Far Rockaway (New York City, New York)

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Far Rockaway is a neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens in the United States. It is the easternmost section of the Rockaways. The neighborhood starts at the New York City/Nassau County line and extends west to Beach 32nd Street. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 14. The name "Rockaway" may have meant "place of sands" in the Munsee language of the Native American Lenape. Other spellings include Requarkie, Rechouwakie, Rechaweygh, Rechquaakie and Reckowacky (see: Toponymy of New Netherland).

Far Rockaway's character is that of an inner-city, oceanfront district, in some ways having more in common with Asbury Park, New Jersey than with New York City. Far Rockaway is one of the most distant New York neighborhoods from Manhattan, the cultural and financial center of New York City. Formerly populated by Eastern European Jewish and Irish immigrants, it now has a large African American population, though the westernmost portion still remains mostly Irish. Downtown Far Rockaway has a moderately large Central American population. There is also a large Orthodox Jewish population in the easternmost part of Far Rockaway, which borders Inwood and Lawrence, and other areas in the densely-Jewish Five Towns area across the Nassau County border. The area is home to a large and growing number of Haredi Jews with a large network of yeshivas and Jewish communal needs.

Recently, the area is being renewed with new beach houses and waterfront development. There has been a steady attempt at cleaning up the area. Despite its rough appearance and reputation, the crime rate is relatively low.The neighborhood is served by both the NYPD 101st Precinct and the FDNY firehouse at 16-15 Central Ave. which unusually houses two engine companies as well as a ladder company (Engine 264 / Engine 328 / Ladder 134) and is thus known as "the Big House".

Far Rockaway is one of two New York City neighborhoods whose subway terminus is within realistic walking distance of the city limits (the Wakefield section of the Bronx is the other). This fact led to an interesting scenario in 1985, when New York City banned the sale of spray-paint cans to persons under the age of 18, in an effort to stem the tide of graffiti in the city; teenagers would travel across the city line into either Nassau County (after getting off the subway at the last stop in Far Rockaway) or Westchester County (from the last stop in Wakefield) to purchase spray paint there (Nassau County has since followed suit and prohibited spray-paint sales to minors, but Westchester County has not).