Chelsea Piers in New York
In the mid-1980s, New York City’s Chelsea Piers were marked for demolition. But in ten short years, the Chelsea Piers project, combining public and private goals, had turned the area around, realizing the potential of the thirty acres on which the piers sat. Today, in 2010, it’s a recreational facility unlike few others. At a cost of a hundred million in private monies, the piers have transformed into a place for the public to come, providing recreation and access to the Hudson River. Any traveler to New York should consider a visit there, where you will find any number of opportunities to relax and enjoy the day or night. You’ll be able to bowl, golf, or work out at a health club, or relax at a spa.
The Chelsea Piers opened to the public in 1910, one hundred years ago. It had taken thirty years of planning and eight years of building to complete the piers. Great luxury ships, such as the Mauretania and the Lusitania docked at the pier, even before they opened officially. In those days, newspapers hailed the piers as a great achievement of urban design. For fifty years, the Piers served the New York Port; it was the city’s best passenger ship terminal; but also served as a point for soldiers to leave for World War I and World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pier became a place for cargo ships. By the 1970s until the mid-1980s, the place had fallen into neglect. The Piers were designed mostly for passenger travel, unable to accommodate the larger container ships; since most people now traveled by plane, they fell into disuse. Their redesign and redevelopment in the mid-1980s, then, gave this historic site new life.
The site is as famous for the ships that didn’t arrive, such as the ill-fated Titanic and the Lusitania, as well as who left these piers, such as the US Olympic Team leaving for Germany in 1936, where Jesse Owens would win four gold medals for track. If you’ve arrived in New York and found yourself one of the hotels, big or small, then consider including the Chelsea Piers in your itinerary, and discover a part of the city’s reborn past.
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