Jones Beach State Park (colloquially "Jones Beach") is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "Federated state, state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on accou ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. It is located in southern Nassau County on

Jones Beach Island Jones Beach Island is one of the outer barrier islands off the southern coast of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. Etymology It is named for Major Thomas Jones, who first came to Long Island in 1692, where he proceeded to build the ...

, a

barrier island Barrier islands are a Coast#Landforms, coastal landform, a type of dune, dune system and sand island, where an area of sand has been formed by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of an ...

linked to

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

by the

Meadowbrook State Parkway The Meadowbrook State Parkway (also known as the Meadowbrook, the Meadowbrook Parkway, Meadowbrook Causeway, or the MSP) is a controlled-access highway, controlled-access Parkways in New York, parkway in Nassau County, New York, in the United S ...

Wantagh State Parkway The Wantagh State Parkway is a controlled-access highway, controlled-access Parkways in New York, parkway on Long Island, New York (state), New York, in the United States. It links the Ocean Parkway (Long Island), Ocean Parkway in Jones Beach ...

, and Ocean Parkway. The park was created during

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influentia ...

' administration as President of the

Long Island State Park Commission The Long Island State Park Commission, also known as LISPC, is a government agency on Long Island, in the state of New York, headquartered at Belmont Lake State Park in North Babylon. Originally a standalone agency, it is now a regional subdivi ...

as part of the development of

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...

s on Long Island. The park, in length, is renowned for its beaches (which, excepting the beach on Zachs Bay, face the open

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

) and furnishes one of the most popular summer recreational locations for the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also called the Tri-State area and sometimes referred to as Greater New York, is the List of cities by GDP, largest metropolitan economy in the world, with a List of U.S. metropolitan areas by GDP, gross metropo ...

. It is the most popular and heavily visited beach on the East Coast, with an estimated six million visitors per year.

Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater Jones Beach Theater is an outdoor amphitheatre at Jones Beach State Park in Wantagh, New York. It is one of two major outdoor arenas in the New York metropolitan area, along with PNC Bank Arts Center near the Jersey Shore. Both venues are manag ...

, an outdoor arena in the park, is a popular

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

and concert venue. The park also includes a

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway typically built with wooden planks, which functions as a type of low water bridge or small viaduct that enables pedestrians to ...

. It once featured dining and catering facilities that were popular sites for private parties and weddings, though these have been shut down. Jones Beach is named after Major Thomas Jones, a major in the Queens County militia in the

17th century The 17th century lasted from January 1, 1601 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCI), to December 31, 1700 (MDCC). It falls into the early modern period of Europe and in that continent (whose impact on the world was increasing) was characterized ...

, who established a whaling station on the outer beach near the site of the present park.Jappen, Marlo
Secrets of Jones Beach State Park
''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is a daily newspaper in the United States primarily serving Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI" ...

''. June 12, 2015.

History

Jones Beach was Moses' first major public project, free from housing developments and private clubs, and is open for the general public. When Moses' group first surveyed Jones Island in the 1920s, it was swampy and only above sea level; the island was frequently submerged during storms. To create the park, huge dredgers brought sand from the bay bottom, eventually raising the island to above sea level. Another problem was the wind: the fine silver beach sand would blow, making the workers miserable and making the use of the beach as a recreational facility unlikely. Moses sent landscape architects to other stable Long Island beaches, who reported that a beach grass (''

Ammophila breviligulata ''Ammophila breviligulata'' (American beachgrass or American marram grass) is a species of Poaceae, grass native to eastern North America, where it grows on sand dunes along the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes coasts. Beachgrass thrives under cond ...

''), whose roots grew sideways in search of water, held dunes in place, forming a barrier to the wind. In the summer of 1928, thousands of men worked on the beach planting the grass by hand. Several houses on High Hill Beach were moved by

barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...

eastward to West Gilgo Beach to make room for the park. Many of its buildings and facilities feature

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

architecture. In the center of a

traffic circle A roundabout, a rotary and a traffic circle are types of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junct ...

that he planned as a terminus for the

, Moses ordered the construction of an

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

-style

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

to serve as a central feature of the park. Two large bathhouses are also prominent. After rejecting a number of submissions by architects for the bathhouses, Moses selected the designs of the young and relatively inexperienced Herbert Magoon. Moses also specified that they be built of Ohio Sandstone and Barbizon brick, two of the most expensive materials available. The park opened to the public on August 4, 1929, along with the

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet T ...

that provided automobile access from the mainland of Long Island. The causeway was the first section in what was to become the Wantagh State Parkway. Unusually for the time, no carnival-style amusements were allowed in the park area. Moses used low clearances for the bridges over the

Southern State Parkway The Southern State Parkway (also known as the Southern State or Southern Parkway) is a controlled-access parkway on Long Island, New York, in the United States. The parkway begins at an interchange with the Belt and Cross Island parkways ...

, a major east-west route to Jones Beach.

Robert Caro Robert Allan Caro (born October 30, 1935) is an American journalist and author known for his biographies of United States political figures Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson. After working for many years as a reporter, Caro wrote '' The Power Bro ...

, author of the Moses biography ''

The Power Broker ''The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York'' is a 1974 biography of Robert Moses by Robert Caro. The book focuses on the creation and use of power in New York politics of New York City, local and Politics of New York (state), sta ...

'', alleged that this was done intentionally to prevent poor and minority people from accessing the beach by public bus. Even for earlier-built parkways in

Westchester County Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous cou ...

that Moses used as inspiration, clearances are on average higher than on the Southern State. Since 2004, Jones Beach has hosted the Bethpage Air Show during the last weekend of May (

Memorial Day Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is observed on the last Monday of May. It i ...

weekend). The air show is one of the largest in the United States, and was attended by 231,000 people in 2015. On April 28, 2005, the park and many of its related causeways & parkways were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, in a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

known as the

Jones Beach State Park, Causeway and Parkway System The Jones Beach State Park, Causeway and Parkway System is a national historic district located in Nassau County, New York, United States. Description The historic district encompasses Jones Beach State Park and many of the related causeways ...

Park features and facilities

Ocean and bay beachfronts

The beach consists of of ocean beach frontage and of bay frontage.

Buildings and entertainment facilities

The primary buildings on the Jones Beach site are the two bathhouses (west and east) and the park's large water tower, all built to Moses' specifications. The water tower, built in 1930 to resemble the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

St Mark's Basilica The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark (), commonly known as St Mark's Basilica (; ), is the cathedral church of the Patriarchate of Venice; it became the episcopal seat of the Patriarch of Venice in 1807, replacing the earlier cath ...

in Venice, underwent a $6.1 million restoration in 2010. Robert Moses' plan originally included two swimming pools available for public use at Jones Beach: The West Bath House pool and the East Bath House pool. While the West Bath House pool has remained open, budget constraints forced the closure of the East Bath House pool in 2009. As part of a $65 million refurbishment of the park announced in 2014, the West Bath House will receive $7 million in improvements; state officials have announced their desire to eventually rehabilitate the East Bath House as well. Large

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

s on the Central Mall Walkway near the water tower were restored in 2015; the $177,000 mosaic restoration was part of a larger $65 million refurbishment of the park announced in 2014. The park also includes the Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell, located near Parking Field 4, which offers live performances and free music. There is a beach along Zachs Bay. north of the beach, overlooking Zachs Bay, is the 15,200-seat

, formerly known as the Jones Beach Marine Theater. This outdoor

amphitheatre An amphitheatre (American English, U.S. English: amphitheater) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ('), meani ...

opened in June 1952. Jones Beach West Bathhouse 2021a.jpg, West Bathhouse Jones Beach East Bathhouse 2021a.jpg, East Bathhouse Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell.jpg, The Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell Jones Beach West Games Area 2021a.jpg, West Games Area featuring tennis courts Jones Beach East Bathhouse 2021d.jpg, An umbrella and beach chair stand Nikon at Jones Beach Theater.jpg, Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater

Restaurants and concessions

There are multiple concession stands along the boardwalk in season. A few of the larger concessions stay open past the main summer season. Beach dining and catering facilities no longer exist at Jones Beach. Jones Beach formerly featured The Boardwalk Cafe, a large restaurant with an expansive ocean view, built in 1966 and demolished in 2004 due to damage from erosion. It was intended to be replaced with a $40 million, 1,500-seat, restaurant/catering hall called "Trump on the Ocean", to be operated by then-real estate mogul (and later,

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

)

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

and catering impresario Steven Carl. The project was stalled for several years due to legal battles over permits required for the restaurant's planned basement, and was eventually cancelled in the aftermath of

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy) was an extremely large and devastating tropical cyclone which ravaged the Caribbean and the coastal Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in late ...

. Restaurant, catering, and cafeteria/concession services have been redeveloped and re-opened. Gatsby's is a restaurant and catering event venue that opened in June of 2019 and has re-opened post covid. The Boardwalk Cafe restaurant opened in 2018, and has also re-opened post covid. They also have a boardwalk bar and cafeteria that have opened, and a small gelato stand.

Parking fields

Jones Beach's West End originally featured two parking fields known as West End 1, which was closed permanently in 1992 and replaced by the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center after lying abandoned for nearly a decade, and West End 2, which lies at the westernmost area of the state park adjacent to the jetty on Jones' Inlet. As of 2021 the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center has been closed and replaced by the new Energy & Nature center at West End 2. West End 2 is also currently a designated surfing area, which is open to stargazers and fishermen at night and bird watchers and other naturalists by day. The West End 2 beach was closed in April 2009 because of the state fiscal crisis. The West End 2 parking field along with the Field 1 are the two largest ocean front parking areas currently extant in the park. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, a drive thru testing site was established in the West End 1 parking field, resulting in the area being closed to all recreational activity until further notice.

Transportation

Jones Beach is accessible by car, boat, bicycle, and in the summer season by bus. Most visitors arrive by car via the

or the

; the recreation area is also accessible via the Ocean Parkway. A significant portion of visitors take the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to

Freeport Freeport, a variant of free port, may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Freeport, name of several space stations in the video game ''Freelancer'' (2003) * Freeport, a fictional town in the video game ''SiN'' (1998) * ''Freeport: The Cit ...

and then the

Nassau Inter-County Express The Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) is the local bus system serving Nassau County, on Long Island, New York, United States. It also serves parts of western Suffolk County, as well as eastern portions of the New York City borough of Queens. ...

's (NICE) n88X bus to Jones Beach.

References

External links

New York State Parks: Jones Beach State Park

{{authority control Beaches of Nassau County, New York State parks of New York (state) Parks in Nassau County, New York Robert Moses projects National Register of Historic Places in Hempstead (town), New York Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Urban public parks Wantagh, New York National Register of Historic Places in Nassau County, New York