68 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • JUNE 2019
PRESS BUZZ: DESTINATIONS
JONES BEACH ISLAND:
Jones Beach State Park is the biggest destination of Jones Beach Island, but there is more to see than just this hot spot. (Photo by rik-shaw)
BY TIMOTHY BOLGER
Widely considered the most popular
oceanfront summer destination on
Long Island, Jones Beach is internationally
famous for its sprawling
white sand shoreline — but it is a lot
more than just a park.
Besides the many attractions at Jones
Beach State Park, which is full of hidden
surprises, the other two thirds
of Jones Beach Island has a variety
of waterfront bars and restaurants,
a half dozen smaller parks, three
residential communities as well as
vast stretches of untouched nature.
“It’s an extraordinary public asset
for all of us who live within reach of
it,” says Malcolm MacKay, head of the
Jones Beach Rescue Organization, a
nonprofit group that fundraises to
help preserve the park. “Jones Beach
is just a wonderful resource. It’s wild
and beautiful.”
At 17 miles long, Jones Beach Island
is the second lengthiest of the four
narrow barrier islands that protect
the South Shore of Long Island from
the Atlantic Ocean. With about 350
homes, it’s also the least populated of
LI’s barrier beaches. Ocean Parkway
runs nearly the full length of the
island and connects to causeways at
either end linking it to mainland LI.
The barrier beach straddles the Nassau
Suffolk county line and three
town jurisdictions. On the Nassau
side is its namesake state park in the
Town of Hempstead. As the name
suggests, neighboring Tobay Beach
is in the Town of Oyster Bay. And the
eastern half on the Suffolk side of the
island is in the Town of Babylon.
The barrier island is named for Major
Thomas Jones, an Irish privateer
who settled on LI in 1688 and was
appointed Ranger General of the area
by the British, giving him control
over much of the local resources. But
it was Robert Moses, the late master
builder, who transformed the island
into one of the biggest public beaches
of its kind in 1929.
With the return of beach season,
what follows is an eight-point guide
to Jones Beach Island.
JONES BEACH STATE PARK
With more than 8.5 million visitors
in 2018, Jones Beach State Park is consistently
in a horse race with Niagara
Falls for the title of most-visited in the
New York State parks system.
And for good reason. In addition to
swimming, surfing, sunbathing,
playgrounds, and picnic areas, this
2,413-acre oasis also has a 59-slip marina,
two-mile boardwalk, swimming
pool, nature center, bandshell, fishing
pier, mini-golf, snack bars, and a
14,500-seat bayside amphitheater that
hosts big-name acts throughout summer.
Much of the park has had a $65
million recent facelift that includes
the debut of a new adventure park
coming this summer.
“Jones Beach visitors have a real
romanticism with this park,” former
State Parks Commissioner Rose
Harvey said, noting that it “was built
with the idea of bringing families
together.”
The 6.5-mile-long park is the largest
on Jones Beach Island and is considered
the largest and most-visited public
recreational swimming facility in
the world, peaking at 13 million annual
visitors in the 1970s. To build the
park, Moses had sand dredged from
the bay to raise Jones Beach Island up
from 2 feet to 14 feet above sea level.
Moses designed the beach to give
visitors the feeling of being on an
oceanliner. That’s why there are
anchors at the entrance, garbage
cans shaped like ship air vents, and
games like shuffleboard. Besides the
sand, its best-known feature is the
brick-encased water tower, dubbed by
locals as "the needle," at the center of
the traffic circle where Wantagh State
Parkway meets Ocean Parkway.
By far the most popular section
is field six, home of the East Bath
House at the easternmost section of
the park, where the parking lot fills
up first because it has the shortest
walk to ocean. Parking Field 5,
which is used to access Zach’s Bay
on the north side of the parkway,
has pedestrian tunnels under Ocean
Parkway to access the ocean, as does
parking fields 4 and 3. Fields 4 and 5
abut the Central Mall, the hub of activity
at the park and home to the new
Boardwalk Cafe, while Field 3 has the
recently renovated West Bath House,
which has a pool and is home to The
Landing at Jones Beach and Gatsby On
The Ocean, two new restaurants and
event spaces.
Parking Field 5A is for the Northwell
Health at Jones Beach Theater, where
the likes of Dave Matthews Band and
Jimmy Buffet play each summer along
with several music festivals. To the
west are parking fields 1 and 2, which
are both on the ocean side. Field 2 is
“Jones Beach visitors have a real romanticism
with this park,” said Rose Harvey.
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