OCEAN CITY, NJ (AP) — For generations of vacationers heading to Ocean City, the imposing “Giant Wheel” was the first thing they saw for miles away.
The view from the 130-foot-tall ride let them know they were getting closer to the Jersey Shore town that calls itself “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” with its promise of beaches, seagulls and suitable seashells. to children. , and a bustling promenade full of pizza, ice cream and cotton candy.
And at the heart of it was Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, an amusement park that was the latest in a nearly century-long line of family attractions run by the family of Ocean City’s mayor.
But the rides were to remain silent and again Sunday evening, as the park run by Ocean City’s mayor and nurtured by generations of his ancestors, closed its doors, falling victim to financial woes compounded by the lingering aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 and the superstorm. Sandy.
Gillian and her family have operated rides and attractions on the Ocean City Boardwalk for 94 years. The latest version of the park, Wonderland, opened in 1965.
“I have done my best to maintain Wonderland as long as possible, despite increasingly difficult challenges each year,” Mayor Jay Gillian wrote in August when he announced the park’s closure. “This has been my life, my legacy and my family. But it is no longer a viable business.
Gillian has not responded to numerous requests for comment over the past week.
Sheryl Gross was at the park on her last day with her two children and five grandchildren, enjoying it one last time.
“I’ve been coming here forever,” she said. “My daughter is 43 years old and I have been coming here since she was 2 years old in a stroller. Now I’m here with my grandchildren.
She remembers decades of bringing her family from the southern New Jersey suburbs of Gloucester Township to Philadelphia to create happy family memories in Wonderland.
“Just the excitement on their faces when they get on the rides,” she said. “It really made it feel like family. Much of this will be lost now.
There were long lines Sunday for the giant wheel, log flume and other popular rides, as people used up the last of the ride tickets that many had purchased earlier in the year, thinking the wonderland would last forever.
A local nonprofit group, Friends of OCNJ History and Culture, is raising money to try to save the amusement park, possibly under a new owner who would be more willing to purchase it with financial assistance. Bill Merritt, one of the nonprofit’s leaders, said the group has raised more than $1 million to help cover what could be a $20 million price tag for the property.
“Ocean City would be fundamentally different without this attraction,” he said. “This city focuses on being family-friendly. The park offers rides aimed at children; It’s not called “Wonderland” for nothing.
The property’s current owner, Icona Resorts, previously proposed a $150 million, 325-room luxury hotel elsewhere on the Ocean City boardwalk, but the city rejected those plans.
The company’s CEO, Eustace Mita, said earlier this year that it would take at least until the end of the year to offer use of the amusement park.
He bought it in 2021 after Gillian’s family faced default on their bank loans for the property.
At a community meeting last month, Gillian said Wonderland could not recover from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the 2020 pandemic and an increase in New Jersey’s minimum wage that doubled its payroll costs, leaving him $4 million in debt.
Mita invested funds to avoid the sheriff’s sale of the property and gave the mayor three years to turn the company around. This deadline expired this year.
Mita did not respond to requests for comment.
Merritt said he and others couldn’t imagine Ocean City without Wonderland.
“You look at it with your heart and say, ‘You’re losing all the precious memories and all the history; How can you let this go?’ “, he said. “And then you look at the situation with your head and you say: “It is thanks to them that this city is profitable; how can you let this go?’
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Follow Wayne Parry on X at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC
