Rockaway Beach In Queens, NY Walking Tour

Original Film Date: Monday August 5th, 2024

Rockaway Beach is a neighborhood as the main part of the Rockaway Peninsula of southern Queens, NY. It's known for its 5.5 mile boardwalk, many people coming there every summer, families and friends enjoying the beaches, and urban streets of the community. There are plenty of apartment buildings, condos, and houses in the Rockaways that would remind you of Ocean City in Maryland or Virginia Beach in Virginia. At the beaches, people do swim, sunbathe, skateboard, play sports like Volleyball or Basketball, some people surfing at the beach, and enjoying the warm, humid and hot weather during the summer. There are seasonal vendors and restaurants that serve pizza, arepas, hip-style food, and some Italian food made in Italian restaurants. Pastel condos and houses were mainly built after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 near the apartment towers in the area. In recent years, there's new condos and smaller apartment buildings spent as rent is rising and there's gentrification going on. You'll see gentrifiers coming to Rockaway Beach more often, some of them are probably moving there close to Brooklyn, and had recently opened new businesses as new locals.

I toured around the residential areas of the Rockaways like Belle Harbor, Neponsit, and Rockaway Park. The main parts of this video includes Jacob Riis Park as a local beach, Fort Tilden beach and a national recreation area of historical abandoned buildings used in World War II and the early years of the Cold War, a soccer field, historical landmark buildings, a performing arts theater, a small gallery museum, a picnic area, and the Wise Clock. You can realize that I got a little bit close to the burnt-out abandoned military base with graffiti and fences surrouding it. I was close to exporing the abandoned sites of Fort Tilden, but I was feeling nervous about the security and park rangers around as they were close to this isolated part of the historical beach. I only went close the first military base in ruins, then a small hidden bunker, and the Bike Path (Ranger Road) that I even took pictures of. Fort Tilden Beach and Jacob Riis Park used to be nude beaches back in the 1970s to the early 2010s with the Gay and Queer visitors along with topless people. The secret side of Fort Tilden Beach is actually a topless beach and surprisingly sometimes, it's still a nude beach. I got really weirded out seeing people topless and a few folks fully nude/naked sunbathing. I decided to keep it PG-13 or rated PG with none of that weird nonsense. There was a 2014 movie filmed in Fort Tilden called the exact same name of the area and it's a hipster comedy movie with two Brooklyn girls visiting the beach. The historical building that's under renovation and construction is the old bathhouse. The restrooms and the outdoor food court look historical, since they were made during the early 1920s to 1930s. The main part of Rockaway Beach is more common to see the long boardwalk, some parts are in current construction, many people visit daily during summer break, some newly built hotels for tourists to stay over when they visit New York (like The Rockaway hotel on Rockaway Beach Drive), and beach restaurants you can enjoy getting food there. I didn't get to see the far direction areas of the Rockaways like Hammels, Arvene, Edgemere, Bayswater, and Far Rockaway in this video, but I can do a part 2 next time and visit those Far Rockaway areas.

The demographics of the Rockaway Peninsula is very interesting. The western side is more residential in Belle Harbor and Neponsit. Most residents are people of Irish, Italian, and Polish descents, a third of the demographics are Jewish residents, and a small number of Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, Chinese etc. Most of the Rockaways with the main part is filled with all differnt kinds of people like working class citizens, middle class families, upper class individuals, urban professionals that locals claim are gentrifiers, and many others. The eastern side is known to be the Far Rockaway area with an Orthodox Jewish population, Puerto Ricans, Caribbean people (Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Guyanese etc.), African-Americans, some Indians, some other Latinos (Mexicans, Hondurans, Dominicans, Costa Ricans etc.), and some Italian-Amercans. Of course, Far Rockaway is close to the JFK Airport and Long Island villages like Lawrence, Atlantic Beach, Inwood, and Cedarhurst.

Background song: Ship Wrek & Zookeepers - Ark | Future Bass | NCS - Copyright Free Music (NoCopyrightSounds)