From The Rockaway Museum Commentary by Emil Lucev,Curator Dedicated To The Memory Of Leon S. Locke
Today, as we scoot by Beach Channel High School on Beach Channel Drive heading west, we see the same old every day. History tells us that back in the old days, when side-wheel steamboats, with walking beam steam engines to turn the motive water wheels, once landed at Beach 98 Street at the Steeplechase dock thereat! The map schematic from a 1919 Ulitz atlas of the Rockaways (which incidentally was stolen from the Long Island division of the Queens Borough library in Jamaica) shows the seaside docks in that bygone era, on the right side. The rectangular area was bulk-headed and filled in the early 1900s, by Steeplechase and Thompson Amusement park owners, and the Jamieson - Bond Supply Company which had the underwater rights. The dock and bulkhead extended eastward to about Beach 94 Street, and westward to about Beach 100 Street, and was used by amusement park steamers and supply company barges and boats fifty-fifty! At the dockside were Louis Hemberger's large hotel, and a host of bungalows for rent.
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Next, at the foot of Beach 103 Street (Seaside Avenue) is the massive seaside house hotel dock, and the dock Café. The giant seaside hotel was located where the number 30 appears to the right of Beach 103 Street. The seaside dock here was the first built after the close of the Civil War, and steadily enlarged and improved.
Also built in the early 1900s, as steamer traffic increased from all points to Seaside, was another long angled steamer dock out into Jamaica Bay at Beach 104 Street. There was talk of another at Beach 105 Street, but that one was never realized.
As early as 1923, the bay front from old Beach 88 Street westward to Beach 116 Street was bulkheaded and filled, and Crossbay Bridge to Broad Channel was almost complete for the opening of Crossbay Road, and a new Bay Road portion between Hammels and Rockaway Park was shaping up.
During this time of bayfront change, steamer traffic waned, and railroad traffic took up the slack. When Crossbay Road opened in 1926 the steamers stopped coming altogether, as automobile traffic snarled up the roads and streets in the Rockaways.
So to make a long story short, a new and wider Beach Channel Drive was built in the 1930s, and runs across the top portion of today's map, Beach Channel High School is at top right built out to the new pierhead line set long ago… and the "Honeyboat Dock" is at top left, on the new bulkhead line set at the same time… that is before the sewage disposal.
The Rockaways' Playland dock was refurbished in the late 1950s to accept modern diesel excursion boats that brought patrons to the amusement park and the beach. The last boat dock was located between Beach 96 Street and Beach 99 Street along Beach Channel Drive, where an exit ramp from Crossbay Bridge and the east end of Beach Channel High School now stand.
