Beach 67th Street (A)
You know those stories about towns divided by the train tracks? How one side’s wealthy and the other poor? Welp.
When you get out of the subway, there’s just a few blocks between you and the beach, and in those blocks are the surfers and tourists. Locals Collective is a good spot for a coffee, but I sincerely doubt you’ll find any actual year-round locals here.
Locals Collective
Now, if you go the other direction from the train tracks, west towards Jamaica Bay, it’s a different world, one where the actual locals are. Most are Black, and most seemed unaccustomed to tourists getting lost in their part of town.
Google Maps works a little differently out here. I thought I was walking towards a bakery on the shores of Jamaica Bay, but it turned out to be someone’s house, advance orders only. And someone else managed to get their kitchen on Google Maps as a “coffee shop.”
I thought I’d check out Dubos Point Wildlife Sanctuary, which for the record is marketed as a park, but it’s actually a marsh and I got suctioned into the mud. At the corner of the marsh (the dry, solid land part) was a hodgepodge of art, furniture, and a grill, and three dudes hanging out with a bunch of big white marsh birds.
We got to talking, and they admitted that when they saw me walking up, they had an emergency huddle to discuss “what the heck is up with this white lady in Carlos Bay?” I’m Indian, but anyway, I got invited to their Friday cookouts and was told that if I got into trouble out in Rockaway, to just say “I know Carlos.”
Ali, from Guyana, sitting in front of Carlos Bay.
Honestly? They were absolute homies, and they’ve cultivated genuine local hangout culture. There might not be much to do out in local Rockaway, but there’s a strong community that makes up for it. I just wish that the wealth between the train tracks and ocean could spread to the other side between the tracks and Jamaica Bay.
A sign in progress for Carlos Bay. You won’t find Carlos Bay on Google Maps, but you can navigate to its old name, St. Croix by the Sea.
What did I miss? Scroll past the map and let me know.
