Rockaway Point News
This year the Breezy Point Historical Society is inducting the Rockaway Point News into our Hall of Fame in recognition of 100 years of publishing the “good news.” Rockaway Point had occasional newspapers going back to 1913 but it was not until 1925 that continuous printing of the Pointer began. Mike Liana set the standard in 1929 when he became the Publisher and Editor of the Pointer, as we know it today. Mike, who had worked for several prominent newspapers, was very active in social circles, and a frequent guest of the Kennedy family with his co-editor wife Betty.
Jerry Jordan, father of Fr. Brian Jordan, and John McManus, whose son John Jr. gifted to us an invaluable archive of digital copies of the Pointer from the 1930s to the 1970s, owned the operation from 1969 to 1986. Margaret and Donald Ryan ran the paper from 1986 to 2000 with the memorable sign-off, “Yours till meatballs bounce.” The Ryans made the important decision to no longer charge for the Pointer. Noreen and Mike Schramm, Sr. took the helm from 2000 to 2007, to be succeeded by the current ownership under Mike Jr. , who expanded the publication into a weekly publication as we increasingly winterized as a community.
The Society is thankful to these dedicated “owners” who have preserved the history of this community in such colorful and varied ways. It’s been a long century of successful stories, columns that were always informative and often humorous, and a running social history of our evolving community. Thanks to saving our old Pointers we now have the sheer enjoyment of picking out an old issue at random and appreciating how much it held a mirror to who we were at that point in time.