The Long Beach Barrier Island is surrounded by Reynolds Channel to the north, east and west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south.

[4] In 2022, Long Beach was named one of the best East Coast towns for a summer getaway by Time Out magazine.

[5] The city of Long Beach's first inhabitants were the Algonquian-speaking Lenape, who sold the area to English colonists in 1643.

From that time, while the barrier island was used by baymen and farmers for fishing and harvesting salt hay, no one lived there year-round for more than two centuries.

The barque Mexico, carrying Irish immigrants to New York, ran aground on a sandbar 200 yards off of Long Beach on January 2, 1837, 115 of its passengers would freeze to death on the deck of the ship.

[9][10] He gathered investors, and acquired the oceanfront from private owners and the rest of the island from the Town of Hempstead in 1907; he planned to build a boardwalk, homes, and hotels.

Reynolds had a herd of elephants marched in from Dreamland, ostensibly to help build the Long Beach Boardwalk; he had created an effective publicity stunt.

To ensure that Long Beach lived up to his billing it "The Riviera of the East", he required each building to be constructed in an "eclectic Mediterranean style", with white stucco walls and red-clay tile roofs.

Trunks belonging to the guests, which had been piled on the sand to form "dressing rooms", were looted by thieves.

[12] In 1923, the prohibition agents known simply as Izzy and Moe raided the Nassau Hotel and arrested three men for bootlegging.

The police had another problem a year later in the summer of 1931, when a beachcomber found the body of a young woman named Starr Faithfull, who had drowned.

[citation needed] John Barrymore, Humphrey Bogart, Clara Bow, James Cagney, Cab Calloway, Jack Dempsey, Lillian Roth, Rudolph Valentino, and Florenz Ziegfeld lived in Long Beach for decades.

[14] By the 1940s and 1950s, with the advent of cheap air travel attracting tourists to more distant places, and air-conditioning to provide year-round comfort, Long Beach had become primarily a bedroom community for commuters to New York City.

The rundown boardwalk hotels were used for temporary housing for welfare recipients and the elderly until a scandal around 1970 led to many of the homes losing their licenses.

In the late 1960s, the boardwalk and amusement park area was a magnet for youth from around Long Island, until a police crackdown on drug trafficking ended that.

Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, Long Beach began an urban renewal, with new housing, new businesses, and other improvements.

[15] Today, the city is again a popular bedroom community, for people working in New York who want the quiet beach atmosphere.

Just behind the boardwalk near the center of the city, however, vacant lots now occupy several blocks that once housed hotels, bathhouses, and the amusement park.

Because attempts to attract development (including, at one time, Atlantic City-style casinos) to this potential "superblock" have not yet borne fruit, the lots constitute the city's largest portion of unused land.

East of New York Avenue, the island is wider between the bay and ocean and is home to larger more expansive family houses.

Neighborhoods and enclaves Multiple sites in Long Beach are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including:[25][26][27] The city of Long Beach contains the following landmarks and historic district:[12][28] The 2010 U.S. census determined there were 33,275 people residing in the city, and the 2019 American Community Survey estimated the population increased to 33,454.

Eastern faiths including Hinduism and Buddhism are also prevalent in the city, while the remainder of the population is irreligious or atheist.

According to the USA District Attourney's Office at Eastern New York, gangs present a prevalent criminal threat within the city.

In March of 2016, sixteen members of the Latin Kings gang were arrested in connections with narcotics trafficking, in particular, cocaine, crack, "molly", and illegal marijuana[1].

The city of Long Beach has an extensive parks and recreation program led by Joseph Brand II.

Within the offerings include, but are not limited to the Ice Arena, Summer Camps, Pool, Races and is most well known for its Ocean Beach Park.

[20] They also operate an "alternative" high school at the NIKE missile site on a campus shared with the district's transportation services.