#140 Rockaway Beach

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2012

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Rockaways are a world unto its own, a former resort destination with miles of beach facing into the Atlantic Ocean, a collection of diverse neighborhoods and a truly quirky history. Retaining a variant of its original Lenape name, the peninsula remained relatively peaceful in the early years of New York history, the holding of the ancestral family of a famous upstate New York university. The Marine Pavilion, a luxury spa-like resort which arrived in 1833 featuring 'sea bathing', opened up vast opportunities for recreation, and soon Rockaway Beach was dotted with dozens of hotels, thousands of daytrippers and a even a famous amusement park. Not even the fiasco known as the Rockaway Beach Hotel could drive away those seeking recreation here, including a huge population of Irish immigrants who helped define the unique spirit of the Rockaways. The 20th century brought Robert Moses and his usual brand of reinvention, setting up the Rockaways for an uncertain century of decreased tourism, urban blight and uncommon solutions to preserve its unique heritage. ALSO: Pirate attacks, the inferno in Irishtown, the Cabaret de la Morte, the Ramones and the legend of New York's very own Atlantis! www.boweryboyspodcast.com Twitter: Boweryboys Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boy's episode 140. Rockaway Beach.
0:19.0	Hi there, welcome to the Bowry Boy. This is Greg Young.
0:21.0	And this is Tom Myers.
0:23.0	And that sounded a little something with something off there with the opening.
0:27.0	It was missing, wasn't it? Well, if you listen to our last show, you might recall that we promised a new ad at the beginning.
0:34.0	That didn't quite come to fruition. What happened?
0:37.0	We had a few technical difficulties, so we'll be adding that to the next program.
0:43.0	But Tom, why don't you give us the intro live here?
0:47.0	Do that live presentation?
0:50.0	Well, I would just say as the editor of Eurochipo, and perhaps some listeners didn't realize that that was my day job.
0:57.0	But we are in the middle of a very exciting redesign, so stay tuned.
1:01.0	And obviously, if you're heading to Europe, check out the site for some great budget hotel recommendations.
1:05.0	Now we, however, are heading not to Europe, but to the beach.
1:10.0	But to hotels.
1:12.0	To hotels on the beach, going to one of the most peculiar places within all the city.
1:17.0	That is the Queen's Peninsula known as the Rockaways, or as some say, Rockaway Beach.
1:23.0	For much of its early existence, this area has been defined as a resort area for New Yorkers, defined by recreation and amusements.
1:32.0	Rivaling Coney Island as one of the destinations that people went in New York during the 19th and early 20th century, just to relax.
1:41.0	Of course, if you go to Coney Island today, you can still ride a roller coaster.
1:45.0	But when you head out to the Rockaways and look around, there's a beautiful beach stretched out from miles in front of you.
1:51.0	But alas, no roller coasters, no giant resorts, no colorful hotels, no Irish bars to speak of.
1:59.0	So what happened?
	...

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