Things to Do in Long Beach, New York

A City on a Barrier Island, Not a Village by the Sea

Long Beach is worth getting straight before anything else: it is a genuine city -- incorporated as a village in 1913, chartered as a city in 1922 -- sitting in Nassau County, on the south shore of Long Island. Every other Long Island market covered on this site sits in Suffolk County; Long Beach does not, and it does not share their history or their pricing. The city occupies Long Beach Barrier Island, a strip of land under a mile wide separating the open Atlantic from Reynolds Channel on the bay side, with a total area of 3.90 square miles (2.22 square miles of land, 1.68 square miles of water). The 2020 census counted 35,029 residents here, at a density of roughly 15,795.5 people per square mile -- reportedly the 34th-densest city in the country -- which makes Long Beach a fundamentally different kind of place to walk around than the low-density Hamptons villages and hamlets built earlier on this site.

Reynolds' "Riviera of the East"

The Long Island Rail Road first extended service to Long Beach in 1880, and the line drew an estimated 300,000 visitors in its very first season -- a sign of how quickly a rail connection could turn this strip of barrier beach into a destination. The city as it is recognizable today, though, is the work of real estate developer William H. Reynolds, who founded the modern city in 1906-1907 with an explicit vision of building "the Riviera of the East." Reynolds built Mediterranean-style architecture across the new development and built the original Long Beach Boardwalk as the spine of that resort vision. Walking the boardwalk today is, in effect, walking through the surviving piece of a hundred-plus-year-old real-estate vision for what an American seaside city could be.

The Boardwalk's Amusement-Park Years and Its Decline

Reynolds' original boardwalk featured an amusement park that operated into the 1980s, and for decades it was the social and recreational center of the new city. That did not last uninterrupted: the boardwalk and the amusement park around it deteriorated through the 1960s and 1970s, a long stretch of decline that mirrored what happened to a number of older American seaside resorts in the same period. Urban renewal efforts began turning that around from the 1980s onward, gradually restoring the boardwalk's condition and its role as the city's central public space. It is worth knowing this history going in: the boardwalk you can walk today is a survivor of real neglect, not an attraction that has looked the same since 1907.

Hurricane Sandy and the Rebuilt Boardwalk

Hurricane Sandy struck on October 29, 2012, and it did not spare the boardwalk: the storm caused more than $250 million in damage across Long Beach, destroyed hundreds of vehicles, and destroyed the boardwalk itself. The rebuild that followed was funded with $39 million in FEMA grants plus $4.4 million in state reimbursement. The boardwalk reopened in sections starting in July 2013 and was fully reopened by October 2013 -- a roughly one-year turnaround from total destruction to a complete, 2.2-mile boardwalk running the length of the city's oceanfront. That timeline is the clearest, best-documented single fact about the boardwalk as it exists today, and it is fully resolved history rather than an ongoing concern.

Walking the Boardwalk Today

The confirmed, present-day version of "things to do" in Long Beach starts and ends, on the record, with the 2.2-mile boardwalk itself: walking, running, or simply taking in a stretch of Long Island oceanfront in a city built specifically, over a century ago, to be a seaside destination for people arriving by rail. Because Long Beach functions as a dense commuter city rather than a seasonal resort -- fewer than 40% of its housing units are detached houses, and it markets itself around LIRR access to New York City -- the boardwalk experience here is genuinely different from the low-density Hamptons beach towns already covered on this site: expect a busier, more urban stretch of oceanfront rather than a quiet dune walk. Hours, seasonal access, and any programming along the boardwalk can change, so confirm current conditions directly before planning a visit rather than relying on any fixed schedule.

Planning a Visit Honestly

What this page confirms: Long Beach's 1623 settlement, its 1913 village incorporation and 1922 city charter, its location in Nassau County on Long Beach Barrier Island (3.90 square miles, less than a mile wide, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Reynolds Channel), William H. Reynolds' 1906-1907 "Riviera of the East" development and construction of the original boardwalk, the boardwalk's amusement park operating into the 1980s, its deterioration through the 1960s and 1970s followed by urban renewal from the 1980s onward, and Hurricane Sandy's October 29, 2012 destruction of the boardwalk and its rebuild -- $39 million in FEMA grants plus $4.4 million in state reimbursement, reopening in sections by July 2013 and fully by October 2013. What it does not do: invent a museum, tour operator, or scheduled boardwalk event beyond what is documented above, or borrow the spine of Montauk, East Hampton and Amagansett, Southampton, Bridgehampton, and Sagaponack, or Westhampton Beach -- all Suffolk County markets with a fundamentally different history and buyer profile than this Nassau County city.

This is Long Beach, New York, on Long Island -- not Long Beach, California. No specific current (2026) home price, property-tax rate, or flood-insurance figure for Long Beach is asserted here, and current boardwalk hours and access should be confirmed directly before a visit. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or financial advice.