Rockaway Park, Queens

Local fire station

Rockaway Park is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. The area is on the Rockaway Peninsula, nestled between Jamaica Bay to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. The neighborhood of Rockaway Beach lies on its eastern border while the community of Belle Harbor is situated on its western side. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 14.[1]

Character

The heavily Irish Rockaway Park has been called the "Irish Riviera".[2] The 2000 United States Census showed that 36.0% of the population were of Irish ancestry in the ZCTA for ZIP Code 11694.[3] The Saint Patrick's Day parade in Rockaway is the second-largest St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City, second only to New York City's Saint Patrick's Day Parade up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.[4]

The neighborhood is centered around Beach 116th Street, a two-block street that runs from Beach Channel Drive southward to Ocean Promenade.[5]

Transportation

Manhattan is accessible to commuters via the A and ​S trains at the Rockaway Park – Beach 116th Street station, the terminus of the IND Rockaway Line and its associated services.[6]

The area is served by bus routes operated by MTA New York City Bus. The Q22 bus runs the length of the Rockaway Peninsula.[7] The Q52 SBS runs from Beach 54th Street in Arverne, over the Cross Bay Bridge via Cross Bay Boulevard to Woodhaven.[7] The Q53 SBS runs from Beach 116th Street, over the Cross Bay Bridge via Cross Bay Boulevard to Woodside, and Woodside LIRR station and 61st Street subway station. [7]The Q35 runs from Beach 116th Street to the Flatbush Avenue – Brooklyn College subway station, and the Brooklyn College, in Brooklyn via the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and Flatbush Avenue. It goes through Belle Harbor, Neponsit, and Jacob Riis Park on the Rockaway Peninsula.[7]

One can also take a school bus named Rockabus from Williamsburg, Brooklyn.[8]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012, which caused massive infrastructure damage to the A train south of the station at Howard Beach – JFK Airport, severing all direct subway connections between the Rockaway Peninsula and Broad Channel, Queens and the Queens mainland for many months, ferry operator SeaStreak began running a city-subsidized ferry service between a makeshift ferry slip at Beach 108th Street and Beach Channel Drive and Pier 11/Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, then continuing on to the East 34th Street Ferry Landing in midtown Manhattan. In August 2013, a stop was added at Brooklyn Army Terminal.[9] Originally intended as just a stopgap alternative transportation measure until subway service was restored to the Rockaways, the ferry proved to be popular with both commuters and tourists and was extended several times, although the original $2 one-way fare was raised to $3.50 in February 2014.[10] Although civic activists and local elected officials lobbied the city government to make the ferry permanent, or to at least continue the temporary extension, those efforts proved to be unsuccessful, and the last ferry sailed on the night of October 31, 2014.[11]

In February 2015, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that Rockaway would be part of a new citywide ferry service expected to begin in 2017, with the Beach 108th Street site slated to again be the location for the ferry landing.[12] On May 1, 2017, NYC Ferry's Rockaway route started operations between Pier 11/Wall Street in Manhattan's Financial District and Beach 108th Street in Rockaway Park, with a stop at Brooklyn Army Terminal.[13][14]

References

  1. ↑ Queens Community Boards, New York City. Accessed September 3, 2007.
  2. ↑ Grace, Melissa. "Boro goes for brogue", New York Daily News, March 9, 2007. Accessed July 13, 2017. "On Saturday, leprechauns scampered by bagpipe bands as New York State’s second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade struck out through the thickly Irish communities of Belle Harbor and Rockaway Park.... Also in the Rockaways — which was known in the 1950s as 'the Irish Riviera' — Belle Harbor’s house parties, which for years have drawn the city’s top politicians, swung into the evening Saturday."
  3. ↑ DP-2: Profile of Selected Social Characteristics: 2000 from the Census 2000 Summary File 3 (SF 3) - Sample Data for ZCTA5 11694, United States Census Bureau. Accessed July 13, 2017.
  4. ↑ Queens County St. Patrick's Day Parade & Cultural Committee. Accessed September 27, 2011.
  5. ↑ "BEACH 116TH STREET, Rockaway Park". Forgotten New York. June 5, 1998. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Subway Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. January 18, 2018. Retrieved January 18, 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Queens Bus Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. December 2017. Retrieved April 24, 2018.
  8. ↑ Rock Rock Rockaway Food Stands. October 18, 2012.
  9. ↑ http://www.seastreakusa.com/viewpage.aspx?page=Brooklyn
  10. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on March 30, 2014. Retrieved March 11, 2014.
  11. ↑ http://www.ny1.com/content/news/218228/commuters-bemoan-closing-of-rockaway-ferry/%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
  12. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on April 24, 2016. Retrieved May 9, 2016.
  13. ↑ "NYC launches ferry service with Queens, East River routes". NY Daily News. Associated Press. May 1, 2017. Archived from the original on May 1, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
  14. ↑ Levine, Alexandra S.; Wolfe, Jonathan (May 1, 2017). "New York Today: Our City's New Ferry". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 1, 2017.

Coordinates: 40°34′43″N 73°50′27″W / 40.578564°N 73.840967°W / 40.578564; -73.840967

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