Between Ocean and City: The Transformation of Rockaway, New York Book

As life-long Rockaway local, I've been exposed to word-of-mouth history for most of my life (save for local historian Emil Lucev's pieces in The Wave Newspaper over the decades). This book had been on my to-read list ever since it came out, but I didn't get to it until recently. It's a thoroughly researched and in-depth history of the Rockaways'all of the Rockaways'and I am so glad I finally read it.

While local legend and lore lays Rockaway's decline largely at the feet of Robert Moses, the Kaplans' work reveals the limits of Moses' influence here, and points to a more familiar and close-to-home culprit (greedy landlords) as well the overall societal shift that sent "people like us" (white, working class first- and second-generation Americans) out toward the greener pastures of Long Island and other suburbs in the post war years. Although we were among the stubborn/sentimental/or maybe just thrifty families who stayed put, my understanding of Rockaway has always from that limited perspective. So this scholarly study was a refreshing and really expanded my appreciation for, and frustration with, our little corner of New York City in all is glorious diversity. I highly recommend it as a companion to The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, which largely skates over Moses' impact on Rockaway, as well as for any local who would like to get a glimpse of the broader history of the entire peninsula.