Chronicling the story of New York's beloved Rockaway Beach community and the efforts to recapture the magical success from an earlier era.
The American frontier did not just consist of a prairie—it also included marshes and windswept sand dunes. When the earliest settlers arrived at Rockaway Beach on steamships in the mid-1800s, it was a narrow strip of land packed with ponds and covered with dunes. Within 30 years, the community had grown into a wildly popular resort served by a thriving rail line. Amusement parks, hotels, taverns, and dance halls abounded, as did bungalow courts and open-air tent colonies. In the 1960s, the area was disrupted by urban development efforts and transportation infrastructure had declined.
Today, Rockaway Beach is being rediscovered by a new generation of visitors and entrepreneurs as longtime residents work simultaneously to reinvigorate it.