 Beach Channel Drive west of Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Park | |
 | |
| Owner | City of New York |
|---|---|
| Maintained by | NYCDOT |
| Length | 8.0 mi (12.9 km)[1] |
| Location | Queens |
| Postal code | 11697, 11694, 11693, 11692, 11691 |
| Nearest metro station | Rockaway Line   |
| West end | Rockaway Point Boulevard / Marine Parkway Bridge in Roxbury |
| Major junctions | Cross Bay Bridge in Rockaway Beach |
| East end | Sheridan Boulevard in Inwood |
| South | Rockaway Freeway |
Beach Channel Drive is the main thoroughfare of the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It extends from the Nassau County border at Inwood westward, to the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge at the end of Jacob Riis Park. From Hammels westward, it follows Jamaica Bay on the northern side of the peninsula.
Beach Channel Drive was opened on November 27, 1927, as a relatively short road west of the current site of the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge.[2] It was later expanded by consolidating a number of existing thoroughfares and constructing some linking roadways.
One of the roads that would become Beach Channel Drive was the launching point for the first transatlantic flight. On May 8, 1919, four United States Navy Navy-Curtis seaplanes took off in Neponsit and headed off to the British colony of Newfoundland, the Azores Islands, and Lisbon, Portugal. On May 31, one of the aircraft, piloted by Lieutenant Commander Albert C. Read, arrived in Plymouth, England.