Far Rockaway, Queens: Beach 32nd Street to the Nassau Line

The Queens Public Library's Far Rockaway branch is at 1637 Central Avenue. Snøhetta, which designed it, places it "at the prominent intersection of Mott and Central Avenues" and describes a building "organized around an inverted pyramidal atrium, which allows the penetration of natural light to the ground floor as well as a view of the sky," "clad in fritted, colored glass, with a color gradient reflective of the sunrise off Long Island's coast." The branch opened in July 2024 at a cost of $39 million, construction having started in November 2018; the architect gives the project years as 2012 to 2024 and the client as the New York City Department of Design and Construction with Queens Public Library. QNS, cited by Wikipedia, gives the building as 18,000 square feet across two stories, with a glass facade and a blue roof that collects rainwater, the color of the facade an allusion to the color of the ocean. "Style Writing" by José Parlá is on the facade and "Feynman Code" by Pablo Helguera is on the second floor. Snøhetta records that the existing 1968 library building provided disaster relief to residents.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated two buildings here on May 29, 2018. The 53rd, now 101st, Precinct Police Station at 16-12 Mott Avenue is the first police station in the Rockaways built by the New York City government, erected 1927–1928 in the Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival styles; the neighborhood is patrolled by the NYPD's 101st Precinct from that address. The Firehouse, Engine Cos. 264 & 328, Ladder Co. 134 at 16-15 Central Avenue is a Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival firehouse built in 1910–1912, and the FDNY's Engine Cos. 264 and 328/Ladder Co. 134 are located there.

Further out along Mott Avenue, the US Post Office–Far Rockaway, at 1836 Mott Ave., was built in 1935 and is one of six post offices in New York State designed by the architect Eric Kebbon: a two-story brick building with limestone trim in the Colonial Revival style, whose "main facade features a centrally placed polygonal shaped frontispiece with a rounded dome inspired by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello." It was listed on November 17, 1988. Trinity Chapel, at 1874 Mott Avenue, was built in 1858 to the design of the architect Richard Upjohn (1802–1878), "a frame Gothic Revival style chapel on a brick foundation"; its name was changed to St. John's of Far Rockaway in 1881, and it is also known as Beth-El Temple Church of God in Christ. It was listed on January 11, 2002. The Richard Mott House, at 12-72 Norton Drive, was added to the National Register on February 11, 2026.

In 1685, Wikipedia records, the band chief Tackapoucha and the English governor of the province agreed to sell the Rockaways to a Captain Palmer for 31 pounds sterling, and Palmer sold the land on to Richard Cornell in 1687; NYC Parks dates that purchase to August 23, 1687. Parks places Cornell's house near what is now Beach 19th Street and calls it likely the first ever built on Rockaway by a European settler. The property was later partitioned into 46 lots. The Richard Cornell Graveyard survives on Caffrey Avenue as a New York City individual landmark, designated August 18, 1970, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission calls it one of New York City's surviving 18th-century cemeteries.

A luxury hotel, the Marine Pavilion, later stood on Cornell's former homestead, south of where Norton Street joined Central Avenue — now Beach 20th Street. Its Wikipedia article gives its completion as 1833, at a then-record cost of $43,000, and names Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Washington Irving among the New York City literary figures and socialites first drawn to it as a refuge from an outbreak of cholera. The Pavilion was destroyed by fire on June 25, 1864. In the early 1900s the peninsula became known as "New York's Playground"; a New York State Comptroller report puts its 2020 population at 124,185. Wikipedia's article on the neighborhood records that Far Rockaway, Hammels and Arverne tried to secede from the city several times, and that in 1915 and 1917 a bill approving secession passed in the legislature but was vetoed by Mayor John Purroy Mitchel.

The Far Rockaway Beach Bungalow Historic District covers Beach 24th, Beach 25th and Beach 26th Streets and was listed on the National Register on July 17, 2013. Its bungalows "were built in 1921 using pattern book designs incorporating uniform facades, compact interiors, integrated porches and exposed rafters," and their architect, Henry Hohauser, "became better known in the 1930s as a designer of Art Deco hotels in Miami Beach." By the 1980s many had been razed and only about 100 remain; the Beachside Bungalow Preservation Association was formed in September 1984 by Betzie Parker White, Roger White and Carole Lewis. The district was hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 but survived without major damage. The First Presbyterian Church of Far Rockaway, the Russell Sage Memorial Church, stands at 1324 Beach 12th Street: built in 1910 in a Late Gothic Revival, Neo-Gothic style by Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson with the Olmsted Brothers, and commissioned by Olivia Slocum Sage as a memorial to her late husband, Russell Sage (1816–1906), as they used to summer in the area.

Inland, Redfern Houses occupies 16.76 acres between Beach Channel Drive/Hassock Street, Redfern Avenue and the Nassau County border, its nine buildings of six to seven stories housing 1,426 people. NYC Parks keeps Nameoke Park on Nameoke Avenue, the Sorrentino Recreation Center on Cornaga Avenue, and the Redfern, Westbourne and Lanett Playgrounds. Wikipedia names another green space here, O'Donohue Park, at the eastern tip of the Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk. Yeshiva Darchei Torah, at 257 Beach 17th Street, was founded by Rabbi Yisroel Bloom and has Rabbi Yaakov Bender as Rosh HaYeshiva. The White Shul — Congregation Kneseth Israel, established in 1922 as Talmud Torah Kneseth Israel — takes its nickname from the white marble building completed in 1964. The Far Rockaway High School building at 821 Bay 25th Street now houses the Far Rockaway Educational Campus; the school's alumni include three Nobel Prize laureates and the convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff. Wavecrest, a named part of the neighborhood, gives the Beach 25th Street station its full signed name. Mac DeMarco has a house in Far Rockaway, where he recorded his album Another One, and Joan Feynman grew up in the Far Rockaway section of Queens.

Two subway stations belong to Far Rockaway, both on the IND Rockaway Line. Far Rockaway–Mott Avenue is at Mott Avenue and Beach 22nd Street, elevated, with one island platform and two tracks. It opened on July 29, 1869 as a South Side Railroad and Long Island Rail Road station; the city acquired all trackage west of Mott Avenue on June 11, 1952, and the current elevated station began operation as a subway station on January 16, 1958. From 2009 to 2012 this and eight other stations were renovated for $117 million, and the renovated station was unveiled on May 11, 2012, with a glass artwork titled "Respite" installed under the MTA's Arts for Transit programme.

Beach 25th Street station, signed as Beach 25th Street–Wavecrest, is at Beach 25th Street and Rockaway Freeway, on a concrete viaduct with ballasted track, with two tracks and two side platforms. Wavecrest Station opened in May 1928 and was relocated 800 feet in August 1940; the elevated station reopened on April 10, 1942, the city purchased the line on October 3, 1955, and it reopened as a subway station on June 28, 1956.

The Long Island Rail Road's Far Rockaway station is at Nameoke Avenue and Redfern Avenue, on the Far Rockaway Branch, with station code FRY and 560 passengers per weekday. The adjacent station in one direction is Inwood, which is in Nassau County.

NICE buses reach the neighborhood from Nassau County. Unlike other NICE routes in Queens, these buses operate open-door in Far Rockaway, meaning customers can ride them wholly within the neighborhood without going to Nassau County.