Photograph of Jacob Riis Park — Photograph by You may select the license of your choice, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Jacob Riis Park Historic District

Built in 1912. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. 15 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1889.

From the record

“Riis Park and Riis Park, is a seaside park on the southwestern portion of the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It lies at the foot of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, east of Fort Tilden, and west of Neponsit and Rockaway Beach.”
Wikipedia article Jacob Riis Park, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 108 National Register listings published here for Queens County · listed in 1981 · category: District · built in 1912.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Rockaway Beach Blvd., New York, 11694
When was it listed? June 1981
Category. district
Borough. Queens
When was it built? 1912
National Register reference number. 81000081 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

989 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 989 fires within 5 miles of Jacob Riis Park Historic District between 1992 and 2020, burning about 740 acres in total. 62 started naturally. 78 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	725
Arson/incendiarism	78
Natural	62
Smoking	45
Debris and open burning	25
Equipment and vehicle use	18
Misuse of fire by a minor	14
Recreation and ceremony	14
Fireworks	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Other causes	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2010	Smoking	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 1995	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	3.0 acres	Gateway National Recreation Area	PLUMB2
8 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.9 acres	Fire Department of New York	not named
8 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.9 acres	Fire Department of New York	not named
8 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.9 acres	Fire Department of New York	not named
8 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
8 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
8 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.9 acres	Fire Department of New York	not named

Every fire recorded in Queens County

Maps showing this location

15 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1889 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1891 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1897 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500 - 3 printings
1898 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1900 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500 - 11 printings
1947 USGS Far Rockaway quadrangle1:24000
1949 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1954 USGS Far Rockaway quadrangle1:24000
1954 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1957 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1958 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1969 USGS Far Rockaway quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1969 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1984 USGS Long Island West quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Fort Tilden Historic District	1.0 miles	1984
Rockaway Courthouse	3.4 miles	2014
Temple of Israel Synagogue	3.6 miles	2014
Richard Mott House	6.0 miles	2026
Far Rockaway Beach Bungalow Historic District	6.3 miles	2013
Trinity Chapel	6.8 miles	2002

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 81000081 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Queens County	All 108 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.