Chelsea Piers

Before our day of fall fun on Sunday, Eric and I had a pretty nice little Saturday, too. Eric had a long week at work last week, so I suggested we go down to Chelsea Piers together so he could hit some golf balls at the driving range and we could check out the area. The last time we were down there together was for his birthday last December! So, I felt like he was due.

The first thing we did when we got down there was check out something my dad suggested we look into: Pier 54, a historic part of Chelsea Piers. Really, Chelsea Piers generally is very historic - the piers were originally built in the early 1900s to service luxury liners such as the Titanic. They became the docking points for the White Star Line and Cunard Line. In 1935, New York moved its luxury liner piers further north to accommodate the increasingly bigger ships, and Chelsea Piers was used as a cargo terminal. In the 1980-90s, many of the piers were demolished to make way for the West Side Highway. Currently, the southern piers (including Pier 54) are part of Hudson River Park, and the northern piers make up the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex (which includes film and TV production facilities, the driving range, a bowling alley, gymnastics training center, basketball courts, indoor soccer fields, etc.).

Two significant things happened at Pier 54 specifically that made me want to check it out. In 1912, after picking up the Titanic survivors, the RMS Carpathia returned to Pier 54. Friends and family of the survivors crowded the area to meet their loved ones. Also, in 1915, the RMS Lusitania departed from Pier 54 with 1,900 passengers on board. The Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat, killing 1,200 of the passengers. That event became a rallying cry for American involvement in World War I.

The Carpathia docked at Pier 54

Today, the only thing that really remains of Pier 54 is the iron archway. Pier 54 now hosts outdoor movies and concerts in the summer, and there are plans to build up the area around it into a lovely park.

The old archway is covered with signs advertising the Wine & Food Festival right now!

I don't know what these things are, but I thought this was a cool view just north of Pier 54. It looks boat-y to me.

So, not really much to see, but something cool nonetheless.

After checking out Pier 54, we made our way north to the driving range. Eric hit some balls, and I even hit a couple - and got one or two of them in the air! Go me! Then Eric did some putting, I did some reading, and then we wandered through the rest of the sports complex. It really is very nice! There was a lot there that we didn't even know about. There's also a nice walkway with big historical photos of the piers and some write-ups about their history (much of which I described above).

 Eric at Chelsea Piers

From there, we wandered through some of the parks in the area a little bit. There really are beautiful parks along the Hudson. They just opened much of the park space north of Chelsea Piers recently. There are some gorgeous grassy areas right along the river, and across the street there is the Chuck E. Cheese of dog parks (we're talking hills, stairs, ramps, tunnels, pools, the works) and quite possibly the coolest kids' playground I've ever seen (seriously, I wanted to play there). So nice!

Fancy dog park - we'll have to bring Achilles here sometime!

From there, we walked the 40 blocks (!!!) home. It's nice to walk along the river and check out the different neighborhoods as you go.

View around 34th Street

And that was our nice little Saturday afternoon!