Beach Channel Drive
This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2017) |
Owner | City of New York |
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Maintained by | NYCDOT |
Length | 8.0 mi (12.9 km)[1] |
Location | Queens |
Postal code | 11697, 11694, 11693, 11692, 11691 |
Nearest metro station | Rockaway Line |
West end | Rockaway Point Boulevard / Marine Parkway Bridge in Roxbury |
Major junctions | Cross Bay Bridge in Rockaway Beach |
East end | Sheridan Boulevard in Inwood |
South | Rockaway Freeway |
Beach Channel Drive is the main thoroughfare of the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It extends from the Nassau County border at Inwood westward, to the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge at the end of Jacob Riis Park. From Hammels westward, it follows along Jamaica Bay on the northern side of the peninsula.
Originally Beach Channel Drive was a relatively short road west of the current site of the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge, it was greatly expanded by consolidating a number of existing thoroughfares and constructing some linking roadways.
Beach Channel Drive was also the launching point for the first transatlantic flight. On May 8, 1919, four United States Navy Navy-Curtis seaplanes took off from what is now Beach Channel Drive in Neponsit, and headed off to Newfoundland, Canada, the Azores Islands, and Lisbon, Portugal. On May 31, one of the aircraft, piloted by Lieutenant Commander Albert C. Read, arrived in Plymouth, England.
References
- ^ Google (January 9, 2017). "Beach Channel Drive" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved January 9, 2017.