Howard Beach is a neighborhood in the southwestern portion of the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. It is bordered to the north by the

Belt Parkway The Belt Parkway is the name given to a series of connected limited-access highways that form a belt-like circle around the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The Belt Parkway comprises three of the four parkways in what is known as ...

and

Conduit Avenue Conduit Avenue (Conduit Boulevard in Brooklyn) is an arterial road in New York City, the vast majority of which is in Queens. The divided highway runs from Atlantic Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn to Hook Creek Boulevard in Rosedale, Quee ...

Ozone Park Ozone Park is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Queens, New York, United States. It is next to the Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park, a popular spot for Thoroughbred racing and home to the Resorts Wor ...

, to the south by

Jamaica Bay Jamaica Bay is an estuary on the southern portion of the western tip of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York. The estuary is partially man-made, and partially natural. The bay connects with Lower New York Bay to the west, through Rock ...

Broad Channel Broad Channel is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It occupies the southern portion of Rulers Bar Hassock (known colloquially as "Broad Channel Island"), the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay. Th ...

, to the east by 102nd–104th Streets in

South Ozone Park South Ozone Park is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Queens. It is just north of John F. Kennedy International Airport, between Aqueduct Racetrack to the west and the Van Wyck Expressway to the east. Adj ...

, and to the west by 75th Street in

East New York, Brooklyn East New York is a residential neighborhood in the eastern section of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, United States. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are roughly the Cemetery Belt and the Queens borough l ...

. The area consists mostly of low-rise single-family houses. Howard Beach is located in Queens Community District 10 and its ZIP Code is 11414. It is patrolled by the

New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest i ...

's 106th Precinct. Politically, Howard Beach is represented by the New York City Council's 32nd District.

History

Early development

Howard Beach was established in 1897 by William J. Howard, a

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

glove manufacturer who operated a goat farm on meadow land near

Aqueduct Racetrack Aqueduct Racetrack is a Thoroughbred horse racing facility and casino in the South Ozone Park and Jamaica neighborhoods of Queens, New York City, United States. Aqueduct is the only racetrack located within New York City limits. Its racing ...

as a source of skin for kid gloves. In 1897, he bought more land and filled it in and the following year, built 18 cottages and opened a hotel near the water, which he operated until it was destroyed by fire in October 1907. He gradually bought more land and formed the Howard Estates Development Company in 1909. He dredged and filled the land until he was able to accumulate by 1914. He laid out several streets, water mains and gas mains, and built 35 houses that were priced in the $2,500–$5,000 range. The Long Island Rail Road established a station named Ramblersville in 1905 and a Post Office by the same name opened soon thereafter. A casino, beach, and fishing pier were added in 1915 and the name of the neighborhood was changed to Howard Beach on April 6, 1916. Development continued and ownership was expanded to a group of investors who sold lots for about $690 each starting in 1922. Development, however, was limited to the areas east of Cross Bay Boulevard near the LIRR station now known as Bernard Coleman Memorial Square (then Lilly Place). The rest of Howard Beach consisted of empty marsh land except for the area to the south of Coleman Square, centered around Russell St. and 102nd Street, which consisted of many small fishing bungalows that dotted alongside Hawtree Creek and Jamaica Bay. This area of Howard Beach would retain the name "Ramblersville." Despite its close proximity to the Howard Beach station at Coleman Square, the LIRR would establish a station a quarter of a mile south down the line at Hamilton Beach in 1919. After World War II, Queens and Long Island went through a major suburban building boom leading to the marsh land west of Cross Bay Boulevard to be filled in. This led to the development of many Cape-Cod and High-Ranch style houses on and lots. This area was developed as "Rockwood Park" to the north and "Spring Park" to the south, together comprising what would be known as "New Howard Beach", while the area east of the boulevard became known as "Old Howard Beach." In the early 1950s farm land north of Rockwood Park was developed with the building of many red-bricked two-story garden style cooperative apartments along with some six-story co-op and condo apartment buildings. A number of private two-family houses were also built in this neighborhood, which was named

Lindenwood Lindenwood may refer to a place in the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, ...

. The various neighborhoods continued to be developed through the 1960s and 1970s as Cross Bay Boulevard became the area's main shopping district. During the 1990s and 2000s, there was further high-scale development as many of the area's old houses were torn down and replaced with upscale million-dollar mini-mansions.

Post-1980s

Hate crimes

In 1986 and 2005, two highly publicized hate crimes took place in Howard Beach. On December 20, 1986, one African-American man was killed and another was beaten in Howard Beach. The incident heightened racial tensions in New York City. The dead man was 23-year-old Michael Griffith, a

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

ian native living in Bedford-Stuyvesant,

. He was killed December 20, 1986 when he was accidentally hit by a car after having been chased onto a highway by a mob of white youths who had beaten him and his friends for being in their neighborhood. On June 29, 2005, local white men in Howard Beach attacked three African-American men with baseball bats. One victim was injured seriously enough to be hospitalized, and the police arrested two of the perpetrators in the case. Nicholas Minucci claimed that the victims had attempted to rob him. On June 10, 2006, Minucci, 20, who had uttered a racial epithet during the baseball bat attack, was found guilty of robbery and the racially motivated assault of Glenn Moore. On July 17, 2006, Minucci was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds span ...

approached New York on October 28, 2012, city officials ordered the evacuation of residents of Zone A (low-lying, susceptible to storm surge) neighborhoods, which included Howard Beach's Hamilton Beach area. Most of the rest of Howard Beach lay in Zone B, whose residents were urged to voluntarily evacuate. Many residents decided to stay and ride out the storm, citing the relatively minor damage caused by the previous year's

Hurricane Irene Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 Atl ...

. Sandy made landfall on October 29, dragging inland a ten-foot-high

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

from Jamaica Bay that flooded all of Old and New Howard Beach, plus the neighborhoods of

and

the Rockaways The Rockaway Peninsula, commonly referred to as The Rockaways or Rockaway, is a peninsula at the southern edge of the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, New York. Relatively isolated from Manhattan and other more urban parts of th ...

, along with some sections of Lindenwood and neighboring

. The storm knocked out power to Howard Beach for three weeks. The flooding damaged most houses in the neighborhood, all of the stores along Cross Bay Boulevard, the Howard Beach–JFK Airport subway station, and the

IND Rockaway Line The IND Rockaway Line is a rapid transit line of the IND Division of the New York City Subway, operating in Queens. It branches from the IND Fulton Street Line at Rockaway Boulevard, extending over the Jamaica Bay, into the Rockaways. The t ...

trestle that carries trains over Jamaica Bay into Broad Channel and the Rockaways. After Sandy, the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exe ...

and the

New York City Office of Emergency Management New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM) (formerly the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM)) was originally formed in 1996 as part of the Mayor's Office under Rudolph W. Giuliani. By a vote of city residents in 2001 it became an ...

provisionally re-classified Howard Beach, along with the Brooklyn neighborhoods of

Gerritsen Beach Gerritsen Beach is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, located between Sheepshead Bay to the west and Marine Park to the east. The area is served by Brooklyn Community Board 15. The population of the neighborhood is 4,797 as ...

and Red Hook, as Zone A neighborhoods. On April 5, 2013, the Howard Beach post office reopened after extensive repairs.

Geography

Like many New York City neighborhoods, Howard Beach is composed of several smaller neighborhoods – Howard Beach, Old Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, Ramblersville, Spring Park, Rockwood Park, Lindenwood, and Howard Park (Old Howard Beach, Ramblersville, Howard Park, and Hamilton Beach are sometimes all grouped together as "Old Howard Beach", instead of being referred to by their proper names). Howard Beach proper is a small peninsula bordered by the

and Conduit Avenue on the north,

Jamaica Bay Jamaica Bay is an estuary on the southern portion of the western tip of Long Island, in the U.S. state