Down in the Rockaways, a popular resort area on Long Island, New York, a tide of change is sweeping over the beachfront neighborhoods, as new businesses, buildings, and residents transform this narrow peninsula. Summer is in full swing, with crowds of visitors enjoying the hot August beach, restocked with fresh sand since Hurricane Sandy. "There's totally a renaissance happening, and it's in full effect right now," observed Kalin Callaghan, a Rockaway native whose apartment looks out over the waterfront. Yet at the edge of the crowds, a gaping hole can be seen in the community. The Rockaway Boardwalk, greatly damaged during Hurricane Sandy, remains fractured and incomplete, symbolic of the ongoing struggle to recover from the storm. "It's sorely missed, you know," said Callaghan, whose family has lived here for three generations. "It's one of the very few things that united all the different neighborhoods in the Rockaways."
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