Jacob Riis Park (Gateway National Recreation Area)

Jacob Riis Park — a national park beach with an Art Deco heart

Riis Park is the strangest and most generous beach in New York City: roughly a mile of Atlantic shoreline on the Rockaway peninsula that is not run by the city at all, but by the National Park Service, as part of Gateway National Recreation Area. Behind the sand sits a monumental 1932 bathhouse the size of a city block, a landscaped central mall, a street clock that has kept time here since 1941, and a boardwalk that has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once. The crowd is unlike anywhere else in the five boroughs — Caribbean and Irish Rockaway families, Brooklyn day-trippers who came over the bridge, surfcasters, handball players, and at the eastern end the long-established queer gathering known as the People’s Beach. It is named for a Danish immigrant who arrived in New York with almost nothing and spent his life arguing that poor people deserved light, air and open space.

Highlights

• The 1932 bathhouse — an enormous pavilion roughly 640 by 250 feet, originally designed by John L. Plock in a Moorish-Byzantine manner and remodelled in 1936–37 by Clinton Loyd with the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne detailing that defines it today: twin towers with copper-clad roofs and a long arcade of Corinthian columns.
• The clock on the mall — a Wise & Son street clock installed in March 1941 at the heart of the formal central mall, and still the landmark everyone at Riis uses to arrange where to meet.
• The boardwalk and the bays — the beach is divided into numbered bays, each with its own character and its own regulars, strung along a boardwalk that was rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy tore through the Rockaways in October 2012.
• The People’s Beach — the easternmost bays have been a gathering place for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers since at least the 1940s, a history that includes Harvey Milk, who met a partner here in 1956, and the poet Audre Lorde.
• The pitch and putt golf course — an eighteen-hole short course that opened in May 1938 and still operates seasonally, one of the very few places in the city where you can play a full round within sight of the ocean.
• Robert Moses’s parking field — the vast curved asphalt crescent behind the bathhouse, built in the 1936–37 reconstruction to hold many thousands of cars, is itself a designed landscape and a monument to a particular idea of how New Yorkers would reach the sea.

What you’ll find

Riis is laid out with unusual formality for a beach. A symmetrical mall runs from the parking field to the boardwalk, the bathhouse anchors one flank, and the sand stretches east and west from there. The whole ensemble — bathhouse, mall, boardwalk and parking field — was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.

• A wide sand beach with lifeguarded swimming in season; in recent years guarded swimming has been restricted to certain bays while others stay closed because of erosion, so the day’s posted signage decides where you swim.
• The main food and drink concession behind Bay 9, operated under National Park Service authorisation by a Rockaway-based cooperative that took over the lease in 2022 from the previous operator, the Riis Park Beach Bazaar, which moved its name and its stalls to boardwalk concessions elsewhere on the peninsula.
• The restored bathhouse, reopened in phases during the summer of 2026 as the Rockaway Ocean Club after a major multi-year rehabilitation under a long-term lease from the Park Service — a hybrid with a public courtyard and boardwalk-facing food and drink alongside a members-only beach club, a rooftop restaurant and a planned small hotel.
• Handball and paddleball courts, picnic areas and playgrounds set behind the beach in the shade.
• Outdoor showers and changing facilities in the summer months, plus restrooms near the mall.
• Long views west toward the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and Brooklyn, and east along the peninsula toward Neponsit.

Things to do — and who it’s for

• Swimmers and sunbathers — a genuine ocean beach with real surf, far less packed than Rockaway Beach’s subway-adjacent stretches, and free to enter.
• Architecture and history travellers — the bathhouse, the mall and the clock make this the most architecturally serious beach in the city, and the restoration has made the building legible again after decades boarded up.
• LGBTQ+ visitors — the People’s Beach remains one of the oldest continuously used queer outdoor gathering places in the United States, and the community that formed it still shows up.
• Golfers — the seasonal pitch and putt is short, cheap on time, forgiving for beginners, and set behind the dunes.
• Anglers and beachcombers — the surf and the ends of the beach reward early mornings, and the western end looks straight at the bridge.
• Families and big groups — picnic areas, playgrounds, shade and an enormous parking field make Riis one of the few New York beaches that comfortably absorbs a carload of people and a cooler.

Getting there & practical

Riis Park is at the western end of the Rockaway peninsula, and the classic approach is from Brooklyn: take the 2 train (or the 5 in rush hours) to Flatbush Avenue–Brooklyn College, then the Q35 bus, which crosses the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge and stops at the park. From the Rockaways, take the A train or the Rockaway Park Shuttle to Rockaway Park–Beach 116th Street and pick up the Q22 or the Q35. NYC Ferry’s Rockaway route reaches the peninsula and connects onward by bus, and the QM16 express bus serves the corridor from Manhattan. If you drive, the park’s parking field charges a seasonal daytime fee from the Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, and payment is by card or contactless only — no cash is accepted; outside that season parking is generally without charge. The park itself is open daily from early morning until late evening. Lifeguards are on duty daily from mid-morning to early evening between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day, and swimming outside those hours or outside guarded bays is not permitted. Alcohol is not allowed on the beach, dogs are restricted during the summer swimming season, and glass containers are prohibited. Allow a full day; this is not a park you visit for an hour.

When to visit

Summer is the obvious season and the busiest — lifeguards, concessions, music drifting between bays, and a parking field that fills early on hot weekends, so arrive before mid-morning or come by bus. Early autumn is the local secret: the ocean is at its warmest in September, the crowds vanish after Labor Day, and the light along the boardwalk turns long and gold, though swimming is unguarded once the season closes. Winter turns Riis into something austere and beautiful — an empty beach, a wind that comes straight off the Atlantic, seabirds working the surf line, and the bathhouse silhouette against a cold sky; it is the best time to actually look at the architecture. Spring is windy and raw well into April, but it is when the peninsula’s migratory birdlife moves through and when the boardwalk belongs entirely to walkers and runners.

Good to know

The land was acquired by New York City in 1912 and carried several names — Seaside Park, then Telawana Park, after a member of the Lenape — before being renamed in 1914 for Jacob Riis, who had died that May. Riis was born on 3 May 1849 in Ribe, Denmark, emigrated in 1870 at twenty-one, slept rough in New York before finding work, and became a police reporter whose beat was the Lower East Side. From 1887 he was among the first in America to use flash photography, which let him photograph the interiors of tenements that had never been seen by the people who owned them; his 1890 book How the Other Half Lives forced the tenement question into public politics, helped produce the clearance of Mulberry Bend into what is now Columbus Park, and made him a friend and ally of Theodore Roosevelt. He died on 26 May 1914 in Barre, Massachusetts. The park that carries his name was transformed after Robert Moses became Parks Commissioner in 1934: working with Gilmore D. Clarke and Aymar Embury II, he rebuilt Riis in 1936–37 as an urban answer to Jones Beach, adding the mall, the boardwalk and the immense parking field, while the Marine Parkway Bridge opened on 3 July 1937 to feed cars in from Brooklyn. The Neponsit Beach Hospital, opened on 16 April 1915 and closed on 21 April 1955, stood at the eastern edge and for decades screened the People’s Beach from the streets behind; its demolition, completed in early 2023, removed a physical shield that beachgoers had relied on. The federal chapter began when Gateway National Recreation Area was created in 1972; Riis Park passed to the National Park Service on 4 March 1974. The bathhouse then sat largely boarded up for around half a century until the recent restoration and its 2026 reopening as a hybrid public-and-private venue — a change that has been contested, with queer advocates and Rockaway residents arguing that a publicly owned landmark at the heart of the People’s Beach should not be partly gated behind membership. The beach and boardwalk themselves remain free, public and federally managed.

Visitor tips

• Come by bus if you can. The Q35 from Brooklyn drops you at the park, avoids the parking fee entirely, and crosses the bridge with a view that is worth the ride on its own.
• Check which bays are guarded before you spread out your towel. Erosion has repeatedly closed sections of the beach to swimming, and the guarded bays change from season to season.
• Pack for wind and bring shade. Riis is exposed, the sand blows, and away from the concession area there is very little natural shelter — an umbrella you can anchor properly makes the difference between three hours and a full day.

Questions & answers

Is Jacob Riis Park free? Yes — beach access, the boardwalk and the grounds are free. The only routine charge is the seasonal daytime parking fee in the park’s own lot between the Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day, paid by card or contactless.

Who actually runs this beach? The National Park Service. Riis Park is part of Gateway National Recreation Area, established in 1972, and the park was transferred to federal management on 4 March 1974 — which is why the rules here are federal rather than city rules.

Can I go inside the historic bathhouse? Partly. After its restoration the building reopened during the summer of 2026 as the Rockaway Ocean Club, with a public courtyard and boardwalk-facing food and drink open to everyone, while the beach club, rooftop restaurant and hotel components are members-only or by booking. The status of individual spaces has changed repeatedly, so check before you count on entry.

What is the People’s Beach? The easternmost bays, a gathering place for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers since at least the 1940s and one of the oldest such outdoor spaces in the country. It remains in active use, and the surrounding changes — the 2023 demolition of the old hospital building and the privatised elements of the bathhouse — have made its protection an ongoing local campaign.

Is nude or topless sunbathing allowed? No. The eastern bays were informally clothing-optional for decades, but a state law that took effect on 3 July 1983 ended that, and the Park Service enforces it.

When are lifeguards on duty? Daily from mid-morning to early evening, from the Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. Swimming is only permitted at guarded bays during guarded hours; outside that window the beach is open but the water is not.

Can I bring my dog, alcohol or a grill? Dogs are restricted on the beach during the summer swimming season, alcohol is not permitted on the beach, and glass is banned outright. Picnicking in the designated areas behind the beach is popular, but check the current Park Service rules on grills before you carry one in.

How long does it take to get there from Manhattan? Realistically an hour and a half to two hours by public transport, depending on your connection — most commonly the subway to Brooklyn and then the Q35 bus over the bridge. It is a day trip, not an afternoon errand.

Is there anything to do besides the beach? Yes: the eighteen-hole pitch and putt golf course that opened in May 1938, handball and paddleball courts, playgrounds, the boardwalk itself, and the historic district — the bathhouse, mall, boardwalk and parking field were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.