Rockaway, Queens



Rockaway, also known as The Rockaways, is the name of an east-west peninsula of Long Island, virtually all of which is located within the borough of Queens. A popular summer resort area since the 1830s, Rockaway has become a mixture of lower-, middle-, and upper-class neighborhoods. Its remoteness from Manhattan has made it a popular retreat but also has provided an out-of-the-way area to relocate communities destroyed by urban renewal. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 14. As of January 1, 2007, the peninsula's total population was estimated to be just below 130,000.

Rockaway is part of New York's 9th and 6th Congressional Districts, with the 6th encompassing the easternmost portions of the peninsula and the 9th spanning the western end.

Early history
Rockaway was inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans but sold in 1639 to the Dutch by the Mohegan tribe along with most of Long Island and to the British in 1685. Finally the land was sold to Richard Cornell, who settled there. The name "Rockaway" is the later corruption of a Lenape language word that sounded like "rack-a-wak-e" and referred to the area. It may have meant "place of sands"(see: Toponymy of New Netherland).

The village of Rockaway Park in the center of the peninsula was incorporated into the City of Greater New York on January 1, 1898.

The playground of New York
Starting in the 1830s, Rockaway became a popular area for seaside hotels, and popularity grew with the coming of the Long Island Rail Road in the 1880s. Bungalows became the most popular type of housing during the summer months. Even today, some of them remain, converted to provide modern amenities, although the vast majority were razed in urban renewal during the 1960s.

In 1893, Hog Island, a resort known for entertaining Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall sank into the sea. Located a few miles east of Breezy Point, the western end of the peninsula, and also known as Rockaway Island, the entire island disappeared during a storm. Plates, along with older artifacts, still wash up along the shore of Rockaway Beach.

Rockaway's Playland, a world renowned amusement park in Rockaway Park near the center of the peninsula, opened in 1901 and was a popular place for New York families until 1985, when insurance costs and competition from major regional parks made it impossible to continue operations.

The completion of the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge in 1939 (near the center of the peninsula) and the Marine Parkway - Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge in 1937 (near the western end of the peninsula) increased the accessibility to the rest of Queens and to Brooklyn, but the development of Jones Beach by Robert Moses drew tourism away from both Rockaway Beach and Brooklyn's Coney Island.

Today the peninsula's well tended beaches still draw crowds during the summer. Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden are near the western end of the peninsula, part of the Gateway National Recreational Area, created in 1972 as one of the first urban national parks. A long boardwalk and long sandy beaches make this a popular summer-day trip for New York City residents. Towards the western end of the boardwalk, several portions of the beach are fenced off to preserve the nesting habitat for several species of terns and plovers, making for a unique urban birdwatching locale.

Bedroom community
With the advent of inexpensive travel, air-conditioning, John F. Kennedy International Airport and the Interstate Highway system, Rockaway lost its luster as a recreation area, and development transformed much of it into residential communities.

The peninsula's communities include Belle Harbor, Far Rockaway, Arverne, Neponsit, Rockaway Beach, Rockaway Park, Breezy Point and Edgemere. Broad Channel, located on its own island in Jamaica Bay between the peninsula and the rest of Queens, is generally considered to be psychographically part of the Rockaways. The Rockaway area, including Broad Channel, is served by the IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway, although both lines run completely above ground locally, using tracks purchased from the Long Island Rail Road in the 1950s (until 1975, an additional fare was charged to passengers either boarding or departing at any of the Rockaway stations, including Broad Channel, if the trip originated or terminated outside the area).

In the years immediately following World War II, several public housing projects were built on the peninsula, and they eventually became hotbeds of crime and related social pathologies. This outcome provoked a backlash from some of the peninsula's more established residents (many of whom are of Irish Catholic ethnicity). A strong Jewish community (many of whose members are Sephardi Jews) also exists in the area.

Redevelopment has started in some areas of the peninsula. Although plans that included casinos, sports arenas and other real-estate projects have been proposed, many plans did not come to fruition due to either lack of funds, development stagnation or resident resistance. In 2002, however, a "revival" began on the peninsula, as a new residential development plan started construction in a large vacant section between Rockaway Beach and Arverne. The new areas have become known as Arverne By the Sea and Arverne East.

The new development projects have sparked a new building boom in the neighboring communities, which has caused some concern and has led to various debates regarding development. The main problem relates to Rockaway's zoning laws: the laws, decades old, cater to large multiple dwellings because of the hotels that existed in the area, and the laws have led to construction of taller and wider buildings in areas that contain lower-density housing. In response, some communities have approved rezoning plans for their neighborhoods in order to stop "out-of-character" development.

Opponents of development also contend that due to the rapidly growing population, the infrastructure is inadequate and that there are environmental issues to consider. Proponents of development, however, contend that the development will help spur economic development and that the infrastructure cannot be upgraded until the population has reached a more noticeable level. Furthermore, some developers have questioned the legality of "downzoning." On August 14, 2008, however, a drastic rezoning plan was approved by the New York City Council for five communities on the peninsula, covering 280 blocks. The communities are Rockaway Park, Rockaway Beach, Somerville, Edgemere and Far Rockaway. The goal of the rezoning plan is to stop overdevelopment in these areas but at the same time allow growth within the context of the neighborhoods.

Art and culture
The Rockaway Arts Council provides a wide range of events throughout the year. Two art groups in Rockaway, the Rockaway Theater Company and the Rockaway Artists' Alliance, hold most of their productions in Fort Tilden.

The Ramones song "Rockaway Beach" is probably the most common pop culture reference to this region, although Herman Melville refers to it in Moby-Dick. Woody Allen's Radio Days was filmed in Rockaway Park, with period facades and cars turning back the clock during the shoot.Jill Eisenstadt's bestselling novel From Rockaway (Knopf) fictionalizes the world of local lifeguards in the 1980s. Denis Leary's TV series Rescue Me filmed in many locations on the Rockaway Peninsula. In the Seinfeld episode "The Marine Biologist," Kramer suggests that George and Jerry accompany him to Rockaway to hit golf balls into the ocean. The title of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's book of poems, A Far Rockaway of the Heart, is a reference to the region.

Historical events
On June 6, 1993, a ship called the Golden Venture beached on the shore off Fort Tilden, located on the western half of the Rockaway Peninsula. The ship contained 296 Chinese illegal aliens, including 13 crew members. Ten people drowned while trying to reach the peninsula's shoreline.

On November 12, 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in the Rockaway neighborhood of Belle Harbor, killing 265 people (260 on board the aircraft and five on the ground) and arousing fears that it was a second terror attack, a la 9/11/01.

Communities

 * Arverne
 * Bayswater
 * Belle Harbor
 * Breezy Point
 * Far Rockaway
 * Hammels
 * Neponsit
 * Rockaway Beach
 * Rockaway Park
 * Roxbury
 * Seaside

High schools

 * Far Rockaway High School
 * Beach Channel High School
 * Stella Maris High School
 * Scholars' Academy High School

Other schools

 * St. Francis de Sales
 * St. Camillus
 * St. Rose of Lima
 * West End Temple
 * Yeshiva of Far Rockaway
 * Beth El Temple
 * P.S. 43
 * P.S. 104
 * P.S. 114
 * P.S. 215
 * P.S. 225
 * M.S. 53
 * M.S. 183
 * Church Of God Christian Academy
 * St. Mary Star of the Sea
 * Scholars' Academy
 * Channel View School For Research