Time Table to an adventure at Rockaway Beach - 1878 - Don't YOU be late!!!

The old color postcard shown above was a photograph commissioned in 1898 and that image appeared on postcards throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s. The dock shown in the photo was know as the "SteepleChase Dock" and was located on what is now the Beach Channel Drive. Later on around the middle of the twentieth century, this dock became a (pay-for) parking lot for summer Rockaway visitors. Today this spot is the location of Beach Channel High School. A great amout of "fill" was used to enlarge the area for the construction of the new cith high school back in the early 1970s.

Cleverly disguised as a simple clamshell, this was "state of the art" advertising back at the turn of the century. Printed in "sepia-tone" on 58 Ib. paper, this was the steamer time table of White's Regular Line - which included both the "Grand Republic" and the "Columbia" day steamers. It is truly amazing that this small scrap of paper has survived for almost 125 years.

According to the ad: "Indisputably the finest pleasure boats in the world, combining superiority in speed, absoluteness of safety, elegance, luxuriousness and the capacity to accommodate with the greatest degree of comfort the largest complement of passengers. "

If you take the opportunity to read the table, you will notice only departing times - for back in those days, the same trip could take 30 minutes one day and 45 minutes the next - depending upon water and weather conditions on any particular day. One-way was 35 cents; round trip was half a dollar.

The two steamers were scheduled to deposit passengers at Hammells, also at Remsen & Wainwright's Seaside House (which was located on the Jamaica Bay side of the peninsula) as well as at the massive wharf of the BIG ROCKAWAY HOTEL. Of course, the hotel to which this refers was never fully opened. Parts of the Imperial Hotel (Rockaway Beach Hotel) were opened for part of one season (1881) and then the hotel was torn down for its lumber content in the year 1889 - under-capitalization and bankruptcy issues.

According to the old ad for the extremely large hotel (actually printed on the time table) -"Delicious surf and still water bathing, capital fishing, refreshing sea breezes, quietude and inviting hotel accommodations are among the many attractions of this famous watering place. "