Scanning the beach for gold...and bodies.

Summer is coming, and they’re sprucing up the Bronx Riviera, aka Orchard Beach. The concession stands in the pavilion are getting new coats of paint, and the pristine beach looks ready to take on the hordes.

Orchard Beach is a 1.1-mile, horseshoe-shaped beach out on the frontiers of Pelham Bay Park—the biggest city park, at 2764 acres (Jamaica Bay is New York’s biggest national park, at 9151 acres). For centuries the waters out by Orchard Beach were used as a fishing ground for Native Americans. As the Bronx moved toward urbanization in the 20th century, the beach became home to a small colony of canvas tents and bungalows that some city residents used as summer homes.

Full of rocks and outcroppings, it wasn’t much of a beach back then, but there was sand and there was surf, and that is all that you really need in the summer. Then Robert Moses, notorious for opposing fun and games for the lower classes, decreed that the shacks would be torn down. A proper beach was to be designed with no shanties. Moses claimed that his vision of Orchard Beach would make the city proud.

The dispossessed of the summer colony didn’t like it and put up a fight. Moses and the city defeated them, and the bungalows were torn down. The beach had a huge parking lot—some say Moses created the rise of the automobile in New York—a cement pavilion, handball and basketball courts, picnic areas, showers and bathrooms. Orchard Beach was opened to the public in 1936 and seemed like a work of modern wonder. This is where Bronxites have since gone for their summer fun.

I recently went to Orchard Beach on a sunny, windy afternoon. On the cement boardwalk joggers and walkers passed by, the handball courts were full of players and in the grassy area, a Latino family was sitting down to a picnic of pork sandwiches.

I went down the stone stairs and walked through the sand to the shoreline. The beach is on the Long Island Sound, and the water is usually calm—the waves are small and lap onto the shore with a weak burst. The Parks Dept. trucks had been through, and the sand was raked clean. A middle-aged treasure hunter was working the beach with a metal detector. He swept the ground with his wand-like machine, and every few moments, his headphones buzzed with promise. He bent over and scooped a load of sand with a sifter, sometimes coming up with a couple of coins and, at least once, a bracelet that he stashed away in a small satchel hanging on his shoulder.

Treasure-hunting has always struck me as an odd hobby with an ignored subculture of enthusiasts. From Jones Beach to Orchard, they appear interchangeable: gruff white middle-aged men wearing sensible shoes, a hat and loose khaki pants. All one needs to join their club is a lot of free time and a couple of hundred dollars to buy a beach-combing metal detector, headphones, and a sand scooper.

When I asked the man if he was happy with his finds, he ignored me. I asked again and he looked up and told me to leave him alone. From the boardwalk, a park worker saw my feeble attempt at communication. He motioned me over.

"Those guys are odd ducks, boy. They come out all year long. I can’t figure it out. Like they might find something out here worth anything."

I suggested that profit motivates them to come out day after day, year after year.

"Nah, they ain’t got nothing else to do. Retired guys and people with too much time on their hands. Who the hell sweeps sand hour after hour for quarters? It’s crazy. I watch them. They don’t get anything."

But I’d seen our guy pocket some coins and a bracelet.

"And? What is that? That is a day’s work?"

One beach-comber who works Orchard Beach claims on his website to have found the following items during 2001: 80 gold rings, 15 silver rings, 11 pendants, 3 bracelets, a decent amount of paper money and subway tokens and $450 in coins.

The beach soon became crowded: Despite there being more than a mile of sand, two scavengers worked Section 7 at the same time. As they passed each other, one rolled his eyes at the other with a critique of his sweeping style. Part of me hoped for a territorial brawl. Maybe they’d start beating the hell out of each other, using their metal detectors as clubs, their scoopers as shields. But they passed each other, over and over, back and forth, without incident.

On the calm waters of the Sound, an NYPD Harbor Unit boat puttered near Hart Island, a strip of green a mile east off of Orchard Beach. Looking out from the beach, you’d never know that you’re also looking at Potters Field—burial ground for the city’s poor since the 19th century. There’s no hint of a cemetery on the bucolic island.

The skiff was soon joined by a police helicopter buzzing low over the water. The cops were out searching for two of the four missing City Island boys that went down in a seven-foot dinghy on January 24. When I got news of the accident, I pictured myself as a bored City Island teenager with nothing to do on a cold winter weekend night. I might have done what they did. The four kids saw a boat and figured they’d row over to Hart Island, maybe walk around Potters Field as a goof. When they took on water, they were too far out, and it was too dark to see shore.

On a call to 911, one of the young men predicted their fate: "We’re gonna die."

Because the operator failed to log the call, no one knew the teens were missing until the next day. By then, they’d already met their maker. The search was futile.

According to a harbor patrol cop, spring is a busy season for recovering floaters. When someone dies on the water during the winter, the body remains submerged due to the cold. As the winter ends and the water heats up, the bodies begin to release gasses and float to the surface. Often, they’re remarkably preserved because of the frigid graves.

One of the four boys surfaced April 25, three months after drowning; his remains were found near City Island. A week later, another was found floating off Hart Island. A third body, believed to be that of one of the teens, was found on Sunday. On the day of my stroll, the police and the other families were hoping for the bodies to wash up.

When I walked down the boardwalk, I saw the future of the coming Bronx summer: a young, beautiful Latina woman down on the beach. She looked around, stripped to a red bikini and spread a huge beach towel on the sand. She stretched her long, bronzed body and sat down to brave the still-cool weather and wind.

Those of us on the boardwalk stopped and stared at her, maybe for a moment too long. Summer has been a long time coming.