By Sarina Trangle
Eileen Anderson trekked over a mound of sand dredged between Rockaway Beach and the ocean and sat near a long pipe with the words “danger, keep off” scrawled in orange.
A cloudy sky and scattered showers ushered in the first day of the city’s official beach season Saturday. Still, she and others on the sparsely populated shore said it was hard to determine whether the swaths of boardwalk and sand roped off for Superstorm Sandy repairs or weather were to blame.
“If you build it, they will come. There’s no boardwalk — they’re not coming. There’s no beach — they’re not coming,” said Eileen Anderson, a lifelong peninsula resident. “They stalled all winter.”
But in a sharp contrast to Saturday’s gloomy weather, Rockaway resident Philip McManus sent a photo of thousands sprawled out on the beach on what felt like a summer day Monday and said Rockaway Beach had not welcomed such a large crowd in years.
A day before Rockaway Beach opened for swimming, new city Parks Department Commissioner Mitchell Silver said he would see if the city could speed up its three-year deadline for repairing the roughly 5-mile boardwalk.
Parks said the city has repaired 3.5 miles of boardwalk, including a 2.5-mile run, which can be used this summer.
A maze of wooden fences roped off pillars that supported the boardwalk before Superstorm Sandy tore through the beach in October 2012. As contractors replace these stretches of boardwalk with a more elevated one comprised of sand-colored concrete, the city said workers are building a baffle wall designed to block sand from pouring into the community.
Pipes and red flags also close off parts of the beach where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is dredging up sand from the ocean and funneling some 3.5 million cubic yards back on shore.
The city has taken pains to maintain pathways to the beach where boardwalk work is ongoing.
Anderson said the city had accommodated the concessionaires, but seemed to be stalling on the amenity the community craved most: its boardwalk.
“That’s our socialization in this town. It’s our bikes, our carriages, it’s the lovers in the evening holding hands, it’s really our steadfast socialization,” she said.
Both she and another peninsula resident, Jim McHugh, pointed out other communities have had their boardwalks rebuilt since Sandy.
“It’s slow. Everything is slow. You know Jersey and Long Beach got their board walk and everything,” said McHugh, who exercises on the walkway at 5:30 a.m. daily. “Of course, they don’t have a 5-mile boardwalk.”
Others were more forgiving.
Anthony Broughton, who lives on Beach 92nd Street, said he thought the city had done what it could with its budget and was pleased it hired him and other residents for clean-up work.
“You can’t just pick up a dust pan and broom and fix up the beach,” he said. “Unless you’re coming out to do the job yourself, stop complaining.”
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
