The South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk, alternately referred to as the FDR Boardwalk or the South Beach Boardwalk, is a boardwalk facing the Lower New York Bay on the East Shore of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City. The boardwalk is the main feature of a public park that stretches from Fort Wadsworth and the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge to Miller Field, both part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. The park also contains numerous recreational facilities, including a skate park.
Originally, the Staten Island shorefront was occupied by multiple amusement parks, which had closed by the 1930s. Construction on the boardwalk started in 1935 and was complete by 1937. Amusements continued to occupy the boardwalk until the late 1950s, when water pollution and other changes started to repel potential visitors. The boardwalk was restored under a multi-million dollar project in the late 1990s. However, it is still relatively lightly used: in 2017, South Beach and Boardwalk saw 334,000 visitors, about 5% of the visitor count at Coney Island.
Description The South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk stretches between Fort Wadsworth to the north and Miller Field to the south. According to the second edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City, , the South Beach Boardwalk is the fourth-longest boardwalk in the world. From north to south, it runs through the neighborhoods of Arrochar, South Beach, and Midland Beach. When built it was wide for its length, half that of the Riegelmann Boardwalk at Coney Island, located across the Lower New York Bay in Brooklyn. The FDR Boardwalk was made with concrete and timber and contains several pavilions, restrooms, and "comfort stations" along its length. A boulevard, now known as Father Capodanno Boulevard, was built on the landward side of the boardwalk. A "protected" bicycle lane, segregated from other traffic, stretches the length of the boardwalk.
The South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk is very lightly used compared to other beaches in New York City. In 2017, South Beach and Boardwalk saw 334,000 visitors, compared to 2 million at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, 5 million at Rockaway Beach in Queens, and 6.7 million at Coney Island.
Recreational areas The South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk is composed of two main beaches: South Beach to the north of Sea View Avenue and Midland Beach to the south. The beaches contain facilities for baseball, handball, shuffleboard, bocce, checkers, volleyball, and roller hockey, as well as the Ben Soto Skate Park and the Ocean Breeze Fishing Pier.
The boardwalk contains eight baseball fields along its length: five adjacent to Midland Beach and three adjacent to South Beach. Two of the baseball fields in Midland Beach are also shared with a rugby pitch. There is also a basketball court near the south end of the boardwalk, at Greeley Avenue. The Detective Russel Timoshenko Soccer Field, named after a police officer killed in 2007, is located further north on the beach at Slater Boulevard. The northern end contains three bocce boards near Drury Avenue and two volleyball courts near Doty Avenue. Three children's playgrounds exist along the route of the boardwalk. From north to south, they are Playland at Sand Lane; Midland Playground at Graham Avenue; and Midland Beach Playground at Greeley Avenue.
Statues and monuments Fountain of the Dolphins is a statue at South Beach by sculptor Steven Dickey. It was donated in 1998 by the Staten Island borough president and consists of six bronze depictions of dolphins, attached to poles with multicolored water jets.
The Capodanno Memorial was named after Father Vincent R. Capodanno, a local resident who was a chaplain in the United States Navy and was killed in 1967 during the Vietnam War. A granite monument on the boardwalk was dedicated to him in 1976, and Seaside Boulevard was renamed after Capodanno the same year. Located at Sand Lane and Fr. Capodanno Boulevard, the memorial consists of a bronze and steel tablet recessed in a granite stele.
The Midland Beach War Memorial is located near Fr. Capodanno Boulevard and Midland Avenue. It is composed of a three-paneled upright slab of Barre granite. An eagle figure is inscribed atop the pedestal.
Ben Soto Skate Park
The Ben Soto Skate Park is a skateboarding and BMX biking park located at the Midland Beach Playground. The skate park is composed of concrete and metal. It was opened in 2005 and named in honor of a local Marine who died four years prior. By 2010, the skate park had deteriorated and the soon-to-be U.S. Representative for Staten Island, Michael Grimm, had promised to fix it. Since being renovated in 2011, the skate park has been criticized by local skateboarders and bikers who state that it lacks a variety of traditional skatepark features such as ramps.
History Predecessors
Staten Island's East Shore was originally settled by the Dutch, who created the modern-day neighborhoods of Midland Beach and South Beach. Though summer homes were built along the beach in the mid-18th century, these areas remained rural until the later portion of the century. By 1882, businessmen realized that the area could be developed as a resort, and amusements such as theaters, hotels, bathing pavilions, and casinos were added along the shore. In particular, two amusement parks were developed on the site of the modern-day boardwalk: Happyland Amusement Park and Midland Beach. In 1884, opened the South Beach Branch of the Staten Island Railway, which in turn led to the Staten Island Ferry at St. George Terminal. As a result of its easy accessibility from Brooklyn and Manhattan, the resorts evolved into amusement places similar to Coney Island. The sites of the amusement areas are now occupied by the South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk.
By the mid-1880s, South Beach's amusement area consisted of a boardwalk, a beach, and numerous rides. After much of the area was destroyed by a fire in September 1896, the Happyland Amusement Park, an enclosed park with numerous attractions and landscape features, opened on June 30, 1906. Among the park's attractions were a beachfront of , a pier, a boardwalk, a system of over 10,000 lights, and numerous attractions and roller coasters.
Midland Beach, located southwest of South Beach, became a resort by the 1890s when the South Beach Branch came to the area. It contained a pier jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, where visitors could catch the steamboat William Story to the Battery at the tip of Lower Manhattan. The pier was so long that the Midland Beach Railway Company operated a miniature railroad to take fishermen and other visitors to the end of the pier. Like South Beach, it offered theater performances, a beach, picnicking areas, snack kiosks, numerous hotels and bungalows, and several amusement attractions and roller coasters. The beach also contained a boardwalk.
During World War I, air and water pollution quality and fears of German attacks discouraged tourists from coming to Staten Island. However, visitation rebounded after the war, and by 1923 Staten Island was seeing record-high numbers of visitors, including 150,000 on a single day in June 1923. The parks were mostly destroyed following a series of devastating fires in the 1920s. A 1919 fire in South Beach destroyed much of the amusement area there. A pair of fires also affected Midland Beach in 1924: the first severely reduced the ability of boats to travel to Midland Beach, while the second destroyed part of the amusement area. Both amusement areas were rebuilt, only for both to burn down in 1929. One remnant of the amusement area, the South Beach Amusement Park at the northern end of South Beach, continued to operate through the end of the 20th century, though much of that park was destroyed in 1955. Beachland Amusements, an adjacent amusement arcade, operated from 1941 to 2006 and was the last amusement attraction on the South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk. Construction and opening
A law passed by the New York State Legislature in 1930 allocated $1 million for the construction of a beach and boardwalk at Staten Island, running between Fort Wadsworth and Miller Field. In 1934, the New York City Board of Estimate changed the city's zoning map so that the shorefront along South, Graham, Midland, and Woodland Beaches would be public land. Subsequently, Staten Island borough president Joseph A. Palma proposed constructing a boardwalk to connect South Beach and New Dorp. The 2.5-mile boardwalk was to cost $2 million and would be built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Part of the cost would be funded by the Public Works Administration. The project was expected to raise real estate prices, similar to previous boardwalk projects in New York City.
On August 11, 1935, officials held three groundbreaking ceremonies with more than 10,000 spectators combined, which marked the start of construction. Work on the boardwalk itself did not begin until a month later. Palma estimated that the work would employ up to 4,000 people. New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) commissioner Robert Moses criticized the boardwalk, saying that its development would encourage private developers to block access to the beach. The project was described as a mixture of Coney Island's Riegelmann Boardwalk and Jones Beach.
The plans called for a beach to be built before the boardwalk, but construction did not progress in that exact sequence, which resulted in some parts of the boardwalk site being flooded at high tide. As a result, WPA employees sometimes worked 6-hour days and other times worked less than 4 hours in a day. Nevertheless, the boardwalk was built relatively quickly, and the first section between Fort Wadsworth and South Beach was nearly completed by the end of 1936. Twelve jetties and a parallel beach section had also been completed, though a section across New Creek in Midland Beach was progressing slowly. By June 1937, the entire boardwalk was essentially completed. An official opening ceremony was held on July 4, 1937, and was attended by 25,000 people. Upon its opening the boardwalk was named after U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who participated in the ceremonies remotely.
Early years
In September 1937, three hundred bathhouses on the newly completed boardwalk burned down. The United States Army announced plans for a pier at Lily Pond Avenue, at the northern end of the FDR Boardwalk, in 1940. The pier would support their activities on nearby Hoffman Island and Swinburne Island. Furthermore, a NYC Parks rule initially prevented wounded war veterans from using the South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk due to regulations preventing wheelchairs from using the boardwalk. As a result, in 1945 Palma arranged an agreement whereupon these veterans could instead use Midland Beach, which at the time was privately owned.
Staten Island borough president Edward G. Baker and NYC Parks commissioner Moses proposed a redevelopment of the South Beach–Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk in 1953. Baker and Moses stated that the redevelopment of the boardwalk would serve to improve the quality of Staten Island's East Shore in general, similar to how the Rockaway Boardwalk's construction had improved the Rockaways. At the time, 1.2 million people per year were visiting the beach and boardwalk. The $6.46 million redevelopment of Staten Island's East Shore beaches was commenced the following March, though the project was not approved until that May. Moses also proposed to charge 25 cents for parking and 10 cents to enter the boardwalk, drawing up to 2.4 million people within 30 years.