This week, hit these events and support a trio of documentaries about the changing faces of two communities.
Two Rockaway Docs: A Film Benefit for Sandy with Live Music
Nov. 1 at 7pm, Peter Jay Sharp Building, BAM Rose Cinemas, $25.
Long before fish tacos brought on the Rockaway rebirth, the seaside community was a destination for New Yorkers looking to escape the sweltering city. Back in the 1930s, some 7,000 bungalows housed the “bungaloonies” who flocked to the Irish Riviera for a weekend of pub crawling or a ride on the Thunderbolt at Playland. Now, as Rockaway real estate becomes the next “shore thing,” fewer than 450 of the charming shacks remain (one of them, it so happens, belongs to Patti Smith). Jennifer Callahan’s documentary, The Bungalows of Rockaway, tells us how, exactly, we lost so many of them, and — much like the recently released Welcome to Kutscher’s documentary did with the fabled Catskills resort — milks former inhabitants for summer nostalgia.
