New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Fewer enjoying Pleasure Beach
BRIDGEPORT — Former Mayor Bill Finch’s administration used to boast about the tens of thousands of visitors to Pleasure Beach when it reopened to the public in 2014 via free rides on municipal water taxis.
The peninsula, located at the mouth of the harbor off of a residential/industrial section of Seaview Avenue in the East End, was cut off from the mainland in the mid-1990s when fire ravaged the vehicular bridge.
In stark contrast, this season and last, City Hall under Mayor Joe Ganim has quietly activated the attraction later in the summer, reduced the daily schedule there to weekends and holidays, and eliminated concessions.
The mayor’s office this week did not respond to a request for comment about whether there has been any discussion about promoting Pleasure Beach to try to boost its use. The administration last year launched a new marketing campaign for Bridgeport focused on the downtown, the new concert amphitheater there that opened under Ganim, and the Sound on Sound music festival launched early last fall at Seaside Park.
Last weekend’s opening was put off until this Saturday because of a tick infestation that some argued was the result of neglect.
“It did not make sense to stay open seven days a week when there were more employees than visitors,” the public facilities department said in a statement about the overall changes. “The concession stand was not making enough money to keep it open — around $30 a day, which did not even cover paying employees or food.”
But is that proof of a lack of interest in this key piece of Finch’s legacy, which the former mayor likened to “a little piece of Nantucket,” the summer getaway off of Massachusetts? Or has Ganim just not made Pleasure Beach enough of a priority since he ousted his fellow Democrat in 2015’s mayoral primary?
“It’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Finch said this week. “You can say the numbers are down. You haven’t promoted it, kept it open on a regular basis, had food for people. And you got rid of the parking lot.”
There is no love lost between Bridgeport’s former
and current chief elected officials. Their 2015 face-off was a bitter one. Ganim, who ran the city from 1991 until 2003 when he was convicted of federal corruption charges, waged a successful political comeback that resulted in a tense transition between the defeated and returning leaders.
Ganim, who sometimes jogs in Bridgeport’s better known, less isolated and
busier Seaside Park in the South End, rarely if ever mentions Pleasure Beach. Meanwhile Finch is supporting former staffer Lamond Daniels’ current effort to run against Ganim in this year’s mayoral race.
Any personal enmity between the two aside, others believe reopening Pleasure Beach was no small nor cheap task for it to sit unused.
“We did invest money
over there,” said City Councilman Ernie Newton, who represents the East End and would also like to see the peninsula more active.
It took several years of planning, obtaining the necessary environmental permits and cleanup and construction work before the late June 2014 grand reopening. And Finch this week recalled that about $8 million taxpayer dollars were sunk into the project, which included not just the purchase of the two water taxis that can carry roughly 20 passengers each, but docks, new boardwalks, paths and signage, landscaping, an information booth and a pavilion with bathrooms.
Large sections, though, were left wild to protect nesting birds, resulting in the tick problem.
Dennis Schain, then a spokesman for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, at the time of the reopening praised the event’s significance, noting it was a “big thing to get significant public access to Long Island Sound” because much of Connecticut’s shoreline is privately owned and developed.
“We have this great asset. Let’s use it,” Finch urged the Ganim administration this week. “Utilize the investment that we made to its fullest, not mothball it like they’re doing.
But Councilman Scott Burns, who with Newton is co-chairman of that allDemocrat legislative body’s budget committee, said if attendance is down, “It’s a reasonable decision to curtail the operations if there’s no real demand for it.”
No specific attendance nor staffing data was provided to Hearst Connecticut Media. The Finch administration in 2014 said the beach would have four lifeguards and “at least” two police officers on ATV’s.
Back in 2016, when City Council members were considering charging for the water taxi rides — that suggestion was never implemented — the public facilities department reported that so far 50,000 people had gone to the peninsula.
John Ricci is a former Ganim ally who is now backing another of his rivals for the job, Democrat John Gomes. Ricci also from 2016 until the start of 2020 was Ganim’s public facilities director.
“I never saw tens of thousands of people,” Ricci recalled this week. “But I did see hundreds, especially on the weekend.”
Ricci acknowledged, “Fundamentally the Finch administration did promote it a lot more than the Ganim administration did or does.”
According to the public facilities department’s statement for this report, during the 2019 season Pleasure Beach opened May 25 for weekends and holidays, then reverted to a daily summer schedule that June 29. The full concession stand, which has a grill, was running.
The attraction was closed for the entirety of 2020 to avoid potential health and safety concerns during the COVID pandemic that reached Connecticut early that year.
In 2021 the peninsula had a later opening date of July 3, was accessible on a daily basis, but had limited food available for purchase — chips, cookies and drinks.
Last year is when the schedule, which again resumed in July, was reduced to weekends and holidays only and the concessions stand closed. The same holds true for this summer.
Finch complained about another change his predecessor made. Finch’s administration negotiated a lease-to-buy arrangement with a private property owner for a parking lot on Seaview Avenue for Pleasure Beach visitors. In 2018 the city under Ganim opted not to purchase that property, believing there were enough on-street spaces for cars.
Asked about the last time he took a water taxi over to Pleasure Beach since leaving office in 2015, Finch said he had gone out to Seaview a few unspecified times “and the boats (taxis) weren’t running.”
Newton, who was not a council member when the peninsula was restored for public use, said he has been “quite a few times” over the years.
“I don’t think we’ve done an excellent job at promoting it like we do Seaside, like we do Beardsley (another prominent Bridgeport park),” Newton said.
He has recently been calling for the construction of a pedestrian bridge which he thinks would encourage more visitors who might be turned off by the reliance on water taxis. A new vehicular bridge was ruled out years ago as far too costly.
Keith Williams is longtime head of the East End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone, a community group that weighs in on economic development matters. He believes residents of that neighborhood appreciated having access to Pleasure Beach back, but the required boat ride “was like a little hassle.”
“A concessions stand is not going to make it over there. You ain’t got enough people to support it,” Williams said. “They have to get that (pedestrian) bridge, something, so people, when they feel like going over there, they can just go.”
Finch said his administration considered that option but it was unrealistic because the span would have to be raised very high above the water to allow some boat traffic to pass beneath.
“It’s a wonderful idea. It can’t be done,” Finch said, arguing the water taxis work. “We have the means to get there. We just have to have the commitment.”
Or will the city consider closing it, given the lack of attendance and already reduced hours and that the city will likely continually have to battle the tick problem at Pleasure Beach?
“Sometimes you have to provide a service whether you’re getting a ‘profit’ or not,” Burns said. “I can’t see completely shutting it down as an option. I would think providing some access, even if it’s just weekends, maybe that’s the way to go. I think demand would help drive that decision.”
Williams believes that if some of the long-term commercial plans to turn the Seaview Avenue section of the East End into more of a waterfront tourist destination come to pass, then whoever is mayor will turn their attention to neighboring Pleasure Beach.
“Then we’ll probably see a bridge go up overnight,” Williams joked.