By Bruce Klauber
My first visit to Atlantic City, so I’m told, was in 1956. I was 4 years old. Our family stayed at the then grand Traymore Hotel, but there was a purpose to the visit other than a vacation.
It seems I had an appetite issue, and the pediatrician’s advice was, “Take the kid to Atlantic City. The salt air will make him eat.”
In retrospect, I always wondered why the doctor specified Atlantic City rather than Wildwood, Cape May or Ocean City. No matter. After my first whiff of boardwalk food like Taylor Pork Roll, corn on the cob, hot dogs and hamburgers, and whatever Mr. Peanut was serving up, there were no more issues with my appetite. And I’m not too proud to say that many of those food items remain staples of my diet today.
I also became mesmerized by the lights and the honky-tonk of the amusement piers, and the amusement rides on the piers. In retrospect, Million Dollar and Steeplechase piers were not really great amusement piers. Steel Pier had no rides per se other than the diving bell, but to a 4-year-old kid in 1956, it was enough to drive me crazy.
I don’t know how my parents put up with my incessant nagging about going to ride the kiddie cars at Million Dollar Pier. And on top of it, being an impressionable youth, I became convinced that anything that looked like a pier in and around Atlantic City had to have rides.
Some years later, much to my disappointment, I learned that Central Pier and Garden Pier, written about in some detail in a previous Shore Local article, had no rides whatsoever. However, over the years, in my constant quest to discover new and exciting structures that were jutting out into the sea, I became aware of three very special ones. These piers have no rides and no honky-tonk. Ventnor Pier, Margate Pier and Longport Pier offer something else, and that something else is one of the major tourist attractions in Atlantic City and surrounding areas: Fishing.
A relatively small Ventnor fishing pier was first built 1914. After a few years, a larger pier was built, but that was destroyed by an August 1940 fire. A third structure was destroyed by a March 1963 nor’easter. What stands now is 1,000 feet long and is said to be the longest ocean fishing pier in the state. It was renovated in 2007 at a cost of $3.2 million, and a snack bar was added in the last year or two. As many visitors to the pier know, it is free and open to the public, but only to a certain point on the pier. Those interested in fishing can pay a daily or annual rate.
The Margate City Municipal Fishing Pier was built in 1923 as a private fishing pier by the Angler’s Club of Absecon Island. It stood for 21 years until a hurricane destroyed part of the pier and the Margate Boardwalk. Yes, Margate used to have a boardwalk. Another storm caused some damage in the mid-1960s and a 1989 fire destroyed the pier’s end. It was never the same length after that.
There were no issues until 2008 when work had to be done on the pilings and other supportive hardware under the pier. In October of 2012, Hurricane Sandy came along and caused more damage. More repairs were done as existing pilings had to be replaced and new ones added.
It’s important to note that through the years, all of this was paid for by the Angler’s Club. There were more challenges in 2017, in the form of a state dunes and beach reclamation project, mandated to protect the shoreline.
The bottom line was that to get the water levels back to where they were before the reclamation project, the Angler’s Club and the state worked together to extend the pier an additional 125 feet.
Most recently, the club came up with funds to extend the pier by 175 feet. And so it stands today.
Those in Atlantic City might not be aware that the Ocean City-Longport fishing pier was created from the remnants of the original 1946 Ocean City-Longport Bridge when it was replaced in 2002. While the views are breathtaking, maintaining the structure has been challenging at times. Wood railings that run the length of the pier had to be replaced and general maintenance – from cleaning to repairing benches sanitation – has been an issue.
The Cape May County Bridge Commission has been in charge of keeping the pier in tip-top shape through the years, and the commission has done a stellar job.
For the record, there are two other piers in Ocean City: the “Beer Pier” on the north side of the Ninth Street Causeway, and the Ninth Street Bridge piers that exist midway over the causeway.
Unless a risk-taking and wealthy entrepreneur decides to build a pier filled with amusement rides in Atlantic City, there will likely be no more Million Dollar or Steeplechase piers in the area. There will, however, be plenty of great fishing!
