Restoring and Rebuilding our Beaches

Orchard Beach

What To Expect This Summer

Orchard Beach, as with all other City beaches, will be open for swimming on Saturday, May 25.

Post-Storm Recovery Efforts

After the storm, the beach, promenade, picnic grounds, and game areas were overrun with debris. NYC Parks staff members removed several boats and large pieces of dock from the beach and spent weeks cutting and clearing the 60 large trees that came down in nearby wooded areas. At the beach’s north and south jetties, several large boulders shifted and dislodged, and smaller stones sloughed off and were scattered.

Updates

The Beach

Orchard Beach is currently open to the public, and will open for swimming on Saturday, May 25.

The Promenade

The hexagonal paving stones that form the Orchard Beach Promenade were uplifted and moved by the storm, on both the north and south ends. Emergency work is underway, and repairs to the jetties and promenade will be complete before the summer.

Facilities & Amenities

The picnic grounds, playgrounds, game areas and restrooms are clean, safe and ready for use.

Havana Café will be back at Orchard Beach this summer, serving Cuban, Italian, and seafood options to beachgoers at the three snack bars and at pushcarts along the promenade. 

The Orchard Beach Nature Center was undamaged and will be open at posted times throughout the season.

Brooklyn Beaches

What To Expect This Summer

Coney Island, Brighton and Manhattan Beaches, as with all other City beaches, will be open for swimming on Saturday, May 25. We also expect to open the boardwalk, as well as the amenities and entertainment that visitors have come to enjoy at our Brooklyn beaches.

Post-Storm Recovery Efforts

Immediately following the storm our staff removed large displaced debris, including a hot tub and a jet ski, from the beaches and secured damaged equipment at the playgrounds in Coney Island. We shoveled displaced sand off of the Coney Island and Brighton boardwalks and the Manhattan Beach Esplanade, and back on to the beach. The MCU lot, off of the Coney Island Boardwalk, acted as a staging area for humanitarian relief efforts.

Updates

The Beach

The clean-up portion of work at Coney Island and Manhattan Beaches is now complete. Sand relocation has been completed throughout Coney Island Beach, on the East and West sides of Steeplechase Pier, and all street ends have been cleared of stockpiled sand.

The beach will reopen for swimming on Saturday, May 25.

The Boardwalk

We have completed making repairs and removing hazards on the boardwalk between West 22^nd Street and West 24^th Street.  This section has now been re-opened for public use.  We are currently preparing the southern section of the boardwalk from West 24^th Street to West 27^th Street for pedestrian access.

Facilities & Amenities

At Coney Island and Brighton Beach, some structures, including damaged lifeguard buildings and public restrooms, have been demolished.  These structures will be replaced before the summer with modular buildings. The modular buildings, also being placed in Queens and Staten Island, are part of a joint project with the NYC Department of Design and Construction.

In early April, we began driving piles to support these new lifeguard and comfort stations, without which we cannot reopen the beaches to the public.  After the piles are installed, prefabricated comfort and lifeguard stations will be delivered.  The comfort and lifeguard stations are now on an assembly line and preparations are underway to truck each building to its new home atop the recently-installed piles.

Rockaway Beach

What To Expect This Summer

Rockaway Beach, as with all other City beaches, will be open for swimming on Saturday, May 25. There will be beach access throughout the peninsula. In sections where the boardwalk was destroyed, boardwalk “islands” will provide access to public restrooms and beach concessions.

Post-Storm Recovery Efforts

Immediately after the storm, Parks staff members secured all intact benches, railings and salvageable sections of boardwalk for safekeeping and future use, and closed access to all potentially dangerous areas.  Since then, staff members have been cleaning the beach at an accelerated pace and schedule, using hand rakes and sifting machines to remove debris.

One of our most arduous tasks was to move sand that had been carried away from the beach by the storm. A good portion of this work had to be done by hand, especially in areas such as playgrounds, where heavy equipment would have damaged benches, fences and play equipment.

In Rockaway, working with the NYC Department of Sanitation and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, we gathered sand that was pushed by the storm into nearby streets and brought it to Jacob Riis Park, where the Army Corps of Engineers used a sifting machine to remove debris. More than 150,000 cubic yards of sand have been returned to the beach.

Updates

Rockaway Parks Conceptual Plan

A community visioning session for Rockaway residents, business owners and other stakeholders was held Saturday, April 6, drawing around 100 community members to Beach Channel High School to discuss the long-term vision for the restoration of Rockaway Beach.

We have launched a webpage to report on the feedback from this meeting and give community members additional opportunities to add their ideas and continue the discussion. Please participate in the development of the Rockaway Parks Conceptual Plan by evaluating community-generated ideas and contributing your own.

Share your concerns and wishes for the future of the Rockaways

Rockaway Shoreline Protection

On Wednesday, May 29, NYC Parks will hold a meeting to update the Rockaway community on efforts underway to improve shoreline protection and the Department’s research on proposed shoreline protection solutions.  Space is limited.  If you are interested in attending, please contact Jonathan Matt at Jonathan.Matt@parks.nyc.gov or (718) 520-5939.

The Beach

The beach will open for swimming on Saturday, May 25.

The Boardwalk

Some undamaged portions of the boardwalk are already open, while other minimally-damaged portions are being repaired and will be open this summer. Severely-damaged sections of the wood boardwalk have been removed and reusable wood has been salvaged through an Army Corps of Engineers contract.

Working with the NYC Department of Sanitation, we towed displaced but intact sections of the boardwalk between Beach 80^th and 84^th Streets, as well as a section at Beach 32^nd and Beach 39^th Street back into place. Our carpenters then aligned and reattached these pieces to the boardwalk supports.

Replacement baffle walls, running from 126^th to 149^th Streets, will soon be erected to replace the walls that were destroyed by Sandy and to help protect the surrounding community. These concrete walls will rise an average of four feet above the sand – one foot taller than the walls that they are replacing – and extend an average of one foot into the ground. The baffle walls are attached to 25-foot pilings, driven into the ground to keep the walls in place.

Facilities & Amenities

Repairs are currently being made to damaged public restrooms and lifeguard buildings. In areas where these buildings were destroyed or are too damaged to repair, they will be replaced with modular units. These modular buildings, also being placed in Brooklyn and Staten Island, are part of a joint project with the NYC Department of Design and Construction.

In early April, we began driving piles to support these new lifeguard and comfort stations, without which we cannot reopen the beaches to the public. After the piles are installed, prefabricated comfort and lifeguard stations will be delivered.  The comfort and lifeguard stations are now on an assembly line and preparations are underway to truck each building to its new home atop the recently-installed piles.

Four boardwalk islands, providing access to beach facilities and amenities, will be created at Beach 86^th, 97^th, 106^th, and 116^th Streets, and all locations that had restroom facilities last year will have them this year. In addition, the Rockaway Beach Club food concessions will be back for a third, triumphant year.

Many of Rockaway’s playgrounds will reopen this summer after replacement of their safety surfacing.

For information on Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis Park, or other national parks on Jamaica Bay, please visit the National Park Service website.

Staten Island Beaches

What To Expect This Summer

South, Midland, Cedar Grove and Wolfe’s Pond beaches, as with all other City beaches, will be open for swimming on Saturday, May 25.  The Vanderbilt and South Fin concessions are already up and running and this summer we expect to have mobile food vendors along Father Capodanno Boulevard, serving Dolphin Circle, Turtle Circle and properties in South and Midland beaches, as we have done in recent summers.

Updates

The Beach

The beaches will open for swimming on Saturday, May 25.

We have nearly completed sand, downed tree and debris removal at all our beaches, parks and ballfields along the shoreline.  Sand re-grading is underway and we have also completed bathymetric studies at all our swimmable beaches, checking for any debris or sharp drop-offs on the ocean floor.

The Boardwalk

We will reconstruct damaged areas of the boardwalk, reset paving stones, and repair access ramps.

Facilities & Amenities

Repairs are currently being made to damaged public restrooms and lifeguard buildings.  In areas where these buildings were destroyed or are too damaged to repair, they will be replaced with modular units.  These modular buildings, also being placed in Brooklyn and Queens, are part of a joint project with the NYC Department of Design and Construction, and will serve as both lifeguard and comfort stations. 

Pile driving for these units, without which we cannot reopen the beaches to the public, has been completed at Wolfe’s Pond Park and Midland Beach.  The comfort and lifeguard stations are now on an assembly line and preparations are underway to deliver each building to its new home atop the piles.

Emergency Protective Measures Installation

We are beginning construction of emergency protective measures at South, New Dorp, Oakwood and Cedar Grove beaches.  We have awarded the bid to Tully Construction to implement a berm project, designed by the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), which will install a reinforced dune system to protect adjacent properties within the 5 year still water inundation level - the average level of the ocean during a five year storm event.

Following Hurricane Sandy, the ACOE conducted a LIDAR elevation analysis of the Staten Island coast, identifying areas that fell below the 5 year still water elevation, and designed a sand dune reinforced with geotextile bags. Geotextile bags are made of a permeable fabric, strong enough to withstand wave action.

Installation Sites

South Beach Section: The berm will extend 5,500 linear feet (LF) along the coast from Ocean Avenue to Ocean Breeze Park, replenishing 33,000 cubic yards of sand at South Beach. The dunes are designed to reach 13+ NAVD (North American Vertical Datum relating ground and flood elevations). This will make them of varying height, depending on the height of the beach, and will range anywhere from 3 to 13 feet. The berm will be approximately 5’ away from the FDR boardwalk and will have overlapped openings to allow beach access.

New Dorp/Oakwood/Cedar Grove Sections: The berm will extend 7,500 LF along the coast from New Dorp Lane to Fox Lane, bringing 41,000 cubic yards of sand to the shore. The dunes will be of varying height depending on the height of the beach, and will range anywhere from 3 to 13 feet. The berm will have overlapped openings to allow beach access.

Installation Timeline

We expect to begin construction within the next few weeks.  Further details on dates and timeframe will be shared when confirmed.