Joseph Hock (d. 1937) died while saving his fiancée's little brother and his friend from drowning in Jamaica Bay.

It was a hot week in the middle of summer, so Hock suggested that he and his fiancée, Helen Radford, take her 7-year-old brother, James, and his neighborhood friend Edward Internia, 9, to the beach on August 21, 1937. Hock, 24, was generous with the local kids. Working as a radio mechanic at General Electric, he often brought them places on his days off.

On this day, the four went to Idlewild Beach in South Jamaica—a site that, in 1948, became Idlewild Airport and which was eventually renamed as John F. Kennedy International Airport. Suddenly James and Edward got too far into the water and began to struggle, crying for help. Hock ran into the water, fully clothed, and managed to bring the boys into shallower water, where others brought them to shore. But Hock didn't make it, falling back into the water and drowning before anyone could save him.

James, undeterred by the scare, grew up and joined the Merchant Marines, where he served at sea for most of his career. He said his sister, Helen, wasn't able to shake the horror of seeing her fiancé die that day. She never went into the water again.

This road on the grounds of Kennedy Airport was renamed in Hock's honor by the Port Authority on January 7, 2019.