SEASIDE PARK, NJ – A postcard used for a tourism promotion in the 1960s shows an aerial view of the Seaside Park Boardwalk in the foreground and the Casino Pier in the background. The card demonstrates how radically different the entire boardwalk has become in just over one-half of a century.
First, the rides are sitting atop what used to be the old Funtown Pier. That pier was severely damaged during the 2012 Superstorm Sandy. Rides ended up in the ocean, most of the pier collapsed and debris from rides and nearby stands littered the beach.
A year later, a fire destroyed the boardwalk and pier.
In the years since it has been slowly rebuilt, but today’s version of the Seaside Park Pier is only a small fraction of the grandeur of days gone by.
In the background, you can see a radically different Casino Pier with a large tower atop and it extends much further out into the Atlantic Ocean than it does today. Again, that is due to Superstorm Sandy which collapsed a portion of the pier in 2012.
While the Funtown Pier and the rides have been gone for more than a decade, many who grew up at the Jersey Shore will never forget the indoor carousel, the arcade, log flume, and rides and memories that had come and gone in the years prior.