If "resilient" can mean "being rebuilt again and again," then the Pat Auletta Steeplechase Pier at Coney Island is resilient as advertised (on the sign at its entrance). Its most recent iteration opened Oct. 2, 2013 after Hurricane Sandy had destroyed it the previous year. But the history of this thousand-foot (and now T-shaped) pier goes back to 1904, seven years after Coney Island's famed Steeplechase Park had first opened. Since then the pier has died and lived again, died and lived again.
Steeplechase Pier lies just off the site of the Parachute Jump, an iconic relic that's often thought of as the only remnant of the Steeplechase amusement park. But the pier has been here, in one form or another, much longer than that long-retired thrill ride, and is four times as long as the Parachute Jump is high. (Historical note: The Jump was actually built for the 1939 World's Fair, transported to Steeplechase in 1941, decommissioned when the amusement park shut down in the '60s, and preserved to this day through sheer community will).
Above: the Parachute Jump as seen from Steeplechase Pier
Above: looking west from the start of Steeplechase Pier
Above: looking west from a little farther out on Steeplechase Pier
On our recent visit, one of the first sites on the pier itself was a "Prayer Station" making an attempt to display an ecumenical or even nondenominational spirit.
Much more lively was a percussion party a little farther out.
The main activity at the far end of the pier is fishing. The designers of the present pier provided some fishing infrastructure along with a separate raised walkway so promenaders can not only view the wide ocean but watch the fisherfolk without getting in their way.
One fisherman (not pictured) landed a skate just as we approached. (I think this is a skate and not a stingray – I don't see a stinger.) Displaying it on the plastic-wood floorboards for the gathering crowd to photograph and admire, he explained that he would not eat the charismatic creature but would throw it back, which he proceeded to do after a bit of a struggle to get the hook out of its mouth. He rhapsodized about how the catch was a gift from God, provided so that we all could appreciate the bountiful variety of life in the ocean right here off the teeming beaches of Coney Island. It's a nice thought – maybe he was inspired at the Prayer Station.
Steeplechase Pier became the Pat Auletta Steeplechase Pier in honor of a man known as "Mr. Coney Island" or the "Mayor of Coney Island" (and father of writer Ken Auletta). From the 1940s to the '60s Pat Auletta and his wife Nettie ran Pat's Sporting Equipment on Stillwell Avenue, then managed the Abe Stark Skating Rink for NYC Parks until the 1980s. Auletta's 1991 New York Times obituary bears a correction that's so New York: "Because of an editing error, an obituary in some editions yesterday about Pat V. Auletta, a member of Community Board 13 in New York City, referred incorrectly to Coney Island. It is in Brooklyn, not Queens."
It sure is!
All photos © Critical Lens Media
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