Local News
Dunes - Annual Election Certification (2023)
NYPD & Ring partnership
Posted on Jan 3rd, 2023
Hi all,
As we enter into the new year we want to again share with you the excellent new collaboration the NYPD has entered into with Ring Neighbors. Attached you will find the link from the department in regards to the new initiative. We strongly believe this tool will assist the department in continuing to keep the people of New York City safe.
Please feel free to share this link on your social media platforms so we can spread the word about this tool.
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November 2, 2022. Neighbors App Allows the Department to View, Post, and Respond to Crime and Safety Posts. The NYPD today has announced its participation in Neighbors, a free app developed as a part of the Ring system that facilitates interaction between law enforcement and the public.
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Wishing you prosperity in the new year,
Police Officer Lauren Haber
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New York City Police Department
Community Affairs
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100 Precinct
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????: (718) 318-4233 | ????: (917) 971.5991
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| Email: Lauren.Haber@nypd.org |
NYPD and Ring partneship
Posted on Dec 6th, 2022
Good afternoon everyone,
Neighbors App Allows the NYPD to View, Post, and Respond to Crime and Safety Posts.
The NYPD has announced its participation in Neighbors, a free app developed as a part of the Ring system that facilitates interaction between law enforcement and the public.
The collaboration between Ring and the NYPD will commence citywide in the coming weeks.
While the NYPD will not monitor the app around the clock, it will have the capacity to view, post, and respond to crime- and safety-related information posted publicly by the users of the app. Those posts will appear on a map and a timeline, with or without accompanying photos or video. The NYPD will also be able to proactively post notifications to the public and to seek the public’s help with active police matters, through the app’s “Request for Assistance” feature.
"The ability to interact online with New Yorkers – often in real-time – adds to the comprehensive crime-fighting strategies already employed by the NYPD in its relentless efforts to keep our city and everyone in it safe," said Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell. "True public safety is a shared responsibility, and this tool stands to further advance the collective work of our police and all the people we serve toward reaching that worthy ideal."
Thank you very much and I appreciate you.
Thankful & Grateful.
Thank you very much. Blessings.
May your whole life prove that God is good.
Take care and be greater, be well. God bless your heart.
Police Officer Victor Boamah
Community Affairs 100TH Precinct
New York City Police Department
92-24 Rockaway Beach Blvd
Rockaway Beach, NY 11693
Office: 718-318-4233
Cell: 917-783-5215
official-point-of-view-189
NY Gov. Kathy Hochul bumps NYC lifeguard pay amid shortage (nypost.com)
Surfer Today - Rockaway Beach - the heart of surfing in NYC
Posted on Sep 10th, 2021
Surver Today - Rockaway Beach - the heart of surfing in NYC 9/2/2021
Bar Marseille Article - New York Post 10/12/2020
Posted on Oct 19th, 2020
Congratulations to our Bar Marseille Restaurant featured in the New York Post on 10/12/2020
NY Times Article - Rockaways
Posted on Aug 1st, 2020
Great article about Rockaways in the NY Times
NYC schools chancellor holds first education town hall meeting in Far Rockaway
Posted on Jan 16th, 2020
New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza answered parents’ questions Monday night at his first Community Education Council District 27 town hall meeting in Far Rockaway.
HOUSING ON THE EDGE: A Brief History of Arverne
Posted on Jun 13th, 2019
In 2001, The Architectural League presented an exhibition entitled Arverne: Housing on the Edge, which featured four proposals for a large section of the Arverne Urban Renewal Area on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. The proposals—by teams from CASE, City College, Columbia University, and Yale University —were the result of an independent design investigation organized by the League to inform the Request for Proposals issued by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development for the same site in December of 2000.
Are Surfer Cafes and Green Markets What a Working-Class Beach Neighborhood Needs?
Posted on May 19th, 2019
Sleepy Arverne is attracting entrepreneurs from its neighbor to the west, Rockaway Beach. As gentrification there continues, the community adjusts to the spotlight.
LINK to article with images
By Kate Branch
May 17, 2019
You will smell it before you see it. Goody’s, a 30-year-old West Indian restaurant known for its oxtail and jerk chicken, brims with locals, many of Caribbean descent with discerning palates. It is a staple for residents of Arverne, Queens, a tight-knit but often overlooked neighborhood located between Rockaway Beach and Far Rockaway.
On a Saturday afternoon in April, teenagers in Champion sweats and their younger siblings in face paint lined up at the counter, in addition to a few middle-aged men on their way home from work, and a tall woman with long blond braids who asked for her container of fried fish to be left open. That way it wouldn’t be soggy after her 20-minute commute, she explained to the employees in T-shirts that said, “Goody’s, It’s All Good.”
Most patrons take their food to go, but some prefer to linger in a screened-in side porch, depending on the evening breeze. Other customers will take their meals around the corner to the Rockaway Brewing Company on Beach 72nd Street, a three year-old bar in a garage-like structure lined with surfboards and vinyl records. On the busiest summer weekends, Goody’s had to hire a “food runner” to deliver orders to the bar.
The unofficial business agreement between Rockaway Brewing and Goody’s represents how the lines that have divided a peninsula long defined by race and socioeconomic standing have started to blur. Other entrepreneurs have noticed, and have set up shop in Arverne, too. What remains to be seen is whether this working-class neighborhood, which is over 60 percent black and about 20 percent Latino, will continue to embrace and be embraced by the new business interests steadily moving into the area.
“We don’t see people’s color, just the color of their money,” said Gary Robinson, who owns Goody’s along with his wife, Joan Robinson. They also own and rent out several apartments in Arverne.
Perhaps the biggest mover and shaker in the neighborhood has been the waterfront development project called Arverne by the Sea, which ushered in picket-fenced townhouses in 2010; a Stop & Shop grocery store and a YMCA followed in 2011. The community’s most recent phase, luxury apartments over shops and cafes called the Tides, broke ground this past fall. The first of eight buildings is now at 98 percent occupancy.
“Arverne by the Sea did it right,” said Nicole Russell, who grew up on Beach 64th Street when the neighborhood offered almost no food options for her and her family. “They not only built up our land, but they brought something for the community too, like food and jobs,” she continued. “But we need more.”
More is on its way. And much of it is connected to the new Tides complex, including second locations for two well-known Rockaway Beach businesses.
“Arverne needs something to eat,” said Claudette Flatow of Cuisine by Claudette, a health-conscious cafe on bustling Beach 116th Street that will also open a new restaurant on the ground floor of the Tides at the end of this month.
Ms. Flatow, an Israeli and French transplant, first came to the peninsula in 1994. “Nothing was here,” she said of Rockaway Beach when she opened her restaurant there in 2012. “I took a big risk,” she continued, “but the neighborhood took me in like I’m a part of Rockaway, and I know the same thing will happen in Arverne.”
Locals Surf School, another Rockaway Beach fixture that started out in 2011 storing boards in the back of an old silver van, has also opened a cafe and a 100-locker surfboard storage business at the Tides.
“We had the beach all to ourselves,” said Mike Reinhardt, a co-owner of Locals Surf School, about Arverne, just a few years ago. “We knew it was only a matter of time that people would wake up and realize it’s easier to get to this beach by subway than any other beach in Rockaway.”(The A train to Far Rockaway runs directly to Beach 67th Street in Arverne, unlike the Rockaway Beach stops, which require a transfer at Broad Channel.)
Several longtime business owners in Arverne welcome the renewed interest in their neighborhood. “We’ve been a food desert for so long,” said Ms. Russell, who has been making 150 pizzas a week and selling them out of her home since 2014. She calls her business Last Dragon Pizza, and like Goody’s, it also provides takeout for Rockaway Brewing customers during the off-season.
“Making pizza restored my faith in people, because Rockaway is very territorial,” said Ms. Russell. “For a long time, if you lived in Rockaway Beach, you didn’t come down to Arverne — my customers would be like, ‘Where is that?’”
Emmanuel Loncke, 34, who runs Smoothie Haven on Beach Channel Drive next door to his father’s church, Arverne Pilgrim Church, feels similarly to Ms. Russell. “Growing up, people almost forgot we were here,” he said. “But now we’re seeing a lot of growth, commercial property is almost already gone, and I think we have the grounds to produce a small but mighty town.”
Ms. Russell and other residents do have concerns about the rapid development.
Much of the peninsula, she explained, has a history of being overlooked by the city in terms of resources, despite the needs of residents, who range from homeowners still rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy to those living in nearby public housing like Edgemere and Hammel Houses. In addition, the vacant land, especially by the bay, has been used as a de facto dumping ground or years.
“We’re working-class people who clean up after ourselves,” Ms. Russell said, so new residents and those with commercial interests in the area “need to respect the community and the investment we’ve made.”
Ozzie Edwards, 47, who is a member of Community Board 14, said that he is ready for even more growth. “Sure, these establishments are bringing more people and awareness to the neighborhood,” he said. “The coffee shop, the wine bar, these are small luxuries that no doubt benefit all people, but what about more jobs? Can there be another Stop & Shop or big box store that could offer real stability? Like, for example, and I’m just throwing this out there, but if only Amazon came to Rockaway, that would open up thousands of jobs for residents.”
Despite the increased economic activity near Arverne by the Sea, the low-lying streets along the bay are still littered with trash and spotted with sinkholes, and telephone wires dangle over sidewalks ominously. “It’s just a shame the bay front isn’t developed,” said Mike Kololyan, Mr. Reinhardt’s partner at Locals Surf School. Mr. Reinhardt said: “You go to San Diego, even Boston, and both the ocean and the bay have amazing promenades — it makes no sense. If this was Brooklyn or Manhattan, it would have been developed a long time ago.”
But there’s at least one Rockaway-based pioneer banking on the bay. David Selig, 54, a co-owner of the now-defunct Rockaway Taco, the original hipster outpost that opened 11 years ago and is credited with bringing a food scene to the peninsula, has opened Edgemere Market, a farm stand connected to a farm he partly owns on Beach 45th Street in the neighborhood of Edgemere, just east of Arverne.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, as Mr. Selig stood outside a garage full of local produce — Kyoto carrots, watermelon radishes, Wagyu beef and loaves of homemade sourdough — he said that he saw great investment potential in the area, which is why he said he “outbid God for it,” recalling his bidding war over the property with a church. “Food starts the dialogue,” Mr. Selig said, referring to the slower and more subtle signs of development on his side of town.
But change is slowly coming.
The yogis are there: On Beach 68th Street and Thursby Avenue, just down the street from El Capitan, a deli and grocery with what are said to be the best empanadas in town, is the Rockaway Summer House. Housed in a building once owned by Harry Belafonte, it is a retreat center, run by monks who live there, which offers free meditation and yoga.
And the artists are there, too: At Edgemere Market, you can peer through a locked door to catch a glimpse of the workshop of the German blacksmith Norbert Kimmel. Large and rare metal machines sit alongside detailed chandeliers and bovine structures that, when placed in the open air, operate like wind-chimes.
“There are all these undiscovered talents popping up in Arverne,” Mr. Loncke, the Smoothie Haven owner, said. “Like it’s the little lost New York.”
Updates from the Rockaway Business Alliance!
Posted on Mar 26th, 2019
The Rockaway Business Alliance has created an online portal for all community members to be involved in further developing the top ideas for improving our community! At www.cogenera.org/rockaway, you can see all of the most active conversations, projects, and ideas happening around the peninsula. Rather than just viewing these initiatives, however, you can actively participate in making them happen!
Once signed in, you can engage in discussions, help to make/tackle action items, and even create completely new ideas for enhancing life in Rockaway. Overall, this technology allows for a whole new approach to how we develop our community - allowing everyone to share, develop, and implement their best ideas along with their neighbors!
New Rockaway Parks Rep to Step Up in April
Posted on Mar 21st, 2019
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019The Rockaway Times
New Rockaway Parks Rep to Step Up in April
The next Rockaway Administrator for NYC Parks is stepping up to the beach. Last week, Parks announced that Eric Peterson will be taking on the role previously held by Portia Dyrenforth.
Peterson, called a “lifer Parkie,” will be stepping into the role starting in April, just in time for the busy summer season. However it seems he’s getting a head start on learning about the issues that impact Rockaway. Peterson made an appearance at Monday’s Community Board 14 Parks Committee meeting to hear about some updates for the 2019 summer season and concerns from board members and local residents.
According to a press release from Parks, sent on March 14, Peterson has been working with the Parks Department for 20 years, joining the force right after college. According to the release, Peterson has a long list of accomplishments while working for Parks.
“Eric began his career in the Marketing & Special Events office, where he oversaw various city-wide events, and helped to bring back the Winter Festival in Central Park.He then served as Director of Manhattan Special Events & Permits, overseeing everything from rallies to ribbon cuttings, and softball to sukkahs. Eric joined field Maintenance and Operations (M&O) as a Parks and Recreation manager in Brooklyn in 2004. His assignments there included Districts 1, 3, and 4, Pools, Requirement Projects, ADA, and staff development. Eric re-opened the derelict McCarren Pool for performances and festivals, including the Beastie Boys’ only major public show in Brooklyn. In 2008, Eric joined Capital as Chief of Staff for the Deputy Commissioner. In 2009, Eric returned to Manhattan and M&O, helping to open the High Line, and then moved on to become Deputy Administrator of Randall’s Island.
Working with Park Administrator Aimee Boden and leadership of the Randall’s Island Park Alliance (RIPA), Eric developed an effective, integrated public-private partnership, drawing on assets from Parks and RIPA to seamlessly provide a quality park experience to patrons, improved environment, and a fulfilling workplace for the staff. At Randall’s Island, Eric has brought online more than $150 million in capital improvements, and developed state of good repair replacement cycles for synthetic turf and other capital assets.
”Peterson’s educational background is also impressive. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology and International Studies from Yale, and a master's degree in Urban Studies from Queens College. He has also completed CORO’s Leadership New York and Parks’ Master Gardener program at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Peterson lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Previous administrator, Dyrenforth, was also a Brooklynite, but quickly adopted an understanding for Rockaway’s unique issues and worked with locals to bring new events to the peninsula, like Poseidon’s Parade and the Rockaway Times Sandcastle contest. Peterson has big shoes to fill, but we wish him good luck and success in this new role.
Mayor de Blasio signs bill to crack down on those who illegally list city residences with Airbnb
Posted on Aug 15th, 2018
Mayor de Blasio signed Monday a bill that will crack down on Airbnb’s operations New York City.
The action came just days before the City Council is slated to vote on a measure that would limit the number of cars driving for Uber and similar companies.
This Is New York?
Posted on Aug 15th, 2018
The city’s most improbable new neighborhood is a new urbanist experiment in the Rockaways.
There is a very un–New York sense of calm. And there is the beach, a fine, wide, clean beach where locals gather on the boardwalk.
