Wave of Long Island


The Wave of Long Island is the longest-lived and most widely circulated newspaper in the Rockaway Peninsula, New York City Borough of Queens. The weekly paper, currently under the editorship of Mark Healey, is well known to Rockaway residents for coverage of community events and local politics. The paper contains considerable historical information about Rockaway, largely provided by historian Emil Lucev. The Wave's US Postal Statement of Management and Circulation for 2018 indicates the paper was sold to the owners of The Queens Ledger group ending 125 years of independent local control and ownership.
The paper originated in the aftermath of the great Rockaway Beach Seaside fire of 1892. A local publisher, in the desire to keep the community informed of the event, published a broadsheet with the headline, "WAVE OF FIRE SWEEPS ROCKAWAY". The favorable response to the broadsheet led him to establish a weekly newspaper which he dubbed The Wave of Long Island after the initial headline.