By Bruce Klauber
The Steel Pier is not only a great amusement park; it’s the only amusement pier in Atlantic City.
Those who never had the opportunity to visit the pier in its previous incarnation – the old pier was in operation from 1898 to 1978 – missed something extraordinary.
Many of the features it offered through those years – including major stars and big bands, the diving horse, films, Tony Grant’s talent shows, etc. – have been chronicled in these pages previously. But there was one feature at the pier, not included in the all-inclusive admission price, that hasn’t been detailed here, and it’s still well remembered and often talked about. It was called the Diving Bell.
It opened on the Steel Pier in 1928. The attraction was designed by Edward Martine, a California-based welder who had other diving bell attractions in operation on the West Coast.
For less than $1, passengers would board the small bell, which was lowered off the pier and into the ocean. During the five-minute ride, passengers could look through the portholes at whatever might have been passing by underwater, which was usually not much more than seaweed. The thrill, however, was in the process.
The original bell was severely damaged in the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, but it was quickly refurbished and reopened for business.
A man named Barton Beck, Sr., helped bring back the bell, and the Beck Family maintained the attraction starting in 1947. His son, Barton Beck, Jr., gave some insight in an interview with the Atlantic City Press.
“It was cylindrical and the top was conical,” Beck explained. “It was steel and watertight, with a main door sealed against a rubber gasket that was closed hydraulically. And there were 12-inch portholes. Mostly all you could see were a couple of nearby wooden beams with algae and mussels attached. It was sort of eerie. Sometimes you could see a sea bass, mullet and dog sharks. Every now and then a flounder would be disturbed, and on occasion, you’d see stingrays, weakfish and bluefish. The best part for me then was how fast it came back up to the surface.”
The bell’s best-known day was Aug. 12, 1949, when 17-year-old Ruth Ehlers and 21-year-old Louis Villani, both from North Jersey, got married in the bell. Steve Liebowitz, in his book “Showplace of the Nation: Steel Pier, Atlantic City,” described the scene:
“The couple first met on the bell in 1948, and on a later return trip, Villani proposed. Ehlers wrote to pier owner George Hamid: ‘A fortune teller told me that good luck would be ours if we wed right in the same spot where we met.’ Hamid promptly granted the request, knowing good publicity when he saw it. On the big day a crowd of 500 gathered to witness the procession and to hear the ceremony, which was audible on speakers. With the bride wearing her wedding dress and carrying a bouquet of dahlias and ferns, the wedding party marched onto the pier to the strains of the ‘Wedding March,’ played by the Stagg McMann harmonica trio.
“Though the bell was electrically lit and cooled, the ocean outside appeared dark and menacing, churned up by winds. Fourteen minutes later, Reverend J. Ramon Vann of New York City announced the couple, man and wife.”
The flower girl was a 7-year-old Vicki Gold Levi, daughter of famed Atlantic City photographer Al Gold, and now an Atlantic City historian, author and thankfully, a booster of this column.
The Ash Wednesday storm of March, 1962, was so severe that a runaway barge wiped out a 400-foot section of the pier, taking the replacement Diving Bell with it.
By the summer of that year, a new bell, one that had been operating some years before at Catalina Island in California, was in place. A high point of the following year, at least in terms of promotion for the diving bell, came when Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello took a ride in it as a way of drumming up publicity for their first of several “Beach Party” films.
The diving bell continued to operate through the various ups and downs of the Steel Pier, and the ups and downs of Atlantic City until that incarnation of the Steel Pier closed in 1978. It continued to stand at the pier until 1986, when it was finally removed.
It was headed for the scrap heap, but luckily someone at the demolition firm had a sentimental side and ended up donating it to Gardner’s Basin in 1989, where it now stands.
There are plenty of super-thrill rides around today that make something like Steel Pier’s Diving Bell seem quite mild by comparison. But it wasn’t mild back in the day. What other attraction promised that you could ride underwater and view “the floor of the sea” for just 50 cents? That’s why I rode it more than a dozen times. And I still couldn’t see anything.
In last week’s Shore Local piece on comedians Charlie Prose and Sal Richards, I erroneously reported the passing of Mr. Prose. Charlie Prose is, in fact, alive, well and as charming as ever, and he divides his time between his Mays Landing home and Florida. Charlie Prose is one of Atlantic City’s pioneers, who helped shape the entertainment business in Atlantic City, and I look forward to reporting on his current activities in the near future. I humbly apologize and sincerely regret the error.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
