#180 The Chelsea Piers and the Age of the Ocean Liner

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2015

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Chelsea Piers were once New York City’s portal to the world, a series of long docks along the west side of Manhattan that accommodated some of the most luxurious ocean liners of the early 20th century. Passenger ocean travel became feasible in the mid 19th century due to innovations in steam transportation, allowing for both recreational voyages for the wealthy and a steep rise in immigration to the United States. The Chelsea Piers were the finest along Manhattan’s busy waterfront, built by one of New York’s greatest architectural firm as a way to modernize the west side. Both the tragic tales of the Titanic and the Lusitania are also tied to the original Chelsea Piers. But changes in ocean travel and the financial fortunes of New York left the piers without a purpose by the late 20th century. How did this important site for transatlantic travel transform into one of New York’s leading modern sports complexes? ALSO: The death of Thirteenth Avenue, an avenue you probably never knew New York City ever had! www.BoweryBoysHistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Bowry Boys Episode 180, The Chelsea Pears, and the era of the Ocean Liners.
0:06.0	Hey, it's The Bowry Boys!
0:08.0	The Bowry Boys are brought to you by Audible, the leading provider of audiobook entertainment.
0:13.0	For a free audiobook download and 30-day free trial, go to audibletrial.com slash Bowry Boys.
0:21.0	Hi there, welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:24.0	And this is Tom Myers.
0:25.0	We are recording this show on April 14th, 2015.
0:29.0	103 years ago today, the Titanic Sank in the Atlantic Ocean,
0:34.0	felt by a iceberg.
0:36.0	Its intended destination is the subject of today's show, The Chelsea Pears.
0:42.0	The Chelsea Pears are interesting as a subject because they exist today as a commercial entity of a number of peers
0:50.0	that have been reworked into a sort of entertainment and recreational facility.
0:55.0	Yet today it's where you go to practice your gymnastics or doing a little golf putting.
1:01.0	But we're going to take you back over a hundred years, and even before that, when it was something quite different.
1:08.0	In fact, in the beginning of the 20th century, The Chelsea Pears was a structure containing nine peers
1:15.0	that was revolutionary in the way that it handled transatlantic ocean liners.
1:20.0	During the Gilded Age, the ocean liner was the grand hotel of the sea and was a vessel both of the wealthy classes
1:28.0	to experience transatlantic travel and for those new immigrants who traveled below decks to come to America for the first time.
1:36.0	So in today's show, we're not just talking about The Chelsea Pears.
1:40.0	Certainly not the thing that exists today, although we'll get to that story later.
1:45.0	But we'll be talking about the building that opened in 1910, those great new peers.
1:50.0	But also this era in New York and world history in which people took to the seas when getting from Europe to the US.
	...

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