Cruises from New York Manhattan-Brooklyn

New York is genuinely unusual and the detail is worth getting right. The state exposure offence, Penal Law section 245.01, is still on the books and its wording still singles out women. But in 1992, in People v. Santorelli, the New York Court of Appeals read that statute as not reaching non-commercial, non-lewd toplessness. It did not strike the law down; it construed it narrowly, which is a distinction most summaries lose. The practical result is that in New York a woman may be bare-chested wherever a man may, and the NYPD instructs officers accordingly. This is a real legal position rather than a rumour — but it is toplessness only. Full nudity in a public place in New York remains an offence.

Where you are standing matters, because the landowner's rules sit on top of the penal law. New York City's parks rules prohibit only exposure of the genitals and contain no topless ban. The state park system is stricter: its regulation at 9 NYCRR 375.1 forbids appearing nude as the Penal Law defines it, and that definition expressly includes the female breast below the top of the nipple. So the rule at a state-run beach such as Jones Beach reads as stricter than the rule a few miles away on a city beach. Municipalities may also pass their own tougher local bans.

New Jersey runs the other way, and the New York position does not travel across the Hudson. There is no clothing-optional public beach under New Jersey state or municipal control. The state lewdness statute is N.J.S.A. 2C:14-4, and the State Park Service code separately prohibits exposure of the genitals, pubic region, buttocks or female breasts where they may be seen by others. Shore towns ban it by ordinance and the courts have upheld them.

Gunnison Beach at Sandy Hook, the region's one genuine clothing-optional beach and the closest to the Cape Liberty terminal, works because it is federal ground inside Gateway National Recreation Area rather than New Jersey land in the governing sense. The Park Service describes part of the area as used by visitors as a clothing-optional area — an acknowledgement of practice, not a legal designation, and the Park Service could change it. What is enforced there is the Gateway-specific rule adopting New York's public lewdness offence, so being unclothed is not itself the offence while lewd conduct is, and it is charged federally. New Jersey's landed naturist clubs, Rock Lodge and Sky Farm, are private members' land, which is the other lawful route; both admit visitors by prior arrangement rather than walk-up.

One principle covers the whole region and is what travellers most often muddle: nudity and behaviour are separate questions. Every rule above targets lewd conduct, not the absence of clothes. Photography is the other common trap — assume no phones or cameras at any clothing-optional beach or club, and note that clubs enforce this as a condition of entry.

This is general information for planning rather than legal advice. Statutes, park regulations, local ordinances and Park Service practice all change, so confirm current rules with the operator or the Park Service before you travel.