‘Rockaway’ may come from the Lenape; Beach 116th Street is Rockaway Park’s centre.
The name Rockaway may have meant ‘place of sands’ in the Munsee language of the Lenape; early colonists wrote it Rechouwakie, Reckowacky and in other ways. The first station here, built in 1882 by the Long Island Rail Road, was called Rockaway Beach and renamed Rockaway Park in 1899. The neighbourhood is centred on Beach 116th Street, a two-block street from Beach Channel Drive to Ocean Promenade.