Long Beach, NY — Long Island's Densest Beach City Is Its Own Kind of Market, Not a Cheaper Hamptons

A Genuine City, Settled 1623, With Its Own History -- Not a Smaller Hamptons

Long Beach is this batch's third and final market, priority 89, built immediately after Westhampton Beach. It is flagged in this site's own destination data with a deliberate note: "city beach, different buyer profile." That note should be taken literally. Long Beach sits in Nassau County, not Suffolk County, where every other Long Island market this site has built -- Montauk, East Hampton and Amagansett, Southampton, Bridgehampton, Sagaponack, and Westhampton Beach -- is located. And Long Beach is a genuine city: settled in 1623, incorporated as a village in 1913, and made a city in 1922. None of the other Long Island markets on this site hold city status; they are villages, hamlets, or towns. This page does not reuse Montauk's lighthouse-and-Carl-Fisher material, East Hampton and Amagansett's 1648/1680-founding material, Southampton/Bridgehampton/Sagaponack's 1640-founding material, or Westhampton Beach's 1928-incorporation-and-1938-hurricane material. It is built on Long Beach's own documented history instead.

The modern resort community traces to real estate developer William H. Reynolds, who founded it in 1906-1907 with an explicit vision: "the Riviera of the East." Reynolds built Mediterranean-style architecture and the original oceanfront boardwalk to match that ambition. The Long Island Rail Road had already extended service to Long Beach in 1880, and that rail service attracted 300,000 visitors in its very first season -- a scale of early tourist demand that set the template for Long Beach as a beach destination reachable directly from New York City, a role it still plays today as a commuter suburb served by the LIRR.

Long Beach today is a barrier-island city: total area of 3.90 square miles, 2.22 of it land and 1.68 water, less than one mile wide from ocean to bay and roughly 3.5 miles long, bordered by Reynolds Channel on the bay side and the Atlantic Ocean on the ocean side. At the 2020 census, the city's population was 35,029, at a density of 15,795.5 people per square mile -- cited as the 34th densest city in the United States by the source behind this page, and dramatically denser than any Hamptons market this site has covered. The 2019 American Community Survey recorded a median household income of $97,022, with a racial and ethnic composition of 71.9% non-Hispanic white, 16.3% Hispanic or Latino, 6.2% Black, and 2.7% Asian.

That density is not an accident of geography alone -- it reflects what kind of housing market Long Beach actually is. Fewer than 40% of its housing units are detached single-family houses, a figure that marks it as a high-density community built around apartments, co-ops, and attached housing rather than the single-family estate lots associated with the Hamptons markets already covered on this site. Long Beach functions first and foremost as a bedroom community for New York City commuters via the Long Island Rail Road, offering comparatively affordable oceanfront living rather than the ultra-high-end pricing documented for Southampton, Sagaponack, and the Hamptons generally. This page treats that honestly: Long Beach is not a wealthy resort market, and it should not be marketed as one.

Long Beach's most dramatic governance story is not a storm -- it is the 1939 assassination of Mayor Louis F. Edwards, who was killed by a police officer while the city was still governed under a strong-mayor system. That assassination is presented here as exactly what it is: a fully resolved historical event, not an ongoing dispute. In its aftermath, residents adopted the council-manager system of government, which the city still uses today: five elected council members, with a city manager -- Dan Creighton, as of the research behind this page -- leading day-to-day administration. That governance reform, born out of a genuine crisis, is unique among the Long Island markets this site has built.

Long Beach also carries two darker historical chapters worth naming honestly rather than glossing over. The 1931 death of Starr Faithfull, a case that drew national attention at the time, is documented as part of the city's history. So is a run of Prohibition-era bootlegging scandals connected to the city in that period. Neither is presented here as an ongoing matter -- both are historical chapters, part of an honest accounting of a place that has always been more colorful and more complicated than a simple postcard resort town.

The city's boardwalk is central to its identity and its recovery story. Reynolds built the original Long Beach Boardwalk as part of his resort vision, and it featured an amusement park until the 1980s. The boardwalk deteriorated through the 1960s and 1970s before urban renewal efforts, accelerating from the 1980s onward, began reversing that decline. Today's boardwalk runs 2.2 miles. Its most severe modern test came from Hurricane Sandy, which struck on October 29, 2012, causing more than $250 million in damage to the city, destroying hundreds of vehicles, and destroying the boardwalk outright. The boardwalk was rebuilt with a $39 million FEMA grant plus $4.4 million in state reimbursement, reopening in sections by July 2013 and reopening fully by October 2013 -- a resolved, completed recovery, not an open wound.

Long Beach's cultural footprint is unusually broad for a city its size. Vernon and Irene Castle, the celebrated early-20th-century dance couple, operated the "Castles by the Sea" nightclub here. Notable past and current residents also include Billy Crystal, Derek Jeter, Joan Jett, Rick Rubin, MF Doom, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Rudolph Valentino. That roster, spanning silent-film-era stars to modern athletes and musicians, reflects a place that has drawn a wide range of New Yorkers for a century, not a narrow resort clientele.

One further point of clarity matters more here than on any other market this site covers: this is Long Beach, New York, on Long Island's South Shore in Nassau County -- not Long Beach, California, an unrelated city on the opposite coast. Existing coverage of this market online tends to either market it as a generic budget-friendly beach town without engaging its real history, or blur it with its California namesake in casual search results. This page is written to be unambiguous on both counts.

No exact current (2026) median home price, property-tax rate, or flood-insurance premium specific to Long Beach was confirmed in this research pass, and none is invented on this page -- nor are any current local business or restaurant listings named here beyond what is documented above. Treat any cost content on this page as illustrative only, and confirm current figures directly with the City of Long Beach, Nassau County, the State of New York, FEMA, and a licensed local insurance agent before making a decision. This page is independent research, not legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice.