Rockaway Beach, Queens: the Boardwalk, Hammels and a Lost Playland

NYC Parks carries the Atlantic shore as the Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk, park ID Q162GROUP, a property it classifies as a Park Group. Its own record gives the extent as "Beach 3 St. to Beach 153 St. and Boardwalk to Atlantic Ocean" and stamps it with the ZIP codes 11691, 11692, 11693 and 11694. Rockaway Beach fronts part of it. Wikipedia, citing Parks, describes the beach proper as running from Beach 9th to Beach 149th Street and the boardwalk from Beach 9th to Beach 126th Street. NYC Parks describes "the city's only legal surfing beach, located between 67-69 Street and 87-92 Street" — one of those two stretches, Beach 87th to Beach 92nd, is in Rockaway Beach.

The boardwalk has been maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation since 1938. Its first section, between Beach 109th and Beach 126th Streets, dates to 1923; sections between Beach 19th and Beach 109th Streets followed in three phases between 1928 and 1930, and a concrete section between Beach 9th and Beach 19th Streets was built in 1963. A food concession stands at Beach 86th Street.

The Rockaway Beach Skate Park is at Beach 91st Street, on the boardwalk. An amphitheater stands at Beach 94th Street. Within Hammels there are eight handball and two basketball courts west of Beach 81st Street, and two playgrounds at Beach 84th Street.

NYCHA's Hammel Houses stands at 84-16 Rockaway Beach Boulevard, in Hammels. The authority's own development fact sheet stamps ZIP 11693 on all fourteen buildings. It holds 712 apartments and opened in the mid-1950s.

The Rockaway Beach Surf Club is at 302 Beach 87th Street. Its own site places it on the corner of Beach 87th Street and Rockaway Freeway, underneath the A train line, and describes what it offers with the words surf, music, margs, tacos, community, art and skate. Tacoway Beach prints the same street address: one venue carrying two names.

The Rockaway Courthouse stands at 90-01 Beach Channel Drive and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 5, 2014, reference number 13001155. Its nomination form records the materials as stone, structural clay tile and brick, and a 1932 newspaper account quoted inside that form says the building was "constructed of Tennessee marble." The 2013 nomination recorded that Harmony Rockaway LLC had bought the building intending to rehabilitate it as a medical center.

The Temple of Israel Synagogue is at 1-88 Beach 84th Street, National Register reference number 13001156. Its cornerstone was laid on August 25, 1921, and the nomination's period of significance opens that year. The nomination gives the owner as Haven Ministries. This is a different congregation from Temple Israel of Far Rockaway, despite the near-identical name. The same nomination records that the clearance Robert Moses drove for Shore Front Parkway demolished buildings "from Beach 73rd Street to Beach 108th Street"; the neighborhood's Wikipedia article calls that parkway "a road from nowhere to nowhere," while the article on the parkway itself calls it "a road to nowhere."

Saint Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church is at 130 Beach 84th Street, an active parish in the Queens 10 Deanery with masses in English, Spanish and Polish. It was founded on August 30, 1886, and its first building stood on Fairview Avenue — modern-day Beach 84th Street — and Barry Place, seating 500 at a cost of US$6,000. Ground was broken for the present Romanesque Revival church, by the architect John W. Ingle, on July 1, 1906, and the first Mass and the dedication came on September 27, 1907. It seats 800 and cost US$125,000. The church carries no National Register listing and no city landmark designation.

The Queens Public Library's Peninsula branch is at 92-25 Rockaway Beach Boulevard.

Rockaways' Playland occupied the ground bounded by Beach 97th and Beach 98th Streets between Rockaway Beach Boulevard and the Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk. The park's own article dates its opening to 1902; the neighborhood's article says it was built in 1901. The Gravity Wonder of 1924 was the first roller coaster in the park; Richard Geist's flat rides of the early 1930s included the Rig-a-Jig, Leaping Lena, Cave O'Laffs and the Pretzel; and the Atom Smasher arrived in 1938, designed by Vernon Keenan, 3,000 feet long and 70 feet high. Between 1928 and 1970 the park drew 175 million visitors, and it was shown in the 1982 film Sophie's Choice. The 1985 season was the last operating season, though Geist did not intend at the time for the park to close permanently. Insurance premiums then rose from $50,000 in 1985 to $408,000 in 1986, and Geist decided not to reopen.

The neighborhood is the subject of the Ramones' "Rockaway Beach," which reached number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the band's highest-charting single, and Woody Allen filmed Radio Days on location here in 1987. Kryssa Schemmerling's Our Hawaii followed in 2010. Patti Smith writes about the neighborhood in her memoir M Train. Al McGuire was raised in Rockaway Beach, Skip Campbell was born here, Jonathan Monaghan was born and raised here, Kenny Vance was a resident for 38 years, and Andrew VanWyngarden bought a house here in 2012.

The neighborhood's stations are Beach 90th Street–Holland and Beach 98th Street–Playland, both on the Rockaway Park Branch. Beach 90th Street–Holland is at Beach 90th Street and Rockaway Freeway, and is served by the Rockaway Park Shuttle at all times and by ten daily rush-hour-only A trains. Beach 98th Street–Playland is at Beach 98th Street and Rockaway Freeway, and carries the name of the amusement park that stood between Beach 97th and Beach 98th Streets.

The neighborhood is also reached by the NYC Ferry's Rockaway route, landing at Beach 108th Street.

An earlier Long Island Rail Road station was built at Holland Avenue and Beach 92nd Street between May and June 1880.

Rockaway Beach Boulevard, Beach Channel Drive, Rockaway Freeway and Shore Front Parkway all run the length of the peninsula rather than serving this neighborhood alone; Shore Front Parkway's own record names Arverne, Hammels and Rockaway Beach as the areas it passes through.