This week we visited the in-laws at their beach house in Breezy Point, NY, a beach community on the southwestern tip of Long Island. It’s actually inside NYC in Queens. From the Bay side, you look out over the mouth of Jamaica Bay toward Brooklyn’s Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Sheepshead Bay. Beyond that, the Manhattan skyline. Breezy Point was in the news two years ago when Hurricane Sandy wrecked so much coastal property in that region. If the wind and water weren’t enough, the storm touched off a huge fire. As helpless firefighters looked on, a large swath of Breezy Point was consumed and thousands lost their homes. usnews.nbcnews/_news/2012/10/31/14817184-devastated-ny-community-built-by-firefighters-burned-beyond-their-reach This week I had an opportunity to walk around Breezy Point for the first time – 22 months after the destruction – and take these pictures. youtu.be/h6AE-g4l6gA So much has been rebuilt but everywhere you look you see (and hear) the construction. Carried on the wind mixed with the calls of seagulls are the rapping of hammers, whir of circular saws, and diesel engines of earth moving equipment. Still, much of the damage is evident everywhere you look. Hundreds of homes with decks torn away and empty lots where someones dream beach house used to stand. I also took several pictures of the Breezy Point 9/11 Memorial. All of NYC – and all of America for that matter – bled that day; none more than Breezy Point. Breezy isn’t your typical tourist-heavy beach rental locale. People live there. It’s the retirement destination for what seems like every cop, firefighter, and port authority worker in New York City. Sons and daughters often go into the family business and, for a community so small, the list is long of those who died that day just doing their jobs. Most of these pictures stand on their own but I added a few captions where appropriate.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 22:00:09 +0000
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