In the series ... "I REMEMBER THE ROCKAWAYS"... Stevie S. Stevens writes about
"Random Thoughts On Edgemere"
When the city-assigned photographers took this picture on March 5th of 1926, they were facing due south (towards the ocean) with their backs to the train station. Beach streets were unpaved affairs back in those days. In the distance, you can see the wooden boardwalk owned and maintained by the Edgemere Hotel - it actually ends at this street which is obvious from viewing the scene. The street is lined with large private homes (cottages). Only three bungalows were built on this street at this time; this was mostly year-round living. At the left of the photo, you can see the red brick grouping of store fronts - most of the stores shown (by this time) were no longer rented. On the right side of the photo, the wooden building is the home of the Congregation Shaare Zedek - located at 3617 Edgemere Avenue. Originally founded in the 1920s in the wooden-frame building you see, this particular structure would soon be replaced by a smaller and more modern brick synagogue. The temple has been Orthodox since 1933 and it is still in existence.
 

It was during the early 1920s when someone in the New York City administration came up with the "brain storm" of having all of the residential and business sections (streets) in Queens photographed to provide a permanent record of the valuable property existing in the outer borough. So shortly into the year 1926, a host of professional photographers descended onto the Rockaway peninsula to began a photo essay of the small villages. Of primary interest were the Bayswater, Wavecrest, Oceancrest, and Edgemere sections -- probably due to their excellent waterfront locations.

Edgemere had been "founded" in 1885 and was a large parcel of real estate owned by a single development company (Lancaster Sea Beach Improvement Company -- Frederick J. Lancaster, President) and was still considered to be part of the village of Far Rockaway at that time - however most of the "Edgemere Island" was separated from the rest of Far Rockaway by a rather aggressive channel (Norton's) which connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Jamaica Bay in the general vicinity of (what is now) Beach 32nd Street.

The very first (permanent) structure built in Edgemere was a large ocean-front Hotel -constructed in 1885 at the end of what was then named "Grand View Avenue" -- today a road known as Beach 35th Street. The Lancaster Company had considered calling this new real estate development (for that is exactly what it was at the time) by the name of "New Venice" - and several artists were commissioned to set up imaginary illustrations of what the area was eventually going to "grow up to be" -including water-front hotels, situated on lovely sedate channels - complete with canals, gondolas, and gondoliers — ala Venice, Italy. In fact, on paper, this idea was so very appealing that Remington Vernan (the founder of Arverne) embraced this very concept and in his few meetings with Frederick Lancaster, Mr. Vernan was not adverse to incorporating that very idea into his own plans for his property which was located directly west and bordered onto Edgemere.

The Lancaster Company applied for necessary building permits and variances and began selling off land to private investors - primarily single home owners because the very nature of this "new" development was residential - not commercial. Frederick Lancaster envisioned this particular section of the Rockaways to be a lovely personal community and although he did not strictly forbid the construction of hotels, rooming houses, and other forms of commercial enterprise, he certainly did not encourage them.

Original "blue print" maps (three of them - marked "A", "B", and "C") had been filed within the Town of Hempstead (which owned all of the Rockaways prior to deeding of the land to the newly incorporated City of New York - right at the turn of the century)

and now with this new "fill" land available, the Lancaster Company re-filed the same blueprints with the City of New York and it was "off to the races" - in fact, by the year 1938, there would no longer be ANYWHERE within the Edgemere area left upon which to build - by that time, all of the available property would have a hotel, house, store, or school already built upon it.

So, Edgemere was "born" in 1885 and the name given on its birth certificate was "Residential" and a major land company subdivided up the property and sold it off over the period of the next twenty-five years. After filling in the channel, the idea of calling the place "New Venice" was abandoned and instead, the area was named for its large and impressive hotel. "Edgemere" by definition means "sea's edge."

By the time the city photographers took the journey out to the Rockaways to begin their photo journal of the many streets, Edgemere was almost completely occupied. By the year 1926, the area was primarily Jewish (approximately 75%) with persons of Irish and Italian decent making up the non-Jewish population. Most of the permanent residents occupying the area on a year-round basis were New York City folks, who transplanted themselves out to the rural Queens community primarily for economic, privacy, and health benefits the area provided. This was about as close to the urban area you could get without having to live within congested city limits.

Within the space of only a single decade, it became apparent to the company that the small creek which divided the Edgemere area from the rest of eastern Far Rockaway was posing something of a problem to the entire community - it was getting wider and more aggressive with each passing year. In fact, the "lovely" creek was now threatening to undermine the massive Edgemere Hotel - and during winter months, water had actually "overflowed" onto the hotel property and had done some very serious damage. It was bad enough the hotel had been the victim of a number of bad winters - at one point only two years into operation, the cruel December weather tides had washed in salt water and brought tons of sand right through the main lobby back in 1887. The hotel had to be re-built constantly due to the elements and now the situation Norton's Creek presented - by threatening to wash the hotel away. The solution was simple: fill-in the creek and thus solve a multitude of problems, as well as create additional land which could then be sold for homes and would bring in additional monies. So, that is exactly what was done. The creek was "closed off" and filled in - a process taking about five years to complete. The actual work was completed in only two years but problems kept cropping up so it was five full years before the "new land" could be developed and sold at retail.

 

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