The wooden Rockaway Beach Boardwalk was an icon. Begun in the early 20th-century, the boardwalk was completed in the 1930s and helped maintain Rockaway’s status as a grand summer resort on the Atlantic.
If you’ve never been to Rockaway before, I encourage you to take a visit there. When I was a sophomore in college, a classmate in one of my Environmental Science courses said that, “There’s no nature in NYC.” She wasn’t from New York, so I told her to get out of Manhattan sometime if she had the chance. I told her to take the A to Rockaway. Lay on the beach, visit Riis Park, wander Fort Tilden and Edgemere and Bayswater. Go kayaking in the bay and step foot onto one of the marshes. She’d even have a nice view along the way.
You won’t be able to experience the wonder that was the original wooden boardwalk, however. That structure was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. I was a senior in high school at the time, and I can remember my last time on the boardwalk- practicing volleyball with my friends while I forgot about college applications for a little bit.
Just a week later, our communities had been ravaged. Sections of the wooden boardwalk lay scattered in the street amongst overturned cars and other debris. Concrete pilings stretched for miles through the rubble, like soldiers readying for battle. I took a picture of my friend as we made our way through the destruction; it felt like the end of the world.
The new boardwalk is objectively safer, sturdier, and more resilient than the last one. But in the minds of long-time Rockaway residents, is it better? Can the modernists’ love affair with concrete ever emotionally compare with the dear memories of wooden planks?
When you drive in from Queens over the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge, head straight toward the beach. Once you’ve parked, continue to the boardwalk and you’ll be met by an entrance scene that spills out onto the sidewalk, embracing you with open arms and beckoning you to view the superb coastal scene on the other side.
The promise of a new Rockaway is symbolized in this entrance way. No longer forgotten by the city, no longer known for its dog attacks and deteriorating homes and infrastructure, Rockaway now welcomes visitors in troves as it strives to return to its fin-de-siècle glory.
All along the boardwalk graceful and playful vistas reign. In the Beach 30s the boardwalk is a faithful companion to the new Far Rockaway Park by WXY Studio, whose physical structures recall parasols, gull wings, and beach towels blowing in the wind. In the Beach 70s the boardwalk acts as an esplanade for the inhabitants of the sturdy new development of Arverne by the Sea. Through the Beach 80s and 90s smaller but no less marvelous entrance pathways that wind like serpents and are lined by native beach plants lead the way to revamped concessions. Passing through the Beach 100s the boardwalk provides the backdrop for historic, mural-ed bus stops that depict striking aquatic scenes, and it ends in the Beach 120s in a look-out station for kids and curious adults a like.
The new boardwalk was highly contested. For many, concrete represented an end to the beach-style life that Rockaway residents prided themselves on living.
But the City of New York no longer wanted Rockaway to be known as the city’s refuse. Residents were included in the design process so that the final structure would represent there hopes and ambitions for a united community; a community that will not lift up a white flag as it stares down the harrowing face of climate change and sea level rise.
Portions of the boardwalk were turned to concrete before 2012. These sections were a mess. Meant to reflect the look and texture of sand, the individual blocks seemed too chaotically different from each other: they weren’t all the same texture and never seemed to line up correctly. They did, however, hold up in the storm, a foreshadow of change to come.
The new boardwalk is an engaging light grey-blue color, inlaid with stone and glass, and it doesn’t shallowly try to imitate the environment it lives in. Instead it works with it, offering a contrast of color and sliding nicely into, and fortifying, the natural dune ecosystem. Undulating lines that look like waves separate the bike lanes from the walking paths, and thoughtfully designed lifeguard stations, water fountains, and wooden benches (made from the original boardwalk wood) abound.
I find the boardwalk a beacon of environmentally sound and beautifully designed infrastructure that sets up Rockaway Beach for its long awaited renaissance.
Emblazoned in light-blue is the community’s signature. Can you spot it as you take-off from or land at JFK? Or perhaps you can figure it out using a different perspective from right there on the ground.
You only have to cast your eyes on [architecture] to feel the presence of the past [and] the spirit of a place… – I.M. Pei
New York at its Best 