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The Glorified Tomato

Everyone Has Their Rockaway Story


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1) Jimmy “The Gent” Burke (center), famously portrayed by Robert DeNiro in Goodfellas, was born in Rockaway.

You meet someone new, they ask where you’re from and you tell them Rockaway. They immediately go into “their Rockaway story”: their uncle had a bungalow, a wild DFD excursion, volunteering after Hurricane Sandy. And of course, there’s the classic: they used to visit before it became hip and had their first frozen at Connolly’s in 19-tickety-two, which led them to getting drunk and sleeping on the beach.

Still, it’s kind of cool to live in a place that everyone has some kind of strange memory or connection to. And this doesn’t just extend to your average Queens johnny-pump or the millennial newbie. In fact, I recently came across this article on Vulture* with Mike D of the Beastie Boys in which he laments about not spending enough time in Rockaway as a kid. “I could have grown up my whole life surfing in Rockaway. There are really good waves in New York. I feel sort of like an idiot that I didn’t take advantage…”

We all know about the Ramones, Patti Smith and Klaus Biesenbach, but how about the notorious Irish-American mobster associate Jimmy Burke, also known as “Jimmy the Gent?” Burke, the architect of the infamous Lufthansa heist (as depicted in Goodfellas), was born in Rockaway.

Joyce Brothers went to Far Rockaway High School graduating in 1944. She was a psychologist, television personality and columnist, writing a daily newspaper column and another in Good Housekeeping Magazine. Now we have two famous columnists with connections to Rockaway!

George Carlin’s story began in Rockaway, literally. He was conceived on Beach 116th Street at the old Curley’s Atlas Hotel. Patrick Carlin, George’s father convinced his estranged wife to come with him on a weekend getaway to Rockaway Beach, where according to Carlin, he was conceived. At that time, Beach 116th was nicknamed Fifth Avenue, so picture a more romantic scene for the tryst than today’s main drag.

On a very prestigious note, Richard Feyman was born and lived in Rockaway until he was 17. Who’s he? He was one of the 20th century’s greatest theoretical physicists, and won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965! Not bad for a Far Rockaway boy!

Famously, Herman Melville in the very first chapter of Moby Dick speaks to people’s yearning for the sea. “Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?”

Dick Wolf — television producer notably known as the creator of one of my FAVORITE shows Law and Order — lives on the peninsula. Yes, we have an Emmy Award winning neighbor with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! (Dick – if you’re reading this, I’m a HUGE fan. Let’s meet for an interview. I make delicious eggplant parmesan. We can chat over dinner.) Dick Wolf also penned four thriller books, one of which in the series, The Execution, is about a ruthless assassin associated with a Mexican cartel and a mass murder in Rockaway (don’t worry, it’s fiction)!

We’re just a little outlying Queens neighborhood in a city of over 8 million, but there’s something alluring about this place, because everyone has their Rockaway Story.

*www.vulture.com/2018/03/mike-d-beastie-boys-in-conversation.html

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