Chelsea Piers
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Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex is a 28-acre sports village located between 17th and 23rd streets along Manhattan’s Hudson River. Included in the facility are five major sports-specific venues: The Golf Club, The Field House, Sky Rink, The Sports Center health club, and 300 New York, a bowling center operated by AMF. Chelsea Piers also features a full-service spa, a sports performance training center, restaurants, riverside meeting and event spaces, and a full-service marina. Chelsea Piers is located along the Hudson River Greenway.
The Golf Club at Chelsea Piers is Manhattan’s only four-tiered, year-round outdoor golf driving range. It features 52 heated and weather-protected hitting stalls on four levels, an automatic ball tee-up system, a 250-yard, net-enclosed artificial turf fairway with distinct greens and hazards, 2 full-swing simulators, a 2,000-square foot golf academy, a 1,200-square-foot outdoor putting green, an indoor putting green, an indoor sand bunker, and two private event and party rooms. Golfers of all levels can take lessons with one of 12 teaching professionals, including PGA/LPGA certified instructors.
The Field House at Chelsea Piers has programs for both children and adults in soccer, basketball, gymnastics, baseball, and rock climbing. There are also dance classes and multi-sport programs for kids, and children can have birthday parties or attend summer or holiday camps in this sports heaven. The after-school children’s programs are very popular, and adults can participate in soccer and basketball leagues at night. During the summer months kids attend Chelsea Piers Summer Camp for a couple weeks at a time or the whole summer.
Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers houses Manhattan’s only year-round, twin indoor ice-skating rinks. Including youth and adult hockey, general skating, skating school, figure skating sessions, and camps, this is the destination of bus- and subway-faring Manhattanites toting skates and hockey sticks. Private and group lessons are available, and ice skating birthday parties are very popular.
The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers is the facility’s adult membership-only health club. Members enjoy the swimming pool, Hudson River sun decks, basketball courts, a ¼-mile indoor Mondo track, 200-yard banked indoor competition track, a regulation-sized boxing ring, a sand volleyball court, rock-climbing, pilates, an extensive selection of cardio and strength-training equipment, and 125+ group fitness classes a week. All members and guests must be 16 years of age or older.
The Spa at Chelsea Piers, located inside the Sports Center, opened in 1995 as the Origins Feel-Good Spa, but when Chelsea Piers took it over in 2001, the name changed to the current one. Featuring eight treatment rooms, a comfortable spa lounge and a manicure/pedicure room with river views, the Spa is open to the general public.
The most recent addition to the Chelsea Piers complex is the new high-level training facility, BlueStreak Sports Training. Developing athletes to professionals can benefit from the Frappier Acceleration Sports Training (FAST) equipment and program. Programs run over six to eight weeks and focus on acceleration, speed, quickness, agility, strength, and stamina. Training can be tailored to specific sports, including basketball, soccer, ice hockey, figure skating, gymnastics, lacrosse, running, volleyball, baseball, football, and tennis.
Chelsea Piers is also one of Manhattan’s most popular event destinations for groups of 10 to 2,000. With five unique athletic venues featuring world-class sports and recreation facilities, a full-service maritime center, and several riverside meeting and reception spaces, the complex offers multiple locations for both private and public events. Each of these facilities can be reserved individually or combined with one another to create customized events. The two largest event spaces are Pier Sixty and The Lighthouse, which are operated by renowned caterer, Abigail Kirsch.
Tenants of Chelsea Piers include College Sports Television (CSTV), Silver Screen Studios (home of Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Spirit Cruises, The Chelsea Brewing Company, Ruthy’s Bakery, Famous Famiglia Pizza, and Jason’s Riverside Grill.
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[edit] History
[edit] Gansevoort Peninsula
Historically, the term Chelsea Piers referred to the luxury liner berths on Manhattan's west side from 1910 to the 1930s.
Most of the major trans-Atlantic liners of the day docked at the piers and they played pivotal roles in the RMS Titanic and RMS Lusitania disasters.
With luxury liners such as the Titanic becoming bigger and bigger, New York City was looking for a new luxury liner dock in the early 1900s. The Army, which controlled the location and size of piers, refused to let any piers extend beyond the existing pierhead line of the North River (the navigation name for the Hudson River south of 30th Street). Ship lines were reluctant to build north of 23rd Street because infrastructure was already in place, including the High Line Rail line and a train station near the river at 23rd Street.
New York City solved the problem in an unusual way — it actually took away a block of land that was once part of Manhattan.
The land was the 1837 landfill that extended Manhattan to 13th Avenue. The controversial decision included condemning many businesses. The city was unable to condemn the West Washington Street Market and was left to remain landfill. The market ultimately closed and the dock was converted to a sanitation facility that was used to load garbage barges headed for the Fresh Kills Landfill. The only section of 13th Avenue that remains is now a parking lot for sanitation trucks. The landfill is now called the Gansevoort Peninsula.
[edit] Terminal design
The new piers were designed by the architectural firm of Warren and Wetmore, which has also designed Grand Central Terminal. Under contracts let by the New York City Department of Dock and Ferries, the Chelsea Section Improvement, as it was officially called, replaced a hodgepodge of run-down waterfront structures with a row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades and formed the docking points for the rival Cunard Line and White Star Line.
[edit] Lusitania and Titanic disasters
While every trans-Atlantic ship of the era visited the piers, the two most memorable moments for the pier were with the Lusitania and Titanic.
The RMS Lusitania left its Cunard Pier 54 before being torpedoed and becoming the rallying cry for American involvement in World War I.
The RMS Titanic was destined for the White Star pier 59 when it sank. Survivors were rescued on Cunard's RMS Carpathia. The Carpathia dropped off of the Titanic lifeboats at Pier 59 before going back south to Pier 54 where it unloaded the passengers and survivors. Thousands of people assembled at the dock to greet the ship.
In July 1936, the Chelsea Piers were the point of departure for Jesse Owens and the United States Olympic team as they left for the Summer Games in Berlin, Germany.
[edit] Cargo terminal
After New York moved its luxury liner piers to the New York Cruise Terminal between West 46th and West 54th Street in 1935 to accommodate bigger ships such as the RMS Queen Mary and the Normandie, the pier became a cargo terminal. During World War II the piers were used to deploy troops.
The piers had a catstrophic fire in 1947 that destroyed some of the south piers. New construction resulted in new cargo piers used by the United States Lines and Grace line.
[edit] Westway demolition plans
In the 1980s, plans circulated to replace the West Side Elevated Highway with an at grade highway going along the West Side south of 42nd Street. The plan called for the highway to run over demolished piers. Pier 54 was actually demolished in 1991 although the archway entrance (along with the White Star and Cunard signage) was retained. The plan (dubbed the Westway) was abandoned after court cases said the new highway would jeopardize striped bass.
[edit] Recreation usage
Following the demise of Westway, development of the West Side Highway evolved into two parts: a public/private partnership that evolved into the upper piers being used for recreational purposes. The southern piers are now part of the Hudson River Park while the northern piers make up the Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex.
Construction of Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex began on July 12 1994 in ceremonies attended by New York Governor Mario Cuomo, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger.[1]
[edit] Factoids
- Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent are filmed in studios located on Chelsea Piers.
- On September 14, 2004, a road leading to Pier 62 was renamed "Law & Order Way".[2]
- Sky Rink has the only year-round ice skating rinks in New York City.
- Twenty-five movies have been filmed at Chelsea Piers.
- Directly opposite Chelsea Piers is the Venus (mural): a ten story high mural painting by New York artist Knox Martin [3] on the south side of Bayview Correctional Facility at 19th Street and 11th Avenue.
- The Apprentice filmed three episodes at Chelsea Piers, including 2 finales.
- The first four seasons of Spin City were shot in studio D on Chelsea Piers.
