About Us - Hammel Houses

Hammel Houses — NYCHA Development: A History

📍 Physical Profile & Location

The Hammel Houses are a public housing project by the New York City Housing Authority. The project began in 1952 and consists of 712 apartments housing 1,602 residents in fourteen seven-story buildings.1

Completed April 30, 1955, the 14.16-acre complex is bordered by Beach 81st and Beach 86th Streets, Hammels and Rockaway Beach Boulevards.2

Hammel Houses is located in the Hammels neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New York City, a coastal area exposed to Atlantic Ocean influences and designated as a hurricane zone.3

Administratively, Hammel Houses is managed by NYCHA’s Hammel Tenant Development Specialist (TDS) #075, which coordinates operations, resident services, and compliance with federal Section 9 funding requirements. A dedicated Development Management Office at 85-10 Rockaway Beach Boulevard handles tenant intake, lease enforcement, and community programming, while the Development Maintenance Office at 84-14 Rockaway Beach Boulevard oversees repairs, preventive upkeep, and emergency responses.3

🏛️ The Name: Who Was Louis Hammel?

The general locale was named for Louis Hammel, who owned a hotel in the area and donated land in 1878 for construction of a railroad station which came to be called Hammels Station.1

Hammels was named for a local landowner, Louis Hammel (1836–1904). It originated as a summer community based on a series of boardwalks that ran between the Bay and Ocean shores. This was followed by a hotel, the Eldert House, kept by Garret Eldert and faced the bay on the east side of what today is Beach 85th Street. In August 1869, Louis Hammel leased the hotel.4

The area picked up the name from the station and it began to develop as people took the train out from Manhattan and Brooklyn to live near or play at Rockaway Beach.1

📉 Neighborhood Decline & The Need for Public Housing

The rise of the automobile allowed people to travel to other beaches they liked more, and the area declined as Hammels was patronized mostly by lower-income people.1

Hammels and all of Far Rockaway began to decline as the popularity of the automobile increased. Less crowded beaches became accessible, and eventually new parks, such as Jones Beach State Park, were designed to accommodate cars. By the 1930s, many beach goers went elsewhere. As those with enough money to afford a car drove further out, Hammels became the beach for those who depended on public transit.5

In an attempt to address the physical deterioration in Far Rockaway, the City began to demolish selected buildings and replace them with planned housing. The New York City Housing Authority purchased the land for the Hammel Houses on July 16, 1952.5

🏗️ Planning, Approval & Construction (1951–1955)

The idea for the project was first announced at a Rockaway Chamber of Commerce dinner by a representative of the chairman of the New York City Housing Authority on January 28, 1951. By May of that year, the City Planning Commission had approved the architectural plans for the project. Nearly a year later, it filed the plans with the federal government.1

However, a cut proposed by Congress to the budget for the federally funded housing program threatened to end the project. Nevertheless, New York City bought the land for the Hammel Houses on July 16, 1952, making it one of the city’s early housing projects.1

By July 1954, the Authority was accepting residency applications, with construction expected to be completed in September. The first building opened on time, with a new building expected to open every succeeding month.1

A large playground was built the following year that featured slides, swings, a jungle gym, sand pit, and wading pool.1

🌊 Hurricane Sandy & Its Devastating Impact (2012)

One of the most defining moments in the history of Hammel Houses came when Hurricane Sandy struck in October 2012.

Superstorm Sandy, with its historical storm surge, caused massive damage throughout approximately 60 NYCHA public housing developments, severely affecting the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Immediately following Superstorm Sandy, NYCHA embarked on the Sandy Recovery Program to fully restore the habitability of the residential buildings and protect against any future natural disasters.6

Hammel Houses suffered damages to its services when water from Hurricane Sandy flooded the boiler room in Building 5, leaving it inoperable. The electrical services room in every building was wrecked by the storm surge. Water heaters and the plumbing that connected them and the boilers to the buildings and apartments was damaged or destroyed. Wiring and conduits for outdoor safety lights were also damaged or destroyed.1

All this was replaced and the electrical and plumbing services were raised above flood level.1

The Hammel gymnasium, important to the social fabric of the community, was damaged when flood waters burst through exterior walls of glass blocks and destroyed the wooden flooring, protective padding on the walls, and metal hinges, handles and fittings. Repairs took a year to complete.1

In 2015, salt left by encroaching flood waters corroded gas lines, causing them to burst and leaving residents without gas for at least three weeks.1

🔧 Post-Sandy Recovery & Resilience Program

Among the affected developments were three located on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens: Redfern Houses, Hammel Houses — a 14.16-acre complex with 14 buildings, and Carleton Manor. As owner and operator of these developments, NYCHA retained D&B Engineers and Architects to provide Construction Management as Agent services for the resiliency and recovery work at each site.6

Although Superstorm Sandy happened in 2012, NYCHA only gained access to FEMA funds in December 2015. Additionally, because the resiliency work involves working in and around occupied buildings, the design process was long and complex. However, since 2015, NYCHA kicked off construction at nearly all 35 sites, awarded over $3.1 billion and spent over $2.5 billion on this historic program.7

New York City Housing Authority is building back safer, stronger and smarter by improving structural resiliency and infrastructure protection. NYCHA’s Recovery and Resilience Program is pushing design boundaries in building reinforcements, storm surge protection, and infrastructure upgrades. By leveraging every dollar, NYCHA aims to make these coastal developments a national model and a safer home for residents for generations to come.7

⚠️ Ongoing Challenges & Controversies

🔍 2017 Department of Investigation Findings

In 2017, New York City Department of Investigation officers went undercover, either in plain clothes or dressed as Housing Authority employees, and successfully stole new or used major appliances from storerooms in six public housing facilities, including Hammel Houses. Returning investigators found site managers had no idea the equipment was even missing.1

🏠 Stolen Belongings Incident

That same year, a family moved into a three-bedroom apartment. They immediately found it needed repairs, reported this, and deposited the keys with management while they left for Christmas vacation. Upon their return, they found their apartment emptied. Furniture, keepsakes, even immigration documents were missing. The security officer they reported this to found footage from the Housing Authority’s surveillance cameras showing city employees removing the belongings and not returning them. They submitted a claim for $23,000 to replace their items, and the city countered with an offer of $10,000.1

🦠 Resident Health Concerns (2020)

A Regional Plan Association report from July 2020 quoted several Hammel Houses residents voicing concerns about peeling paint, the presence of mold and lead in their homes, leaking plumbing, and the poor quality of repairs.1

Among NYCHA residents reporting mold in their units, one in three experienced respiratory issues directly attributable to it. Post-Sandy flooding in Rockaway developments like Hammel Houses intensified dampness, correlating with heightened asthma morbidity, wheezing, and upper respiratory infections due to prolonged exposure to moisture and microbial growth.3

💰 2024 Bribery Scandal

On February 6, 2024, seventy New York City Housing Authority employees were charged with accepting bribes to award small contracts for repairs to public housing sites, including Hammel Houses. In order to speed up direly needed repairs, the City had allowed the Housing Authority to forego the bidding process for contracts of small monetary value.1

🏗️ Recent Capital Improvements (2025)

Among recently completed capital projects is a fully renovated former children’s center at Hammel Houses in Rockaway Beach.8

Improvements at Hammel Houses’ new borough office include new workstations and a remodeled kitchenette.9

NYCHA’s Asset and Capital Management division oversees a multi-billion-dollar capital projects portfolio funded with federal, State, and City investments. The division works to preserve and modernize public housing for NYCHA residents through professional design and construction services carried out efficiently and with the highest degree of safety.8

🚌 Transportation

The New York City Subway’s A train travels through the neighborhood on the IND Rockaway Line.4 Hammels is also served by the Q22 and Q52 SBS local buses and the QM15 and QM17 express buses.4

📊 Demographics

As of February 2023, the units house 1,602 residents, reflecting a stable occupancy in a development originally constructed in the 1950s for low-income families. Among resident households, 230 families — comprising 34.23% of the total — are on fixed income.3

The Rockaway Peninsula overall, including Hammel Houses, experienced an 8% population growth to 124,185 between 2010 and 2020, driven by post-recession recovery and infrastructure improvements, though public housing residents often face higher vulnerability to economic shifts and environmental risks.3

Summary

Hammel Houses has a rich and deeply layered history, rooted in the rise and fall of the Hammels resort community on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. From its origins as a proposed public housing project in 1951, through its completion in April 1955, to the devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and its long road to recovery, Hammel Houses has stood as a resilient community. Despite ongoing challenges — including health hazards, corruption scandals, and storm damage — nearly 1,602 residents continue to call this Queens landmark home, and capital improvement projects in 2025 signal a continued commitment to its future.

Planning and Development

The idea for the project was first announced at a Rockaway Chamber of Commerce dinner by a representative of the chairman of the New York City Housing Authority on January 28, 1951.1 By May of that year the City Planning Commission had approved the architectural plans for the project.1

New York City bought the land for the Hammel Houses on July 16, 1952, making it one of the city’s early housing projects.1 A cut proposed by Congress to the budget for the federally funded housing program threatened to end the project1, but the development proceeded.

Construction and Opening

The project began in 1952 and consists of 712 apartments housing 1,602 residents in fourteen seven-story buildings.1 By July, 1954 the Authority was accepting residency applications, with construction expected to be completed in September. The first building opened on time, with a new building expected to open every succeeding month.1 Completed April 30, 1955, the 14.16-acre complex is bordered by Beach 81st and Beach 86th Streets, Hammels and Rockaway Beach Boulevards.2

A large playground was built the following year that featured slides, swings, a jungle gym, sand pit and wading pool.1

Location and Naming

They are located in Hammels, Queens on the Rockaway peninsula just west of the Arverne by the Sea development.1 The general locale was named for Louis Hammel, who owned a hotel in the area and donated land in 1878 for construction of a railroad station which called Hammels station.1

Hurricane Sandy Impact

Hammel Houses suffered damages to its services when water from Hurricane Sandy flooded the boiler room in Building 5, leaving it inoperable. Wiring and conduits for outdoor safety lights was also damaged or destroyed. All this was replaced and the electrical and plumbing services were raised above flood level.1 The Hammel gymnasium, important to the social fabric of the community, was damaged when flood waters burst through exterior walls of glass blocks and destroyed the wooden flooring, protective padding on the walls, and metal hinges, handles and fittings. Repairs took a year to complete.1

Recent Challenges

A Regional Plan Association report from July 2020 quoted several Hammel Houses residents voicing concerns about peeling paint, the presence of mold and lead in their homes, leaking plumbing and the poor quality of repairs. Hammel Houses — NYCHA Development: A Full History

📍 Physical Profile & Location

Completed April 30, 1955, the 14.16-acre complex is bordered by Beach 81st and Beach 86th Streets, Hammels and Rockaway Beach Boulevards.2

They are located in Hammels, Queens on the Rockaway Peninsula, just west of the Arverne by the Sea development.1

🏛️ The Name: Who Was Louis Hammel?

The general locale was named for Louis Hammel, who owned a hotel in the area and donated land in 1878 for construction of a railroad station, which came to be called Hammels Station.1

Hammels was named for local landowner Louis Hammel (1836–1904). It originated as a summer community based on a series of boardwalks that ran between the Bay and Ocean shores. This was followed by a hotel, the Eldert House, kept by Garret Eldert, which faced the bay on the east side of what today is Beach 85th Street. In August 1869, Louis Hammel leased the hotel.3

Arverne and Hammels both got their names from their founding developers — Remington Vernam for the former and Louis Hammel for the latter.4

📉 Neighborhood Decline & The Need for Public Housing

The area picked up the name from the station and began to develop as people took the train out from Manhattan and Brooklyn to live near or play at Rockaway Beach. The rise of the automobile allowed people to travel to other beaches they liked more, and the area declined as Hammels was patronized mostly by lower-income people.1

Arverne was designated an urban renewal area in 1965, by which time its barely winterized beach bungalows, inhabited largely by poor families and individuals displaced from urban renewal sites elsewhere in the city, “had become a slum with conditions as bad as in the worst ghettos,” according to the Department of City Planning’s 1969 Plan for New York City.5

🏗️ Planning, Approval & Construction (1951–1955)

A large playground was built the following year that featured slides, swings, a jungle gym, sand pit, and wading pool.1

In 1955, Hammels Houses, a NYCHA project with 712 apartments, was officially opened.5

🌊 Hurricane Sandy & Its Devastating Impact (2012)

One of the most defining and catastrophic moments in the history of Hammel Houses was the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.

In October 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused the most costly and destructive disaster to impact New York City public housing in its history. The storm’s surge impacted 10 percent of NYCHA’s developments, knocking out power to more than 400 buildings and leaving 386 buildings without heat and hot water.6

Hundreds of trees on NYCHA property were uprooted, sand piles accumulated up to four feet tall blocking basement doors, and contaminated saltwater permanently destroyed boilers and electrical panels, underground electrical conduits, massive trash compactors, and playgrounds. Vehicles piled up in the corner of parking lots and 30-foot long trash compactors were lifted and carried by the storm. Tens of millions of gallons of water were pumped from electrical and gas meter rooms, boiler rooms, and other basement spaces. Hurricane Sandy caused over $3 billion in damage to NYCHA properties.6

Superstorm Sandy, with its historical storm surge, caused massive damage throughout approximately 60 NYCHA public housing developments, severely affecting the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. Immediately following Superstorm Sandy, NYCHA embarked on the Sandy Recovery Program to fully restore the habitability of the residential buildings and protect against any future natural disasters.7

NYCHA categorized the damage at Hammel Houses to be Category 3.8

Hammel Houses suffered damages to its services when water from Hurricane Sandy flooded the boiler room in Building 5, leaving it inoperable. Wiring and conduits for outdoor safety lights were also damaged or destroyed. All this was replaced and the electrical and plumbing services were raised above flood level.1

The Hammel gymnasium, important to the social fabric of the community, was damaged when floodwaters burst through exterior walls of glass blocks and destroyed the wooden flooring, protective padding on the walls, and metal hinges, handles, and fittings. Repairs took a year to complete.1

In 2015, salt left by encroaching floodwaters corroded gas lines, causing them to burst and leaving residents without gas for at least three weeks.1

🔧 Post-Sandy Recovery & Resilience Program

Among the affected developments were three located on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens: Redfern Houses, Hammel Houses — a 14.16-acre complex with 14 buildings — and Carleton Manor. As owner and operator of these developments, NYCHA retained D&B Engineers and Architects to provide Construction Management as Agent services for the resiliency and recovery work at each site.7

Professional engineering design services included: during the storm surge, the existing at-grade boiler room located in Building 5 was inundated and rendered inoperable. A new boiler room, to house a new boiler plant and new supporting mechanical and plumbing equipment, was constructed on the existing boiler room foundation. New steel framing, floor slabs, and roof were added to allow for the new Central Boiler Plant to be situated above the flood plain elevation.8

Although Superstorm Sandy happened in 2012, NYCHA only gained access to FEMA funds in December 2015. Additionally, because the resiliency work involves working in and around occupied buildings, the design process was long and complex. However, since 2015, NYCHA kicked off construction at nearly all 35 sites, awarded over $3.1 billion and spent over $2.5 billion on this historic program.9

This funding directly supported critical resiliency and recovery projects, including 20 NYCHA developments which received new heating and hot water systems housed in elevated and flood-proofed structures. Additionally, 201 buildings now have permanent, full-load generators in case of power outages.10

This $3.2 billion FEMA-funded program was the largest FEMA grant in history at the time of its award.11

New York City Housing Authority is building back safer, stronger, and smarter by improving structural resiliency and infrastructure protection. NYCHA’s Recovery and Resilience Program is pushing design boundaries in building reinforcements, storm surge protection, and infrastructure upgrades. By leveraging every dollar, NYCHA aims to make these coastal developments a national model and a safer home for residents for generations to come.9

🌊 Broader Flood Protection for the Hammels Neighborhood

In Jamaica Bay, the broader flood protection project includes a series of smaller levees, floodwalls, and other features to provide protection from smaller and more frequent flooding events in the low-lying areas of the Hammels, Edgemere, and Arverne neighborhoods.10

Today, 17% of NYCHA’s buildings are in the 100-year floodplain; this number will grow to 26% by mid-century.12

⚠️ Ongoing Challenges & Controversies

🔍 2017 Department of Investigation Findings

In 2017, New York City Department of Investigation officers went undercover, either in plain clothes or dressed as Housing Authority employees, and successfully stole new or used major appliances from storerooms in six public housing facilities, including Hammel Houses.1

💼 Stolen Belongings Dispute

The security officer they reported this to found footage from the Housing Authority’s surveillance cameras showing city employees removing the belongings and not returning them. They submitted a claim for $23,000 to replace their items and the city countered with an offer of $10,000. They haggled for $13,000, and when they finally accepted the $10,000 offer, they were told the statute of limitations had expired — even though they had not been told there was such a statute — and they would get nothing. When investigative reporters contacted the Housing Authority, it immediately told the family they would receive the $10,000. No accounting was ever given for the missing belongings.1

🦠 Resident Health Concerns (2020)

🏠 Safety & Security Issues

Life at Hammel is tougher than in most other parts of central and lower Queens. In 2014, after years of political campaigning and protests, the city council finally allocated funding for a new set of surveillance cameras. This made the tenants’ day a touch better, but things were far from being acceptable.13

💰 2024 Bribery Scandal

On February 6, 2024, seventy New York City Housing Authority employees were charged with accepting bribes to award small contracts for repairs to public housing sites, including Hammel Houses. In order to speed up direly needed repairs, the City had allowed the Housing Authority to forego the bidding process for contracts of small monetary value.1

🚇 Transportation

The New York City Subway’s A train travels through the neighborhood on the IND Rockaway Line.3

Summary

Hammel Houses has a rich and deeply layered history, rooted in the rise and fall of the Hammels resort community on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. Named after local landowner and hotelier Louis Hammel (1836–1904), the community transformed from a thriving summer destination to a low-income neighborhood that necessitated public housing. From its origins as a proposed project in 1951, through its official completion in April 1955, to the catastrophic blow of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — which caused over $3 billion in damage citywide — and its lengthy road to recovery funded by the largest FEMA grant in history at the time ($3.2 billion), Hammel Houses has endured tremendous hardship. Despite ongoing challenges — including health hazards, stolen property, security issues, and a major 2024 bribery scandal — nearly 1,602 residents continue to call this Queens landmark home, and efforts continue to make it a safer and more resilient community for generations to come.