According to the Virtual Dime Museum, J.B. Johnson entertained East River bathers in 1874 by smoking a cigar and drinking milk underwater. (Image by Underwood & Underwood.)

The only place in America where it’s not currently snowing is Arizona, and you can’t live in that state because even babies there carry handguns. But at least we can think about the warmer weather that will hopefully, mercifully, eventually arrive. While it’s almost unimaginable for anyone in 2011 to equate summertime fun with swimming in the dirty, murky East River, there was a time when overheated working-class locals used it as a watering hole.

In 1870, a bathhouse was built along the East River to serve the needs of the swimmers and to set up competitive races. According to the Virtual Dime Museum, the bathhouse was condemned in 1912 because city officials were alarmed by how polluted the waters had become. That didn’t stop folks on view in this 1921 photo from taking a dip, but the building of public pools eventually ended the practice. Even during the relatively cleaner pre-1900 days, you never really knew what you would find in the East River. A brief article from the August 15, 1897 Brooklyn Daily Eagle makes that clear:

“A GRUESOME HOAX. Henry Buck of the 174 Vernon avenue, and Herman Seelig of 41 Ninth street, while in swimming in the East River at the foot of Nott avenue, this afternoon, saw a bundle floating in the water under the dock and notified the police. Examination showed that the bundle contained the remains of some animal.

Dr. P.J. McKeown of 145 Fifth street and Dr. P.H. Bumater of 143 Fifth street both looked at the remains and said that the bones were too large to be those of a human being. The end of one bone looked like the double joint in the foreleg of a cow, while another bone looked like the hip bone of a cow sawed lengthwise. Coroner Strong, who was summoned, said the thing was doubtless a hoax.”