Benjamin B. Mott House, ca. 1923. The Mott family were major landowners in the area, dating to the 18th century. This Revolutionary War-era house was home to generations of Motts, including Benjamin B. Mott, whose late 19th century gift provided the land for the Long Island Railroad’s original Far Rockaway Station.

Commercial Cable Company Building, ca. 1912. In 1912, the Commercial Cable Company shifted operations from its Coney Island hub to a new building near the corner of Rue de St. Felix and Grandview Avenue (today, New Haven and Caffrey Avenues). The Far Rockaway building became New York’s link to Transatlantic telegraph cables, via Nova Scotia. Telegraph communication had declined by the 1930s, and the building was sold and later converted into a yeshiva. In 1985, the structure was demolished, revealing another historic site: the Cornell Burial Ground, situated at the rear of the lot, a 17th century cemetery containing the remains of Far Rockaway’s first European settlers. In 1992, the Parks Department took control of the property, thereby ensuring access to the burial ground as restoration progresses.

National Bank of Far Rockaway, ca. 1912. The Greek Revival bank was built in 1912, on a wedge-shaped lot squeezed between Central Avenue and the tracks of the Ocean Electric Railway streetcar line. The OER’s Roche’s Beach line ran from the Far Rockaway Long Island Railroad station (then immediately west of the National Bank) to the Roche’s Beach bathhouse, along Central Avenue and Rockaway Turnpike (today Beach 20th and 19th Streets, respectively). The Roche’s Beach line was abandoned in 1924.

“St. John’s Church (Episcopal). It was probably erected on land of Benjamin B. Mott in 1873. April 1925.” Photographer Eugene L. Armbruster’s annotation is incorrect: the Trinity Chapel was built in 1858, according to noted church architect Richard Upjohn’s Gothic Revival design. Founded as a mission of Trinity Church in nearby Hewlett, Trinity became an independent parish in 1881, at which point it was renamed St. John's of Far Rockaway. Trinity and St. John’s re-merged in 1974 and the building was sold to current occupants Bethel Temple Church of God in Christ.