Accessing the least-crowded section of New York’s Lido Beach requires either money or insider knowledge. Anyone staying at one of the hotels on the beach can walk through the lobby, and those living in the adjoining town can waltz in through a separate gate using a residents-only electronic access code. Everyone else, though, has to come in through a public entrance half a mile away and walk over the sand.

In theory, some portion of every beach in the coastal United States is reserved for collective use—even those that border private property. But exactly how big that portion is varies widely, and in practice, much of the shore is impenetrable. Simply figuring out which patches of sand you’re allowed to lie on requires navigating antiquated laws and modern restrictions that vary by state—not to mention vigilante efforts from landowners intended to keep people out. Lido Beach is a classic (and absurd) example: Like the rest of the New York coast, it’s technically open to everyone up to the high-tide line, but actually reaching that public strip is difficult without trespassing on private land. A trip to the ocean has never been more confusing.

[Read: Beware the luxury beach resort]

Visiting a completely public spot, such as Myrtle Beach in South Carolina or Santa Monica Beach in L.A., might seem like the most drama-free way to get time in the waves. But “in some states, you don’t really have that option,” Shannon Lyons, the East Coast regional director for the Surfrider Foundation, a group that tracks beach-access laws, told me. The nearest totally public beach might be a long drive away or far from public transit. Plus, there just aren’t enough of them. Although plenty of cities and states own entire beaches outright, much of the property bordering the shoreline rests in private hands. In New York and Florida, only about 40 percent of land by the coast is owned by the government. These numbers decrease as you travel north: In Maine, somewhere from 6.5 to 12 percent of the seaboard is fully open to anyone, depending on the source; in Massachusetts, it’s less than 12 percent. Of course, the remainder of the shoreline in those states isn’t entirely private; it’s most likely just adjacent to private property. But as oceanfront land has become some of the most desirable and expensive in the country, actually getting onto the public sections of those partially private beaches has become harder and harder.

Beaches did not always hold the allure they do today. Two centuries ago, they could be used as sites of trade, not leisure, and were clogged by vendors, shoppers, and fishermen. Real-estate agents also saw little value in them: Until 1898, in Connecticut, they were often included for free with the purchase of any nearby property, Kara Murphy Schlichting, the author of New York Recentered: Building the Metropolis From the Shore, told me. But by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a peculiar combination of factors made the beach into a cultural obsession. Doctors began prescribing trips to the sea as cures for “melancholy,” and beaches came to be seen as places of relaxation. Soon after, a new industrial work schedule gave middle-class workers weekends off and the possibility of vacations. Some used that time to go to the ocean, eventually leading to the rise of urban beaches, such as those in Coney Island and Santa Monica. The real-estate bundles went away, and oceanfront property became a moneymaker. In Connecticut, by 1910, land along the water that a decade earlier had sold for $400 to $1,000 an acre was on the market for $3,000 to $10,000 an acre.

[Read: The historic healing power of the beach]

Seaside homes quickly morphed from something relatively accessible to people across class backgrounds into a luxury for the wealthy. These rich newcomers pushed out working-class and Black communities who had long lived on the coast, Schlichting told me. They also began to accuse beachgoers of trespassing. Invoking a legal threat like that, Schlichting said, was “very useful to landowners,” who might hope that the prospect of a fine or a night in jail would scare off sunbathers.  

In many cases, however, visitors weren’t actually trespassing—a reality that holds true to this day. According to the public-trust doctrine, a principle dating back to ancient Rome that has also been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, some section of the entire shoreline must be open to anyone. But states interpret how much of the beach that applies to very differently. In Oregon, all of the dry sand is public, up until the vegetation starts. In Rhode Island, too, people can legally stroll much of the beach, provided they don’t stray more than 10 feet above the high-tide line—although how many people will be able to measure that out at a glance? In Maine and Massachusetts, by contrast, only the space that is essentially always underwater is open for public recreation.

State laws become more complicated from there, and visitors are frequently left to piece together this complex legal picture on their own. Where they’re allowed to be might also depend on what they’re doing. In Massachusetts, for example, hunting and fishing are fair game in the intertidal zone, meaning the wet sand between high and low tide, but sunbathing and most other types of recreation are not; swimming is permitted, provided, per a 1907 court ruling, that your feet don’t touch the ground—a tough law to follow, given how shallow the water tends to be in that zone. So if you’re reading a book near an oceanfront house in Cape Cod, you could be accused of trespassing. But if you have a fishing pole or gun in your hand instead of a novel, your right to sit there is legally protected. “It’s kind of kooky,” Josh Eagle, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies beach access, told me.

Even if you master your state’s particular laws, other obstacles may make actually getting to the ocean difficult. Some places make you buy a pass, which can be pricier for out-of-towners: Westport, Connecticut, charges nonresidents 15 times more than residents for season passes. And recently, a Texas legislator proposed a bill that would let people living by the sea block visitors from using footpaths on their land. This could lead to a similar situation to the one playing out at Lido Beach, in which part of the shore is public in name but challenging to reach.

[Read: Is the internet killing the nude beach?]

Other roadblocks skew more rogue: In Malibu, California, homeowners have repeatedly put up illegitimate Private Property signs in the sand or placed traffic cones and unauthorized No Parking signs in nearby lots, trying to scare away outsiders. Elsewhere in the U.S., homeowners have constructed questionably legal barriers that separate their property from the rest of the beach—but also mean that anyone attempting to get to the water would have to climb over a fence.

Some people are trying to democratize beach access. A writer and an activist named Jenny Price co-created an app, Our Malibu Beaches, that spells out exactly where visitors are allowed to go—and which bogus signs, put up by residents, to ignore. In Malibu’s Broad Beach, for instance, the app reminds users that they can park in spaces blocked by traffic cones, which “have no possible legitimate or official purpose.” Meanwhile, in Connecticut, residents built fences and made getting to the beach so difficult that, starting in 1999, the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection began erecting signs that outline the public’s legal rights to Connecticut’s shoreline. Dave Kozak, who worked as a coastal planner on the project, told me that local politicians complained to him that the signs were causing overcrowding. Some homeowners would simply take the signs down. But the state kept putting them back up.

Indeed, keeping the beach a common resource has become a practically Sisyphean struggle. Over the past century, just as more people in more regions have come to recognize the value of these prized natural spaces, they have been, sometimes literally, walled off. The public-trust doctrine is remarkable for guaranteeing a public right to the beach, regardless of private-property claims. But it means little in practice if beachgoers have to continue to wade past fake signs and confusing laws to actually go for a swim.

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Sam Bankman-Fried won people over through his reputation as a civically minded progressive. Last week, an FTX executive who cut a different figure—that of a “budding Republican mega-donor”—pleaded guilty to two charges ahead of his former boss’s trial.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

The 9/11 speech that was never delivered Will anyone ever make sense of Elon Musk? Beware the false prophets of war. Never acquire clothes the same way again.

A Contrasting Figure

Last May, Sam Bankman-Fried said that he could spend up to a billion dollars supporting candidates and causes through the 2024 presidential election. He later walked back the claim, calling it “a dumb quote,” but the suggestion, and the flurry of press around it, captured a key part of the image that Bankman-Fried had cultivated. SBF made himself known as a political heavyweight—he was a known donor on the political left—and as an avatar of the effective-altruism philanthropic movement, to which he also donated millions. Central to FTX’s growth, and Bankman-Fried’s popularity, was his public face, and the ideals he said he stood for.

But last week’s guilty plea from Ryan Salame, a lesser-known FTX executive, is a reminder of one of the many truths that have since come out about Bankman-Fried: His donations were likely not based solely on the best interests of humanity but also on the best interests of crypto. In addition to his publicized donations to Democrats, he also marshaled millions of dollars to boost Republican candidates who seemed sympathetic to crypto-related causes. He has admitted, since the collapse of FTX, that most of his Republican donations were not linked to him, for cynical reputational reasons: “Reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to Republicans,” he told the crypto content creator Tiffany Fong in November. Bankman-Fried’s fingerprints weren’t always apparent on Republican donations, but his lieutenant Salame’s often were. Salame, whose name is pronounced “Salem,” last week became the fourth top FTX executive to plead guilty, including to a charge of violating campaign-finance law. Prosecutors alleged that he made millions of dollars of political donations—many of which were to Republicans—under the direction of Bankman-Fried.

Salame was public about his Republican affiliations. While Bankman-Fried hobnobbed on the left, Salame leaned into his identity as a “budding Republican mega-donor,” as the Washington Examiner called him last September. He donated millions of dollars under his own name, and even helped his girlfriend run as a Republican for a congressional seat on Long Island (she lost in the primary).

It’s not totally clear whether Salame is truly passionate about Republican political causes or if he was simply emerging as a Republican donor out of loyalty to his boss (and his girlfriend). He has reportedly said that he was not especially interested in politics, and that he was getting more involved at the encouragement of others at FTX. In a charging document, prosecutors surfaced messages that Salame wrote, saying that the purpose of donations was to “weed out anti crypto dems for pro crypto dems and anti crypto repubs for pro crypto repubs” In other words, it seems that he and his involved colleagues hoped to use donations to elevate politicians sympathetic to the crypto business, regardless of party. (Jason Linder, a lawyer for Salame, did not immediately respond to my request for comment, though he said in a statement last week that “Ryan looks forward to putting this chapter behind him and moving forward with his life.”)

In contrast to his compatriots, who claimed to be getting rich in order to give back and who were involved with effective altruism, Salame reportedly spoke about working in crypto simply to get rich. Salame clearly enjoyed the trappings that the wealth he gained in his 20s (he is now 30) afforded him. He has a reputation for enjoying fancy cars and private planes. His taste is apparent in his accessories: I noticed that in a widely circulated portrait, he is wearing what looks like a Cartier Juste un Clou nail bracelet in white gold. These status-symbol bracelets start around $8,500. Last week, Salame arrived in court to plead guilty wearing orange-and-blue socks emblazoned with bitcoin logos. Those may not have been pricey, but they certainly showed confidence.

In what feels like a poignant—or maybe self-aggrandizing—touch, Salame invested some of his wealth in the restaurants of his home region, the Berkshires. (He grew up in Western Massachusetts and attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.) Salame swooped in with millions during the early days of the pandemic, and by the time he was 28, he owned nearly half of the full-service restaurants in the small town of Lenox, according to The Berkshire Eagle. He was a local boy done good—until FTX cratered. Now Salame must forfeit his interest in one of his key restaurant holdings (along with assets including millions of dollars and a 2021 Porsche) as part of a plea deal.

Whether Salame’s heart is truly in Republican politics or in restaurants or just in socks and personal advancement, he cuts a contrasting figure to those of his fellow former FTX executives, and he may continue on that path. The others who have pleaded guilty—Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang—have all also agreed to cooperate with the government and to testify against their former boss. Salame has not. (Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges brought against him so far.) This time last year, those executives—Bankman-Fried most of all—were widely seen as responsible adults in a cowboy industry. That the walls have closed in this fast, and that their noble public personas have fully crumbled, remains stunning. Maybe Salame was frankest about his motives all along.

Related:

Sam Bankman-Fried, crypto-Republican? Sam Bankman-Fried pushed one boundary too many.

Today’s News

Kim Jong Un has reportedly departed the North Korean capital for a meeting with Vladimir Putin in his first international trip since the pandemic. The FDA has approved new COVID boosters from Pfizer and Moderna. Rollout is expected to begin later this week. Vietnam has formally raised its diplomatic relationship with the United States to the highest tier, alongside its ties with Russia and China.

Evening Read

‘I Was Responsible for These People’

By Tim Alberta

On the evening of September 4, 2021, one week before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Glenn Vogt stood at the footprint of the North Tower and gazed at the names stamped in bronze. The sun was diving below the buildings across the Hudson River in New Jersey, and though we didn’t realize it, the memorial was shut off to the public. Tourists had been herded behind a rope line some 20 feet away, but we’d walked right past them. As we looked on silently, a security guard approached. “I’m sorry, but the site is closed for tonight,” the man said.

Glenn studied the guard. Then he folded his hands as if in prayer. “Please,” he said. “I was the general manager of Windows on the World, the restaurant that was at the top of this building. These were my employees.”

The man glanced over Glenn’s shoulder. “Which ones?”

Glenn didn’t say anything. Slowly, he turned and swept his open palm across the air, demonstrating the scale of the devastation: All 79 names were grouped together. The guard closed his eyes. “Take as much time as you need,” he said softly.

Read the full article.

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Photo-illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira. Source: Randy Beacham / Alamy.

Read. “The Origin Revisited,” a new poem by Ada Limón.

“To enter here is to enter / magnitude, to feel an ecstatic somethingness, / a nothingness of your own name.”

Watch. Daisy Jones and the Six, streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is an absolute joy.

P.S.

I’ll leave you with a completely unrelated recommendation: I read the most fascinating article in T magazine yesterday about vanilla. Ligaya Mishan explores how the flavor, produced by beans that are actually incredibly rich and pungent, became synonymous with blandness. This story of vanilla spans continents, biosynthesis, and taste buds—and it’s beautifully written. Describing a stalk of the plant, Mishan writes, “It lies on my desk, skinny as a twig, with a little curling hook at one end, like a fossilized crochet needle, rough yet pliant to the touch. I am trying to write but the room is possessed by that scent, a summons of honeysuckle, sun-fat figs and red wine, of the dank sweetness of soil when the rain has soaked through it.”

— Lora

Katherine Hu contributed to this newsletter.

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