Midland Beach unfolds along Staten Island's eastern shore like a neighborhood living room—unpretentious, welcoming, and never trying too hard. The two-mile boardwalk runs parallel to Father Capodanno Boulevard, named for a Vietnam War chaplain and Medal of Honor recipient, and on summer evenings you'll share the weathered planks with speed-walkers, couples pushing strollers, and teenagers clutching iced coffees from the corner deli. The sand itself is coarse and honest, studded with shells that crunch underfoot, sloping gradually into the Lower New York Bay.
“It's the only New York City beach where you can watch container ships glide past while children build sandcastles against a backdrop of the Manhattan skyline.”
Credit: FlickrSun Island
You won't find boutique beach clubs here. Instead, there's a public bathhouse with outdoor showers that run cold, a snack bar serving chicken tenders and soft-serve, and clusters of picnic tables under pavilions where extended families spread out aluminum trays of baked ziti. Lifeguards in red trunks whistle from their stands mid-June through Labor Day, and the swimming area stays calm enough that parents let their kids wade out to waist-depth without much worry.
The real magic happens after 7 p.m., when the western sky turns tangerine and the Manhattan skyline across the water begins to glow. Fishermen cast lines from the jetties at either end of the beach, pulling up striped bass and bluefish. You'll hear salsa music drifting from car stereos, smell charcoal from portable grills, and watch the Verrazano's lights blink on one by one as the ferry horns echo across the harbor.
