The Rockaway peninsula became a popular area for seaside hotels starting in the 1830s, with the first resort being founded at Far Rockaway in 1835. Many resorts were situated on Rockaway Beach along the southern side of the peninsula. The peninsula's popularity grew in the 1880s with the construction of the
Long Island Rail Road's
Rockaway Beach Branch to
Long Island City and Flatbush Terminal (now
Atlantic Terminal), which facilitated population growth.
Predecessors Several disconnected sections of boardwalk were built along the beach in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly clustered around resorts. These included a stretch in Arverne to the east, a stretch in Rockaway Park to the west, and shorter sections in
Hammels and Hollands (now Rockaway Park) in the center. such as
Rockaways' Playland in the first decade of the 20th century. The initial boardwalk in Arverne was built in 1886, above the beach. A separate boardwalk was built in the communities of Hollands and Seaside in 1893. That boardwalk had been built after the resorts in these communities were wrecked in an 1892 fire. Residents of Rockaway Park wanted a boardwalk as well, connecting Jacob Riis Park at Beach 148th Street to Edgemere. Several groups collaborated to acquire land on the waterfront, and by 1923, the civic groups had acquired almost all waterfront land in Arverne between Beach 59th and 75th Streets. The city planned an "experimental boardwalk" between these streets, following the model of the
Riegelmann Boardwalk at
Coney Island. Queens borough engineers considered three options: a boardwalk without a road, one with a wide parkway, and one with a narrow parkway. The city government also sent engineers around the world to look at other boardwalks' designs, as it intended to build the world's longest boardwalk along the Rockaway shore. The city government had started constructing a concrete boardwalk on city-owned land in Rockaway Park, between Beach 109th and 126th Streets, by 1922. The boardwalk in Rockaway Park, which opened in May 1923, was wide and long, and cost $133,000. It was placed under the jurisdiction of NYC Parks. The residents of Neponsit and Belle Harbor, between Beach 126th and 149th Streets, also sought a boardwalk. However, the city did not own the shoreline in these two neighborhoods, precluding the city from adding a boardwalk in these neighborhoods unless the residents were willing to pay taxes for a boardwalk extension to their communities. The
New York City Board of Estimate appropriated $8 million for a beach improvement project on the Rockaway peninsula in June 1925. The Queens
borough president's office started soliciting bids to build "bulkheads, groynes, jetties and breakwaters" and to add sand to the southern shore of the Rockaway peninsula between Beach 59th and 109th Streets. Actual work on the boardwalk would occur after the shore-improvement projects were finished. However, work was delayed for a year because of a lack of money. By June 1926, the city had approved $1 million for the project and was speeding up plans to construct the section of boardwalk between Beach 59th and 109th Streets.
Connections between sections ) does not have a boardwalk. The Board of Estimate appropriated $500,000 for the first connecting section of the boardwalk between Beach 91st and 109th Streets in mid-1927. That August, contractor Muccini & Decker reported that between 30 and 40 buildings in the boardwalk's path would have to be condemned and demolished. The contractor subsequently stated that work would progress even as the buildings were to be razed. The existing boardwalk at Hollands and Seaside, between Beach 90th and 100th Street, would be removed and replaced. Work began in September 1927, although the first pile was driven that November. By then, some $4 million had already been spent for shore protection and beach widening. The first section was dedicated in June 1928, although the portion east of Beach 102nd Street was opened to the public first, while the section west of that street opened in July 1928, except for a small gap at Beach 109th Street. With the opening of this boardwalk section, real estate demand along the shore increased in 1928, while existing resort owners started planning amusement attractions. More than $1.5 million was invested in constructing hotels, apartment buildings, and bathing pavilions. Funding for the third section of the boardwalk, between Beach 56th and 21st Streets, was requested in September 1928, just as work on the second section between Beach 75th and 56th Streets was to commence. The second section was to cost $467,000. Queens borough president
George U. Harvey formally opened the boardwalk's second section in June 1929. Work on the third section began in late 1929, although the ceremonial first pile was not driven until January 1930. The third section was built by D. M. W. Construction at a cost of $610,000. Delays in securing the wooden decking for the boardwalk pushed the opening back by several months. There were also delays caused by the need to remove rock in the boardwalk's path. A temporary ramp connected to Beach 19th Street. The city suspended compensation payments for the property that November. Ultimately, the compensation payments were lowered to $9.2 million, as decided by the
New York Supreme Court in June 1931. The fourth section of the boardwalk, east of Beach 21st Street, was delayed because tidal conditions would prevent the city from building a boardwalk east of Beach 14th Street without having to acquire significant space inland. City authorities considered ending the boardwalk at Beach 14th Street instead, but property owners in Far Rockaway refused, stating that they were entitled to benefit from the boardwalk since they had paid taxes for it. Harvey also wished to delay the construction of the fourth section because of the then-ongoing litigation over the property compensation. Finally, the section of beach between Beach 16th and 20th Streets was the privately owned Roche's Beach; the owners opposed the construction of the boardwalk and successfully lobbied to stop it. The westernmost section was not built either, because the president of the real estate board covering Rockaway Park, Neponsit, and Belle Harbor did not wish to start construction until the Far Rockaway section was built.
1930s to 1960s The extended boardwalk experienced several major fires after its completion, including during 1931 and 1937. In 1938, the responsibility of maintaining the boardwalk, and the beach between Beach 9th and 149th Streets, was transferred to the
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks). Parks commissioner
Robert Moses had previously criticized the condition of the Coney Island, Rockaway, and
South Beach boardwalks, saying, "These beaches and boardwalks were never properly planned, and cannot under present conditions be properly maintained and operated." To improve the condition of the Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk, Moses cleared a strip of land north of the boardwalk for Shore Front Parkway, which opened in 1939. Moses demolished more than 700 buildings in the parkway's path and destroyed what he described as "catch-penny enterprises" along the boardwalk, replacing them with recreational fields. The beach was also extended toward the sea. By 1941,
jukeboxes were banned from the boardwalk, as was bicycling during the summer. Four municipal parking lots at Beach 32nd, 52nd, 64th, and 69th Streets were opened within the park in 1948. During that time, the boardwalk between Beach 73rd and 85th Streets, and east of Beach 33rd Street, was reconstructed for $200,000. Moses announced the construction of another three parking lots in the park in 1950, at Beach 55th–59th, 62nd–63rd, and 67th–68th Streets, as well as landscaping along the boardwalk. These seven parking lots were intended to serve as children's play areas outside of the summer season, and Moses rejected attempts to install parking meters in these parking lots. During the mid-20th century, Rockaway Beach was seen as one of the best surfing places in the
New York metropolitan area. In the 1950s, the beach employed a lifeguard force of 258, among the world's largest. The New York State Department of Public Works commenced a multi-year project in 1955 to combat this erosion, including adding forty groins and transferring of fill onto the beach to create a barrier. By 1959, Moses had extended the beach eastward to Beach 9th Street, and commenced work for O'Donohue Park alongside the new stretch of beach, which opened in 1961. and was subsequently rebuilt. As part of the construction of O'Donohue Park, a section of concrete boardwalk from Beach 9th to 19th Street was built in the early 1960s. This section was constructed with a budget of $1.373 million.
1970s to 2000s Repairs costing $115,000 were made to the boardwalk in the late 1960s or early 1970s. However, by 1971, NYC Parks was considering replacing the wooden planks with plastic or concrete due to the high maintenance cost of the wooden planks, which were deteriorating. The central Rockaways were in decline at the time, and fewer concessions were operating on the boardwalk every year. Further, because of erosion of the beach, water would go under the boardwalk at high tide, and some stairs from the boardwalk led to steep drop-offs where the beach formerly was. Thirteen blocks of the beach had eroded away by 1973, forcing the closure of parts of the beach in the Edgemere and Rockaway Beach neighborhoods, and the boardwalk had become dilapidated. To remedy this issue, the
United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) started preparing a hurricane-protection and water-purification project for the Rockaways. A plank replacement project, commenced in 1975, was stopped later that year due to the
city's 1975 fiscal crisis. Work on the plank replacement restarted in 1977 as part of a $19 million investment in parks citywide. which were still extant during the 2010s. However, the
New York Daily News reported in 1980 that Rockaway Beach was cleaner than Coney Island's beach, in part because of large cleaning crews and because of the park's proximity to the
Edgemere Landfill. The Far Rockaway section of the boardwalk was renamed in honor of local resident Helen Leonescu in 1983. USACE refilled the beach every two years between 1980 and 1988. Because of this erosion, the section of the park between Beach 26th and 36th Streets was closed to the public for at least three years. USACE subsequently refilled the beach between 1995 and 2004. The first surfing beaches in the city opened along Rockaway Beach, at Beach 90th Street in 2005 and at Beach 67th Street in 2007. There was little commerce along the park's path by the first decade of the 21st century, and its route was characterized mainly by residential buildings and open space.
2010s to present A feasibility study of storm protections along the beach was ordered in 2003, but there was not enough money to conduct such a study. The boardwalk was damaged in August 2011 during
Hurricane Irene, particularly around Beach 95th Street, where the planks had been "split like an open zipper", according to
New York City Council member
Eric Ulrich. As a result, NYC Parks conducted a $3.8 million rebuilding project for the summer 2012 season.
Hurricane Sandy damage On October 29, 2012,
Hurricane Sandy destroyed much of the Rockaway Boardwalk. The most impacted parts of the boardwalk were between Beach 80th and 106th Streets, where some planks were tossed into nearby houses. In the aftermath of the hurricane, several entities disagreed over how the wood should be reused. The wooden boardwalk between Beach 9th and 60th Streets, a stretch, was also relatively undamaged, except for a four-block gap between Beach 35th and 39th Streets. The beach was also depleted, although many Rockaways residents had stated that, for several years before Hurricane Sandy, the beach had been eroding slowly. Sand from the beach had landed on people's yards and on nearby streets, while personal property had been tossed onto the shore. Despite the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, the city promised to open all its public beaches by Memorial Day in May 2013, including Rockaway Beach, where temporary beach access points were set up. The city restored some of the sand and added snow fence to prevent the sand from blowing back out. City officials also announced that they would construct temporary platforms, or "islands", at Beach 86th, 97th, 106th, and 116th Streets, allowing residents to access the beach for the 2013 season.
Complete reconstruction By September 2013, the city estimated that a reconstruction of the beach and boardwalk would cost $200 million. The rebuilding, overseen by
CH2M Hill, would entail the replacement of the entire boardwalk as well as the addition of of railings. The boardwalk project, to cost $274 million, was divided into five phases from west to east, the first of which was to begin in early 2014. The start of work on the boardwalk's reconstruction was delayed because of several factors. The
2013 United States federal government shutdown delayed the allocation of funding, and plans also had to be revised to accommodate new flood-proofing features. The corroded foundations also had to be replaced, and construction had to take place outside of the mating season of the
piping plover, an endangered species that nested on the beach between April and September. In February 2014, a contractor started adding of sand as an anti-erosion measure, enough to raise the beach by . The first rebuilt section between Beach 86th and 97th Streets opened in May 2015. The entire length of the boardwalk reopened in July 2016. The next year, the reconstruction received the
American Planning Association's National Planning Achievement Award for Urban Design. Some of the sand from the beach had already eroded by 2017, and the USACE had secured $400 million for further beach improvements, part of a $4 billion project to flood-proof the Rockaways. The city conducted a study in November 2017, finding that despite the erosion, the beach was wider than at almost any other time in the previous century. Despite this, the beach between Beach 91st and 102nd Streets was temporarily closed at the start of the summer season in May 2018, with reopening not expected for several years. A small portion between Beach 96th and 98th Streets was reopened the next month. The Rockaway Beach Skate Park along the boardwalk, which was severely damaged in Hurricane Sandy, reopened in August 2020 after several years of delays surrounding the skate park's reconstruction. In May 2022, city officials announced that portions of Rockaway Beach would be closed that summer so the USACE could reconstruct those sections, which had been affected by erosion. That July, the Shore Front Parkway Adventure Course opened next to the boardwalk between Beach 101st and 102nd Streets. A new amphitheater between Beach 94th and Beach 95th Streets opened the same month. the ban was later reversed. A portion of the beach near Beach 116th Street reopened in June 2025 after being rebuilt. Another section of the beach, in Edgemere, reopened that August after being closed for several decades. == Impact ==