Hitch a ride to Rockaway
Rockaway welcomes everyone arriving by plane from Europe—you can see it through the aircraft windows just before landing at JFK Airport. Administratively, the peninsula is still part of New York City, yet the atmosphere already feels distinctly provincial.
Rockaway is both the most isolated and one of the most distant neighborhoods of greater New York. The peninsula is very narrow, measuring no more than about one and a half kilometers at its widest point.
Before Europeans arrived in America, the area was inhabited by Native Americans. This history is preserved in the name itself: in the Mohican language, the word “rack-a-wak-e” simply means “sandy place.”
For more than a hundred years, Rockaway has been a favorite summer destination for New Yorkers. Alongside Coney Island, its beaches are among the city’s most popular spots on the Atlantic coast. They were immortalized by the Ramones, who sang in 1977: “It's not hard, not far to reach, / We can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach.”
The famous beaches and the entire neighborhood were severely affected by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Rockaway suffered the greatest losses of all New York City districts. The scars are still visible today, but Rockaway is steadily getting back on its feet.
