Watch CBS News

Rockaways Residents Glad To See Sand Moved From 'Fornication Hill' To Beach 90th Street

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- You could say one person's nuisance is another person's newly refined beach -- at least in the Rockaways.

Huge dump trucks started have moved 7,000 cubic yards of sand from Beach 121st Street to Beach 90th Street.

Ever since Hurricane Irene, there has been just a narrow strip of sand at Beach 90th, so Parks Administrator Jill Weber said it's finally being fixed.

1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria With More On The Story

Podcast

"The neighborhood north of the boardwalk is always vulnerable in the event of another storm, so the wider the beach, the safer it is," Weber told 1010 WINS' Carol D'Auria.

Harold Blumenthal has lived in the Rockaways more than 50 years. He is very happy the beach is being fixed, but he said, it's really only a Band-Aid solution.

"Of course it's a wonderful idea. You need the beaches. They're not done the way they should be done, but they're temporary fixes," Blumenthal said. "One storm this winter, you have one storm and all that they're doing is washed completely away."

Blumenthal believes if jetties were added to the beach, there would no longer be an erosion problem.

"Problem" is the word that residents on Beach 121st Street used to describe the huge mounds of sand that are now being moved away.

"At night-time, they drank on top of it, fornicated on it," resident Brendan O'Hara said.

Patricia Wood also said she's been looking at the huge mounds of sand since last March and she's sick of it.

"People were down here, hanging out all hours of the night on that. I called it 'fornication hill,'" Wood said.

Share your thoughts in the comments section below...

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.