After a fire destroyed the Long Branch Fishing Pier in 1987 this week it was announced that construction will begin to replace it starting in 2025. The first pier opened in 1828 and there have been several versions of it over the last century until the fire in the late 80's ended its run.
I remember the day the pier burned. It was on June 8, 1987. I was working as a photographer for The Register which was based in Red Bank. On that day my boss Carl Forino had sent me down to The Photo Center in Brick to pick up darkroom supplies or film or something. Back then we had no cell phones. To get tipped off to breaking news someone had to have their ears glued to the police scanner
or we would get tipped off by land line phones. It was the early years of the beeper, and each of us had one. The fire started under the pier and grew rapidly, and was over relatively quickly. While I was in the camera store, and probably spending more time than I needed, it was all going down, literally, back up in Long Branch. William Perlman was a photographer working that day and got there relatively quick and did a good job shooting the fire.
Since I hade no portable scanner I was unaware what was happening. As I was leaving my pager went off telling me to call the photo desk. It was then I learned of the fire and I asked my boss Carl if he needed me to go, and he knew I wanted to, but he said, "No, just come back". As I drove north on the Parkway I could see the smoke off to my right. I did as I was told and having picked up the supplies I returned to the paper. Later that afternoon I caught a car accident that occurred after the high schools let out. So basically, I missed the historic news of the day.
The pier sat and rotted for about 10 years before it was removed in the late 1990's. Long Branch back then wasn't all that and a bag of chips like it is today. Nobody cared. These days Pier Village is a
summer hot spot for the young, and the rich and famous. Yes, you can take your ghetto-ass self there and walk around, but really you don't belong, and most likely can't really afford it more than once every few months. It's the same thing down in Asbury Park. But that's okay, that's how money works.
Frank Pallone proudly announced that he secured 3.25 million dollars for the project, which is laughable, because that wouldn't cover the beach replenishment to go under the pier. The pier will be 500 feet out into the ocean and I am sure the total cost would be somewhere around 20 million dollars.
So it is being billed as the return of the Long Branch Fishing Pier. Be careful what you wish for, and how you pimp it all out. The above scene isn't what today's fishing piers look like. People don't get dressed up to go fishing. Just imagine blitzing bass way out in the Atlantic Ocean and the plug chuckers with 11 foot rods, the locals with rods with busted off tips soaking cut bunker, and delusional fly rodders throwing flies 30 feet down into the fray, as people walk out for a stroll.
And after that nice young family enjoys their $350 brunch at McCloone's they'll take a walk on said pier where the smell of dead bait permeates the air and the bloodbath murder scene from the previous night caught gator bluefish that saturates the boards. The radios will blare the favorite tunes of the day, ones they won't be familiar with. There will be over-filled garbage cans with old coffee containers from 7-11, and wrappers from food joints up on Broadway. The sea gulls will be overhead taking shit-shots at the family as they navigate the bikes, tackle boxes, and cigarette smoke.
I don't know if I would call it a fishing pier until you take a visit to some of the other fishing piers we have in the New York and New Jersey area. No, Ocean Grove doesn't count and Belmar has a lock at the entrance. The pier is either a fishing pier, like Keansburg is above, or it isn't. So be careful what you wish for while trying to satiate and include everyone, the words already out.
The location for the new pier will be at Laird Avenue which is right at the circle where Pier Village begins. No doubt it will be closed at night, heavily patrolled and monitored via camera, and won't be what fishing piers have historically been for ocean front towns along New Jersey in the past. We'll see.