Jones Beach State Park

Jones Beach State Park is a major oceanfront public beach on Long Island whose modern form emerged in the 1920s under Robert Moses as a large recreational landscape without private clubs or housing. Engineers raised and stabilized the formerly low, storm-washed barrier island with dredged sand and planted grasses, and the park opened in 1929 with new road access. Its monumental design includes a water tower modeled on Saint Mark’s campanile, large bathhouses, Art Deco structures, boardwalks, and beaches on both ocean and bay. Long one of the East Coast’s busiest beaches, it also serves as a concert and air show venue and remains tied to debate over Moses’s parkway system.

Hempstead, New York · United States