Pier 57
25 11th Avenue | also 29 11th Avenue | Chelsea | built 1900
Open on the map10 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1907
The first Pier 57 opens on the Hudson River
The first Pier 57 is built in 1907 for $1.2 million. It is a wooden pier 1,000 feet long with a metal shed measuring 100 by 800 feet, part of the Chelsea Piers complex and served by ocean liners. The French Line uses it before the Grace Line leases it in 1936.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1947
A six-alarm fire destroys the original Pier 57
A six-alarm fire engulfs the pier on September 29, 1947, destroying it and the cargo stored there; no one is on the pier at the time. The fire starts in the wooden support piles and causes damage estimated at $5 million, far above the pier's $2 million insurance policy. More than 200 firefighters respond, and over a hundred firemen are injured.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1954
A floating pier on concrete caissons replaces the burned Pier 57
Emil Praeger of the engineering firm Madigan-Hyland draws up plans for a replacement pier that floats on three concrete caissons, after the firm calculates that the old pilings cannot be reused. The new Pier 57 is dedicated on March 5, 1954. The Grace Line's Santa Barbara becomes the first ship to dock there, on March 8, 1955.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1955
The liner Santa Barbara becomes the first ship to dock at the new Pier 57 after hiring and strike delays
The rebuilt pier was supposed to receive vessels in mid-January 1955, but its electrical work was unfinished, and the opening slipped further when the longshoremen's union and the Grace Line could not agree on who would serve as hiring agent. A rescheduled March 7 opening was delayed again when dockworkers briefly struck over that choice. The terminal finally went into service on March 8, 1955, when the liner Santa Barbara tied up as its first vessel.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1955
Arthur Godfrey lands a helicopter on Pier 57 as a stunt
The new pier had a heliport on its roof, and Arthur Godfrey, a television personality, brought a helicopter down on Pier 57 in September 1955 as a stunt. A scroll recognized him as the first person to bring a helicopter down at the West Side Airlines Terminal, which stood more than a mile away.
“In September 1955, the television personality Arthur Godfrey landed a helicopter on Pier 57 as a stunt…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2004
Pier 57 serves as a makeshift detention center during the 2004 RNC
Police convert Pier 57 into a makeshift detention and processing center for the 2004 Republican National Convention. More than 1,800 people are arrested during the convention. Many detainees complain of inhumane conditions, which gives the pier the nickname "Guantanamo on the Hudson".
Source: Wikipedia
- 2013
Pier 57 is renamed SuperPier, a name taken from a 1952 magazine article
On September 4, 2013, Pier 57 was renamed SuperPier. The name came from a February 1952 Popular Mechanics article that dubbed the shipping terminal the SuperPier when it was built. According to the promotional language Gothamist quoted, the pier rests on three giant, hollow, buoyant concrete boxes rather than wooden piles, and is the only pier in New York City built on floating concrete caissons.
Source: gothamist.com
- 2017
Anthony Bourdain drops his planned market at Pier 57 without ever signing a lease
Anthony Bourdain announced on December 22, 2017 that he was no longer working to open Bourdain Market, a hawker-style food hall, at Pier 57. He said it had been challenging at every turn and that the site was especially complicated, and that he still had no lease from developers RXR Realty and Young Woo & Associates. The project had been announced about two years earlier, had lost its CEO that year, and had struggled with visas for vendors.
Source: ny.eater.com
- 2020
City Winery sells rapid COVID tests to lure diners into its new Pier 57 home
City Winery had left its Hudson Square flagship for Pier 57, whose space includes a wine production facility, a restaurant and tasting room and two performance venues. In November 2020, with indoor dining expected to be shut down again, it announced a pilot for Tuesdays and Wednesdays in which every indoor diner had to take a rapid test on site. The aim was a dining room where every customer had been tested.
Source: gothamist.com
- 2020
City Winery opens as Pier 57 is redeveloped for Google and a food hall
Young Woo & Associates and RXR Realty redevelop Pier 57 for Google offices, a food hall, a rooftop park and entertainment venues, at a final cost of $410 million. Google signs a lease as the primary tenant in December 2015, and City Winery opens in October 2020 under capacity limits. The rooftop park opens in April 2022, and the James Beard Foundation's Market 57 food hall opens on April 1, 2023.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Pier 57Wikipedia
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