, a nice compromise on the whole rebuilding the waterfront debate. The club is empty during hurricane season and the damage is purely material if it should be destroyed again: no families displaced, no emergency workers endangering their own lives to rescue those will not or cannot evacuate their homes. In fact, fewer waterfront homes and more cabanas sounds like an excellent way to address the "people are always drawn to the waterfront" argument of rebuilding. Let the people have their waterfront—as parkland, in structures that aren't designed for permanent living and will be unoccupied after Labor Day.

Moreover, it seems that Gateway didn't make itself entirely clear before issuing the stop-work order: the January memo sent to the club noted that rebuilding of the pier cabanas would be “not favored” in its comments and recommendations section. Hardly a prohibition. We just hope that Silver Gull and Gateway can work out their differences before the summer.

Alas, as Fort Tilden is expected to remain closed this season, few passerby will be able to witness the club's splendor this year. And The Observer, especially, regrets that we won't be able to witness any more exchanges in 2013, like the one we saw late last summer, during yet another long walk on the beach. A hipster couple stopped to ask a woman with a killer tan and short platinum gray-blonde hair what the place was.

"It's cabanas," the woman replied.

The hipsters pleaded ignorance. "You don't know what a cabana is?!" the woman cried, setting aside the thick beach novel that she was holding in her ring-laden fingers and rising from her Silver Gull beach lounger. "Let me show you!"

kvelsey@observer.com

The beached whale struggling in the water near the shore in Breezy Point yesterday. (Photo: Getty)

Residents in Breezy Point, which was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, were hoping the rescue of an endangered finback whale that washed up on the beach there yesterday would provide a happy ending to what has been an incredibly difficult year for the neighborhood. However, it was not meant to be. Rob DiGiovanni, the executive director and senior biologist of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, which was attempting to help save the animal, told The Observer the whale did make it off the beach, but it seems to have died.

"As of right now, the animal was lost last night," Mr. DiGiovanni said. "It looks like it moved a little off the shore, relocated and it does appear to be dead."

Rescuers gave the whale a grim prognosis, but they were keeping it wet and hoped it might be able to move offshore with the high tide. Mr. DiGiovanni said he received the information about the whale's condition from Riverhead Foundation staffers who were on scene. He was en route to the whale's location when he spoke to us a few minutes ago and did not have information about the animal's time of death.

Whales often beach themselves when sick or injured. Mr. DiGiovanni said he believed this whale was no exception and was probably already near death when it washed up on the shore. Prior to its death, the whale was bleeding from its mouth and tail and Mr. DiGiovanni said it weighed "less than half of what we would expect an animal of that size to be."

"It did present itself as a severely emaciated animal," he explained. "I don't think it was the case that it was stuck on the beach ... It was sick and it was in the process of dying. It didn't move far because it didn't have any of the energy to do that."

A twister strikes in Queens. (Screengrab from Roy Currlin's storm video)

Heavy weather like tornadoes isn't as common in New York and points north as it is in the Midwest and the South, but it looks as though this Saturday may be an exception. The National Weather Service has already issued multiple severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings for New York and New England.

If you're skeptical about the possibility of twisters in New York (all the boroughs have had their share of such severe weather, but they're not going to give Oklahoma City a run for its money any time soon), Youtube user Roy Currlin's nearly 6-minute video of an apparent tornado blasting through a neighborhood in Queens late Saturday morning may give you some pause:

breezy point tornado ? 9-08-12 - YouTube.

Mr. Currlin's succinct video description notes the twister occurred in Breezy Point and said the most dramatic portion of the video--around 2:25 in--is the tornado striking the Breezy Point Surf Club before moving on.

Twitter user Zack Rosenthal may have captured one of the more striking stills of the same tornado, posting the image on Instagram and indicating he was in Brooklyn/Queens area at the time:

#tornado on the belt parkway. insaneeeeinstagr.am/p/PUbawtJKxG/

— Zack Rosenthal (@Zack12Rose) September 8, 2012

Tornado near the Belt Parkway (Zack Rosenthal)

NY1 reports the F.D.N.Y. is in Queens at the scene of the strike and that there are power lines down and damage to trees in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

The National Weather Service issued an alert Saturday morning for possible severe weather from Connecticut up through Southern New Hampshire.

All boroughs were under a tornado watch until 9 p.m. Saturday.

UPDATE: A second Youtube user captured a twister in the water, striking Gerritsen Beach in Brooklyn:

It is likely the same storm, as Gerritsen Beach is due north of the Breezy Point Surf Club.