American Airlines Flight 1 (1962)

Jamaica Bay is an estuary on the southern portion of the western tip of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York. The estuary is partially man-made, and partially natural. The bay connects with Lower New York Bay to the west, through Rockaway Inlet, and is the westernmost of the coastal lagoons on the south shore of Long Island. Politically, it is primarily divided between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, with a small part touching Nassau County. The bay contains numerous marshy islands. It was known as Grassy Bay as late as the 1940s. Jamaica Bay is located adjacent to the confluence of the New York Bight and New York Bay, and is at the turning point of the primarily east-west oriented coastline of southern New England and Long Island and the north-south oriented coastline of the mid-Atlantic coast.

Sandy Neck Beach is a barrier beach (sandstone) that stretches 6.5 miles (10.6 kilometers) long and one half-mile (800 m) wide. along Cape Cod Bay, backed along its entire length by undulating dunes and a picturesque salt marsh. It is a destination for all leisure activities: summer swimming, year-round hiking, and saltwater fishing. The dunes, which reach 100 ft. hight, are a habitat for red foxes, deers,shorebirds and wildflowers. From four points along the coast, walking paths cross the dunes inland to a path that bypasses the salt marsh. The beach access road is halfway between Sandwich and Barnstable on MA 6A. Near the eastern end of the shoal, on the low and eastern point of Sandy Neck, at the entrance to Barnstable Harbor, stands the Sandy Neck Lighthouse(n), which is more than a 150 years old, and next to it is the six-room keeper's house. In the Nineteenth Century, Barnstable was an essential port for fishing, whaling, and coastal trade, and Sandy Neck was home to the laborers who tried to turn the port into oil drilling. On May 18, 1826, the congress authorized $3,500 for a lighthouse at the east end of Sandy Neck, at a point known as Beach Point. In a show of support, Barnstable sold a two-acre parcel of real estate for just one dollar to construct the lighthouse. On October 1, 1826, the Sandy Neck Lighthouse, which cost $2,911 then, went into service. In 1857, The current brick lighthouse 48-foot tall (14.5 meters) was built, just north of the original house. In 1887, two iron hoops and six vertical bars were placed around the central part of the "heavily cracked" tower to strengthen it and prevent further decay. These hoops and poles remained, giving the Sandy Neck Lighthouse its unique appearance. The history of the lighthouse is recorded until the 1950s. In 2003, the committee for the restoration of the Sandy Neck Lighthouse was established to restore the tower to its proper appearance, with the assistance of the Cape Cod branch of the American Lighthouse Foundation. On October 20, 2007, the 150th anniversary of the current tower built in 1857, a group of supporters aboard a "Hyannis Whale Watch" vessel was seen removing the cover from the lighthouse's searchlight room, allowing the Sandy Point Beacon to shine again. Fireworks display behind the lighthouse concluded the evening. The station's oil house, built in 1905, was restored in 2008, and in 2010 a light emitting diode (LED) beacon was installed in the searchlight room, increasing the range of the light from 4.2 to 10.4 nautical miles. Sandy Neck Colony still sits near the edge of Sandy Neck, with about two dozen cottages, many of which are more than a century old. One of the first cottages was used as a restaurant. The beach itself is public and it is one of the most popular locations on Cape Cod. Every year an average of 120,000 to 150,000 visitors flock to Sandy Neck, many via all-terrain vehicles.

Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is a wildlife refuge in New York City managed by the National Park Service as part of Gateway National Recreation Area. It is composed of the open water and intertidal salt marshes of Jamaica Bay. It lies entirely within the boundaries of New York City, divided between the boroughs of Brooklyn to the west and Queens to the east.

The Raunt was a former Long Island Rail Road station on the Rockaway Beach Branch. It had no address and no station house, because it was meant strictly as a dropping-off point for fishermen using a small island in Jamaica Bay. The station was located 1,300 feet (400 m) west of signal station "ER" (presumably #96), and near the WU Tower. It was named for the channel on the south side of the island where it stood.

Goose Creek was a former Long Island Rail Road station on the Rockaway Beach Branch. Located on the north end of the trestle across Goose Creek, it had no address and no station house, because it was meant strictly as a dropping-off point for fisherman using a small island in Jamaica Bay.The station opened in the summer of 1888 and by the following year it served a small community consisting of six fishing clubs, two saloons, and a hotel. The area was known as a popular fishing ground for weakfish and boats could be hired at the docks.The Rockaway Beach Branch was electrified on July 26, 1905. The following year, spoils from the construction of the tunnels leading to Pennsylvania Station were used to fill in the trestle across Goose Creek. The station closed in September 1935 and by 1940 all of the buildings at Goose Creek were eliminated.

Broad Channel is a neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It occupies the southern portion of Rulers Bar Hassock (known colloquially as "Broad Channel Island"), the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay. The neighborhood stands on Big Egg Marsh, an area of fill approximately 20 blocks long and 4 blocks wide at the south end of Rulers Bar Hassock. The community is an inholding within the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. National Park Service as part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. The area comprises several artificial canals separating dead-end residential blocks. It is connected to the rest of Queens by road and subway bridges. Broad Channel is located in Queens Community District 14 and its ZIP Code is 11693. It is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 100th Precinct.

The Broad Channel station is a station on the IND Rockaway Line of the New York City Subway, located in the neighborhood of the same name at Noel and West Roads in the borough of Queens. It is served by the A train and the Rockaway Park Shuttle at all times, the latter of which originates/terminates here. Broad Channel originally opened in 1880 as a Long Island Railroad station. The LIRR discontinued service in 1950 after a fire on the trestle across Jamaica Bay, to the station's north. The station reopened June 28, 1956, as a subway station. Broad Channel is the only subway station serving the island of Broad Channel, which is located in Jamaica Bay and only has about 3,000 residents. Thus it is the second least-used in the subway as of 2019. However, this station is the only transfer point for riders traveling between Brooklyn and Manhattan (which the A train travels to) and the four other stations served by the Rockaway Park Shuttle. North of this station, there are two additional tracks within the right-of-way: a short track that allows Rockaway Park Shuttle trains to reverse direction and return to the Rockaways, and a longer track that is used to test new subway cars.

The Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge (formerly the North Channel Bridge) is a bridge that carries Cross Bay Boulevard across Jamaica Bay in Queens, New York City, between Howard Beach and Broad Channel. The fixed bridge, carrying six lanes of Cross Bay Boulevard, is named for the late Joseph P. Addabbo, who represented the area in the United States House of Representatives from 1961 to 1986.The bridge was built alongside the original North Channel Bridge as a replacement; a lack of maintenance on the old bridge had allowed it to deteriorate to the point where it was beyond repair.

Ruffle Bar is a 143-acre (58 ha) island located in Jamaica Bay in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, off the coast of Canarsie. The island is part of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, and lies just east of the former Barren Island, where Floyd Bennett Field is now located. One of the early inhabitants of Ruffle Bar was Jacob Skidmore, who built a house on the island. In 1842, Skidmore moved his house and family to Barren Island.: 14  Skidmore had disassembled his house piece-by-piece. According to one story, a storm blew his disassembled ceiling across the bay to Barren Island.During the Civil War, Ruffle Bar became a stop for ferries traveling between Canarsie and Rockaway. The Windward Club started sponsoring boat racing around Ruffle Bar in the 1880s. By the next decade, a hotel on the island had opened. Ruffle Bar was considered to be part of the public land of the town of Flatbush until the 1890s, when parts of the island were sold to 24 private owners.: 59 Ruffle Bar was so isolated that when Jamaica Bay froze during the winter, the island's few residents were cut off from the rest of civilization for three months. One newspaper article compared the situation to isolated communities in the Arctic. Making reference to an Arctic explorer named Otto Sverdrup, the newspaper wrote, "For all that the city does for Ruffle Bar, it might as well be in Sverdrup Land."In 1913, the city proposed to build a garbage incinerator on Ruffle Bar. Brooklyn residents strongly opposed building an incinerator at this location because the smell could drift northward into Flatlands, so the incinerator was ultimately not constructed on Ruffle Bar. Pierre Noel's Ruffle Bar Association began constructing structures on Ruffle Bar in 1914, for the purpose of developing it as a resort. The association leased the city-owned portions of Ruffle Bar from the New York City Department of Docks for ten years starting in 1914.: 59  Through the 1920s, landfill was added in order to expand Ruffle Bar's area. The island became the center of a successful clam and oyster industry. At one point, there were more than 40 structures on the island that supported the industry, with most of these buildings being located on the south shore.: 59 Fishing activities ceased when the water was deemed by the New York City Department of Health to be too polluted for the breeding of shellfish. The Great Depression caused most of the residents to move elsewhere, but a few squatters remained. By 1940, there were twenty-five structures left on the island.: 59  The last resident, a fisherman, was thought to have moved away in 1944. However, The New York Times showed that Census Enumerators visited Ruffle Bar as late as 1950 to collect Census data from the remaining residents. The island is uninhabited and, along with other islands in Jamaica Bay, has been designated as a bird sanctuary. Due to its remoteness, kayakers have sometimes become stranded on the island.

Howard (also Howard's Landing) was a former Long Island Rail Road station on the Rockaway Beach Branch. Located on marshland along the coast of Jamaica Bay south of the "WD Tower" near Hawtree Creek, it had no fixed address, and was south of what is today 165th Avenue, evidently within the Gateway National Recreation Area's Hamilton Beach Park.

The Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge (originally Cross Bay Bridge or Cross Bay Parkway Bridge) is a toll bridge that carries Cross Bay Boulevard across Jamaica Bay in Queens, New York City, between Broad Channel and the Rockaway Peninsula.

Beach Channel was a Long Island Rail Road station on the Rockaway Beach Branch in Broad Channel, Queens, New York. It was located on the north end of the Beach Channel Drawbridge across from the north leg of the Hammels Wye.