[10] The planks were originally made of several different woods such as "Angelique, teak, pine, ipe, Cumaru and greenheart", according to The New York Times.

Parts of the beach in Arverne and Edgemere were filled to a width of up to 1,000 feet (300 m) due to strong currents in that area.

[15]: 1.8 There are several recreational facilities along the beach and boardwalk, including basketball and handball courts, a roller hockey rink, skateparks, and playgrounds.

[24] The original comfort stations were destroyed in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy; these were replaced in 2013 by modular structures designed by Garrison Architects, which are installed in pairs.

[28] On Shore Front Drive, there are a series of decorative bus shelters designed for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

[3][29] At Beach 116th Street, there is also a memorial to the victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed into the Rockaway peninsula in 2001 and killed 265 people.

[30] Atop the memorial is a quotation, in both Spanish and English, from Dominican poet Pedro Mir, reading "Después no quiero más que paz", which translates to "Afterwards I want nothing more than peace.

[33] Several disconnected sections of boardwalk were built along the beach in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly clustered around resorts.

[44] The city government had started constructing a concrete boardwalk on city-owned land in Rockaway Park, between Beach 109th and 126th Streets, by 1922.

[48] The New York City Board of Estimate appropriated $8 million for a beach improvement project on the Rockaway peninsula in June 1925.

[49] The Queens borough president's office started soliciting bids to build "bulkheads, groynes, jetties and breakwaters" and to add sand to the southern shore of the Rockaway peninsula between Beach 59th and 109th Streets.

[52][53] By June 1926, the city had approved $1 million for the project and was speeding up plans to construct the section of boardwalk between Beach 59th and 109th Streets.

[64] With the opening of this boardwalk section, real estate demand along the shore increased in 1928, while existing resort owners started planning amusement attractions.

In September 1930, New York City Comptroller Charles W. Berry objected to the $12.5 million proposed compensation, saying that the land was assessed as being worth only one tenth as much.

Moses demolished more than 700 buildings in the parkway's path and destroyed what he described as "catch-penny enterprises" along the boardwalk, replacing them with recreational fields.

[98] The New York State Department of Public Works commenced a multi-year project in 1955 to combat this erosion, including adding forty groins and transferring 1,250,000 cubic yards (960,000 m3) of fill onto the beach to create a barrier.

[97]: 174 [106] To remedy this issue, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) started preparing a hurricane-protection and water-purification project for the Rockaways.

[119] There was little commerce along the park's path by the first decade of the 21st century, and its route was characterized mainly by residential buildings and open space.

[121] The boardwalk was damaged in August 2011 during Hurricane Irene, particularly around Beach 95th Street, where the planks had been "split like an open zipper", according to New York City Council member Eric Ulrich.

[11] Michael Bloomberg, the New York City mayor at the time, announced in December 2012 that the boardwalk would be rebuilt in concrete rather than wood.

[126] Sand from the beach had landed on people's yards and on nearby streets, while personal property had been tossed onto the shore.

Construction was funded by a $480 million grant that the Federal Emergency Management Agency distributed to New York City's government in 2015.

The 2013 United States federal government shutdown delayed the allocation of funding, and plans also had to be revised to accommodate new flood-proofing features.

[134] The corroded foundations also had to be replaced,[135] and construction had to take place outside of the mating season of the piping plover, an endangered species that nested on the beach between April and September.

[136][137] In February 2014, a contractor started adding 2,900,000 cubic yards (2,200,000 m3) of sand as an anti-erosion measure, enough to raise the beach by 10 to 14 feet (3.0 to 4.3 m).

[145] The city conducted a study in November 2017, finding that despite the erosion, the beach was wider than at almost any other time in the previous century.

[148] In May 2022, city officials announced that portions of Rockaway Beach would be closed that summer so the USACE could reconstruct those sections, which had been affected by erosion.

[154] The song, on their 1977 album Rocket to Russia, became the American punk rock group's highest-charting single, peaking at number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100.

[155][156] In June 2013, the song was used in a radio ad campaign sponsored by the Queens Economic Development Corporation to promote recovery from Hurricane Sandy by drawing New Yorkers back to Rockaway Beach.

[158] In its ranking, the magazine said that "This may not be a palm-tree-lined idyll, but for New Yorkers who can hop on a subway or bus to reach its white sand, five-mile boardwalk, and surf-worthy waves, it's heaven.