Jones Beach and the Dune Boardwalk

In the 1920s the south-shore barrier bar here was little more than empty sand, mosquito marsh, and scattered fishing shacks. The state park planner Robert Moses seized on it for an ambitious vision, a vast public beach that ordinary families could reach by car on new landscaped parkways. Sand was pumped up and the dunes built out, bathhouses and the boardwalk were raised, and Jones Beach opened in 1929.

It was an immediate sensation, drawing huge crowds and proving that a well-designed public beach could serve millions. The design was deliberately grand, with nautical touches, fine masonry, and the towering water tower as its centerpiece, meant to make an ordinary day at the beach feel like an occasion. Jones Beach became a model copied around the country and a beloved fixture of Long Island life.

The heart of the developed beach is its boardwalk, a broad promenade running about two miles behind the dunes, lined with bathhouses, refreshment stands, and open spaces for games and events. Generations of Long Islanders have strolled it on summer evenings, and it still hosts concerts, fireworks, and gatherings through the season.

Rising over the boardwalk is the beach's signature Art Deco water tower, a slender brick shaft modeled on an Italian bell tower, that has served as a landmark and orientation point since the beginning. Visible from far up and down the beach, it gives Jones Beach a skyline of its own and has become an icon of the whole park, as recognizable as the sand itself.

For all its crowds, Jones Beach sits on a living barrier island, and just behind the developed strip the dunes and salt marshes teem with wildlife. The dunes, held in place by beach grass, shelter nesting shorebirds, including plovers and terns that lay their eggs right on the open sand, which is why parts of the dune are fenced and protected in nesting season.

Behind the barrier island lie the bays and salt marshes of the south shore, feeding grounds for herons, egrets, ospreys, and countless migrating birds. A nature center and dune trails let visitors explore this quieter side of the park. In fall, hawks and songbirds stream along the barrier beach on migration, and the wild edges of Jones Beach reveal the natural system that the great public beach was built upon.

Summer is the classic Jones Beach season, when the sand fills with swimmers and sunbathers, the boardwalk hums, and warm evenings bring concerts and fireworks. It is busiest on hot weekends, so early arrivals beat the traffic on the parkways.

Spring and fall are quieter and cooler, ideal for long beach walks, birdwatching, and the migration seasons, when the dunes and marsh come alive with movement. Winter empties the beach into a wide, windswept expanse of sand and surf under gray skies, bracing and beautiful, with seals sometimes offshore and the tower standing lonely watch over the empty boardwalk.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.