[VIDEO] Inside New York City's Forgotten Coast

This video explores Edgemere, a working-class community on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, known for its vulnerability to coastal flooding from both Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. A decade after promises were made to fortify the area following Superstorm Sandy in 2012, residents express frustration over the lack of progress in flood mitigation efforts, contrasting it with significant investments in areas like Lower Manhattan's "Big U" project. Historically, urban planner Robert Moses envisioned the Rockaways as a place for the city's poor, leading to public housing projects and numerous empty lots today. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (NYC HPD) acknowledges the delays and challenges in implementing the "Resilient Edgemere" plan, particularly the dropped project to raise the shoreline along the bay. Despite these setbacks and the constant threat of flooding, residents like Jackie Rogers, who cultivates "The Garden by the Bay", and Baba Ndnanani, who survived Sandy by sleeping on his refrigerator, remain determined to stay, highlighting the deep community attachment and the socio-economic factors that prevent many from relocating.