THE ROCKAWAY I KNEW
By Matthew Bashie
CHAPTER FIVE: THE THREE BEACHES
"And for your punishment, you are hereby sentenced to spend two weeks at Roche's Beach!"
Although it sounds a bit silly now, this actually was the punishment meted out to one of our local lifeguards for the violation of a city ordinance - he had the audacity to take his girlfriend out for a joyride on the small flat white-colored boat that was reserved for making rescues.
By the end of the first half of the century, the City of New York was providing lifeguard services for the entire length of the Rockaway beach -and this also included two small beach areas east of Beach 20th Street -which is where the public city beaches actually began. The two smaller areas to the east were known as "Ostend" and "Roche's" beaches and had for the most part, always been privately owned and operated - primarily as a service and accommodation to large hotels, bathhouses, and casinos which had been built and existed up to the early 1940s. After the war, things changed a bit and most of the large structures had been burned down or torn down and the entire area was in "limbo" seemingly awaiting a new series of events.
So George, the lifeguard, made a dastardly error and
when the local lifeguard chief spotted him and his girl out on that boat,
the seaweed "hit the fan" and George was "called on the
sandy carpet" and had to work out his next two-week shift on a less
popular and less desirable beach - sort of a sunny Siberia. The beautiful
blonde girl that George had been seeing was a very attractive new addition
to the "tenentry" of the apartment complex located
on Beach 20th Street. She was only 17 and very popular and adding even
more to her resume, she had a young collie dog who was a favorite with
the neighborhood kids so shortly after the incident, groups of youngsters
could be heard singing "ditties" about how the mean lifeguard
chief had exiled their friend to the horrible fate -protecting the bathers
at Roche's beach.
To be fair about things, back at the turn of the century, it was the "other two" non-public beaches that had attained prominence. Private holdings had created beautiful beaches, boardwalks, restaurants, hotels, even had made it
possible for a road known at the time as "South Street" to gain prominence and become a large boulevard later to be renamed "Seagirt." Money visited the hotels and made it possible and even desirable for early-day entrepreneurs to invest in buildings, food services, bathhouses, and health club facilities which would eventually lead to the establishment of the lower Far Rockaway beaches as we came to know them at the time.
As a child, I explored the many areas in and around the early beach streets. I walked eastward until the beach ended - then I would cut north towards the boulevard and walk back home on the main avenue. Little did it occur to me that the very sand lots in which I was then walking had once been front lawns and parking areas of large and important inns and road houses predating the time of the births of my own parents. Children really don't seem to think about things like that.
Years later, I was already attending a college in Manhattan, on one or two pleasant afternoons, I walked those same streets - and watched as bulldozers plowed down what was left of those once-famous, once-important wooden structures. By that time, I was wise enough to realize that I was witness to the "end of an era" and that Far Rockaway would never be the same again. For years, the cleared land would sit unattended and barren; then it would be turned into a city/state park. What was once known as "Ostend" and "Roche's" beach has now been incorporated into what is called "O'Donohue Park" - and that is what it is still called today - but it does look a bit neglected and abandoned. And seemingly, there is NO more money in Far Rockaway.
Hey! What happened to that beautiful blonde teenager? Well -shortly after her boyfriend George got caught and punished for taking her out on the lifeguard boat, she moved on and upward and actually married the very chief who had started all that fuss in the first place. Funny how things workout! Yes??
If you wish to contact me at any time, feel free to do so through this web site. I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M.B.
I always love hearing from my fans and friends. M. B.