Hammels is an area within Rockaway Beach on the

Rockaway Peninsula 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 the ...

in 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 Un ...

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 A ...

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 located west of

Arverne Arverne is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, on the Rockaway Peninsula. It was initially developed by Remington Vernam, whose signature "R. Vernam" inspired the name of the neighborhood. Arverne extends from Beach 54th Street ...

and east of Seaside, and is centered on Beach 84th Street. Its main thoroughfare is Beach Channel Drive. The New York City Subway's travels through the neighborhood on 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 ...

. The Hammel Houses, a public housing project built in 1954, is located in the neighborhood.

History

Hammels was named for a local landowner, Louis Hammel (1836-1904). It originated as a summer community based on a series of boardwalks that ran between the Bay and Ocean shores. This was followed by a hotel, the Eldert House, that was kept by Garret Eldert and faced the bay on the east side of what today is Beach 85th Street. In August 1869, Louis Hammel leased the hotel. The New York, Woodhaven & Rockaway Railroad ran within a few feet of the hotel as a trestle was erected across the bay in 1880. The hotel gave an easement for construction of the " Hammels" station, which was used as the name for the entire community. A dock in front of the hotel on the Bay side, known as Fifth Landing, was a regular stop for boats of the

Iron Steamboat Company The Iron Steamboat Company (1881–1932) provided ferry service between Manhattan and Coney Island in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The original fleet consisted of seven iron-hulled steamboats, each named after a cons ...

. As the Rockaway resorts declined, residency changed to permanent residents. In 1897, Hammels merged with Hollands and was incorporated as the Village of Rockaway Beach. The following year, Rockaway Beach became part of the

City of Greater New York The City of Greater New York was the term used by many politicians and scholars for the expanded City of New York created on January 1, 1898, by consolidating the existing City of New York with Brooklyn, western Queens County, and Staten Is ...

when the five boroughs consolidated into a single city and

was created.Hammel Playground

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

. Accessed December 12, 2006.

References

Populated coastal places in New York (state) Neighborhoods in Rockaway, Queens {{QueensNY-geo-stub