If you just want the short version, this is a rave review.

The long version begins with us arriving for a staycation, being greeted by friendly, welcoming staff at the front door of The Rockaway Hotel, the brand new place on Beach 108th Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard. A minute later, you’re struck by the sleek lobby and the feeling you’ve just left Rockaway but you haven’t; you’ve stepped into an alternate Rockaway universe, Rockaway, at its best. It’s Rockaway potential

Hurricane Teddy may not have made landfall, but its effects, including high tides and high surf, were noticed around the peninsula.

The hurricane, which reached Category 4 strength early on, stayed out in the Atlantic as it passed by New York as a Category 2 around Monday and Tuesday. However, the storm churned up some intense activity on the water, including abnormally high tides and some gnarly barrel waves for surfers, which they took full advantage of. Local photographer Theresa Racine

 It was an event she would have photographed herself. On the morning of Saturday, September 19, surfers, neighbors and friends gathered on Beach 73rd Street to remember the late Laura Deckelman. The subject of many of her photos, surfers from across the peninsula remembered her in the way they know best—with a paddle out.

Local surfers, Brian Tunick and Lou Harris, as well as Deckelman’s friend, Tina Schlissel, put out a call to the local surfing community to come together to remember Laura