Jones Beach

Robert Moses transformed swampy barrier islands sitting just two feet above sea level into Jones Beach by dredging 40 million cubic yards of sand from the bay floor, raising the elevation fourteen feet and connecting several small islands into one continuous stretch. When the park opened on August 4, 1929, a massive sandstorm greeted Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and 3,000 attendees, a fitting welcome for land that had been regularly submerged and tortured by pulverizing winds.

The centerpiece water tower, modeled after Venice’s St. Mark’s Campanile rather than the conventional bulbous American style, draws thousand-year-old water from wells 1,100 feet deep, and despite its ornamental silhouette, it still supplies the entire park today. Locals call it “the pencil.” The land that once flooded on command now hosts ten million visitors a year, none of whom seem bothered that they’re standing on borrowed sand.