Pleasure Beach and Long Beach
Updated April 3, 2022 | By Matthew Christopher
Judging from the first houses I saw, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong. The windows that weren’t boarded were smashed, and front doors hung ajar, swaying slightly in the breeze. Plastic beach chairs were strewn about, nearly lost in the leaves and ivy that were starting to overtake the roads and yards. An explosion of zinnias that had once been a part of someone’s garden nearly blocked the patchy road, and when you looked inside the homes it was apparent that nearly everything that could be shattered by thieves and vandals had been.
From a distance you could almost imagine what the neighborhood had looked like when it was whole, but the graffiti and destruction were overwhelming. Something about the warmth of the sun and beauty of the nearby beach only made the scene all the more horrible; unlike some movie monster, the ruins of the homes at Long Beach didn’t need to skulk about under the cover of darkness to be terrifying. They stood defiantly out in the open, challenging you not just with the naked sadness of the community’s loss, but also a damning indictment of human nature itself. It was hard to see, and hard to photograph. It felt like I should do something to help, but the damage had already been done.
An abandoned home in the beach neighborhood of Long Beach, Connecticut
The 63-acre Connecticut peninsula comprising Pleasure Beach and Long Beach connects to what is now the town of Stratford along Great Meadows Marsh in the neighborhood of Lordship. The area has been inhabited by European settlers since the late 1630s when it was purchased from the Native Americans who had fished and hunted there, although bones and relics have been found suggesting villages and a vast burial ground existed much earlier. Other sources debate this and argue that the land was only officially acquired in the late 1650s “as a conquered country” through a treaty. Nearby, Stratford Point and Point No Point have centuries of lore including tales of shipwrecks, sea monsters, and pirates. According to local legends local clam diggers saw the infamous pirate Captain Kidd burying his treasure in the sand of Long Beach in the late 1690s.
This yarn resurfaced in the 1850s when a congregation of spiritualists excavated a large section of the beach, led by a medium who stipulated that if any of them spoke above a whisper while they worked, they would not find Kidd’s treasure. The group toiled for 30 days, until one member’s foot was struck with a shovel and they swore loudly, leading to the group to abandon its efforts. This is, I might add, one of the best ways to con a group into a boondoggle I’ve heard, since it’s pretty much physically impossible to make absolutely no sound and once someone does, you can say “well, that guy wrecked it, we were totally going to find the treasure if he hadn’t made a noise.” Periodic discoveries of coins on the beach and underground tunnels and warehouses built by a local smuggler fueled the stories of buried riches for years to come.
An undated historical postcard showing Pleasure Beach during its heyday
In 1887 a section of Long Beach was sold by the town of Stratford to Walter Nichols. Nichols built an amusement park on it, and sold it for a handsome profit to two millionaire brewers who christened it Pleasure Beach. In 1894 a 25-foot statue of Captain Kidd was erected on Pleasure Beach; whatever the truth regarding Kidd’s treasure or lack thereof may be, Pleasure Beach was quite popular. In 1895 a brochure for the park enticed visitors with the promise of a skating rink, miniature railroad, arcade, roller coaster, merry-go-round, 5000-seat coliseum, and a bicycle racing track. George Tilyou purchased Pleasure Beach in 1905 and renamed it Steeplechase Island after the mechanical horse race course he built there. Tilyou had also founded Steeplechase Park in Coney Island, and was hoping Steeplechase Island would be its successor.
By now the park had beautifully landscaped gardens, a Ferris wheel, the Razzle Dazzle funhouse, a bandstand, a vaudeville theater, a toboggan ride, and more. The Bridgeport Herald announced, “Genuine Italian gondolas propelled by Venetian gondoliers will be on hand with their guitars and their soft Italian songs and the island will be equipped with all facilities for entertaining as well as handling a crowd of fifty thousand persons. A grand electric light display will be instituted and there will be a Japanese village with tea gardens and sweet voiced Geishei girls [sic] to serve.”
While the peninsula was attached to Stratford at one end, Bridgeport was the closest town to the Pleasure Beach section, though the two did not connect. In the years between 1870 and 1910, its population quadrupled as it became one of the major industrial centers of Connecticut. Bridgeport manufactured everything from corsets to munitions. Factories built Singer sewing machines, typewriters, automobiles, and railcars. Their success fed Steeplechase Island’s, but in 1907 one of many disastrous fires on the peninsula caused by errant cigarettes destroyed the steeplechase ride, the grandstands, and much of the rest of the park. Three years later Tilyou sold the property and the name was changed to Sea Breeze Island. Despite heavy promotions in newspapers, poor business led to the park’s closure for several years.
The remains of the Pleasure Beach Carousel in 2009
In 1919 Bridgeport bought the park and it was once again known as Pleasure Beach. A reputable amusement park management company leased the land and many of the rides were rebuilt, and a new Sky Rocket roller coaster, a roller skating rink, and a carousel were added. The Brickerhoff Ferry brought visitors in to enjoy the new maple-floored ballroom, which could accommodate 2,000 couples. Said to be the largest in New England, the ballroom hosted performers like Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw; it became one of Pleasure Beach’s main attractions. To make the park more accessible to “automobilists,” a moveable Warren through-truss bridge was built from Bridgeport so that visitors could walk or drive directly to the park and the bridge could still be opened for ships to pass through.
The popularity of Pleasure Beach waxed and waned as the years went on. Another fire in 1953 damaged the roller coaster, fun house, and several other rides, and by 1957 the park had fallen on hard times again. “Rusted spikes jut out of splintered planks,” local reporter Bennett Karmin remarked in an expose on the poorly maintained bridge, and busses were no longer permitted to cross for fears of safety. This further hampered visitors, and that year yet another fire badly damaged a 60-foot section of the bridge. Part of the problem with the bridge was that it was treated with a coal tar-based substance called creosote which helped waterproof the bridge. This was great for weatherproofing but if someone dropped a cigarette between the boards, the substructure area treated in the highly flammable creosote would very easily catch fire and burn like a torch, and this area was also very hard to reach with the fire company’s hoses. This would continue to be a problem. Meanwhile, Pleasure Beach was operating at a $26,000/year deficit and closed in 1959. The roller coaster and several other buildings were demolished but the ballroom was still in use. An oil tanker crashed into the beleaguered bridge causing $30,000 worth of damage in 1964 and a year later the bridge caught fire yet again.
The heavily vandalized homes on Long Beach, a year before they would be demolished
The side of the peninsula that was under Stratford’s control was still known as Long Beach. Cottages had dappled its shores for years on lots leased to the tenants by the township of Stratford. While Long Beach had a substantially less eventful history than the Pleasure Beach portion of the island, the biggest issue was the constant shifting of sentiment in the township toward the cottages and their owners. In 1932 the town was courted by developers for the property and appeared ready to develop the community further, but after a hurricane damaged the area in 1938 the council members balked at building construction breakwaters to protect the peninsula and talked about contingencies in case they decided to remove the cottages and preserve the beach. Seven of the cottages were washed away in yet another hurricane that damaged both Pleasure Beach and Long Beach in 1950. The beach was eroding, and the community's only geographical link to the mainland was through Stratford, which had no interest in uniting them with the community via a road. The cottages were viewed as at best a nuisance and at worst a drain on resources. The only road that linked Long Beach to land was the one that connected to Bridgeport via Pleasure Beach’s increasingly treacherous bridge.
In 1962 a federal project to dredge the Bridgeport harbor restored portions of Long Beach that had been lost in previous storms. The leases on the cottages expired that year, and again Stratford threatened the owners with eviction and refused their offer to purchase the land, but eventually relented and renewed the leases. The Long Beach community was in an increasingly precarious position, both because of its isolation and its reliance on leases it had no control over.
By the time Pleasure Beach had closed in 1959, the economy in Bridgeport was faltering as its industrial base evaporated. There were only a few remaining facilities open on the ailing beach, including the ballroom and the Polka Dot Playhouse, which had opened in an abandoned beer garden in the 1960s. Pleasure Beach was still the site of the yearly Barnum Festival, named for Bridgeport resident P.T. Barnum, who had been convinced Pleasure Beach held Kidd’s treasure and had tried unsuccessfully to purchase it from the town. In 1972 a portable stove caused a fire that burned a section of the park's midway, and a year later the famous ballroom, which the city had recently renovated, burned as well. The city lost about $150,000 on the ballroom as it was not properly insured. The Barnum Festival lost a lot of its supplies in the ballroom as well and refused to return to Pleasure Beach the following year, citing the inability to get trucks over the dilapidated bridge.
The ruined interior of the Polka Dot Playhouse
The bridge was bothersome for the town, as it had to be continually opened and closed for ships, but there was still a dwindling hope that Bridgeport’s half of the peninsula might attract visitors again. A $1.3 million federal grant for rehabilitating Pleasure Beach rebuilt the boardwalk and a few other small structures, but the overall impression of Pleasure Beach was that it was shabby and covered with litter. Ideas bounced about for new uses: luxury condos, an aquarium, a nightclub, a hotel/conference center, a regional entertainment center owned by Disney, and even a nudist colony were all options that were considered but failed to materialize, in part because Bridgeport’s mayor was considering selling the land to the state. The state of Connecticut spent over $500,000 on bridge repairs in 1988 yet the aging structure continued to require constant, costly maintenance.
The fact that the bridge was located in a section of a city that was gaining a reputation for crime and poverty didn’t help. In 1994 bags containing the torso and internal organs of a Bridgeport resident were discovered by an off-duty police officer who was fishing near the bridge. While it seemed like the bridge might be entirely rebuilt entirely using federal funds, the Connecticut Department of Transportation nixed the proposal. Then, on Father’s Day of 1996, the bridge to Pleasure Beach caught fire one last time, and all hell broke loose.
Jeanette Scinto remembers that day: “My family was on our way to my grandparents’ beach house when the bridge burned. We saw the smoke and my mom said, ‘I think that's coming from where the bridge is,’ and sure enough it was, so we wound up going over to Lordship and walking in that day.” Cottage owners who were there formed a bucket brigade to help combat the flames while firefighters on the other side of the bridge struggled to put them out, but the bridge was destroyed. The cause of the fire was once again blamed on a cigarette dropped between the planks, but cottage owner George Kosta added, “For some reason the bridge burned three times that year. The third time was the end of it. It seemed a little odd.”
A thank you letter from a student to a retired teacher left behind in an abandoned home
With the bridge to Bridgeport gone and no road out at the base of the peninsula in Stratford, the residents and their visitors were stranded. The stretch of beach that connected Long Beach to Stratford was not officially open to the public because of environmental conservation efforts to preserve the marshland and protect the endangered piping plovers and ospreys found nesting there. A nearby steamboat company helped those in immediate need get their cars off the island, but after that the community was cut off for good. If people wanted to get to their cottages they had to take a boat in and moor it at a rickety dock or walk over a mile along the sandbar.
As a result, removing possessions was nearly impossible. According to Scinto, the city hired a barge, but charged the residents for it. “It wasn’t like a courtesy,” she said. “They were going to make money off of it.” Her grandfather, James Laird, was foreman for the City of Bridgeport Public Works and her grandmother was a factory worker at Remington Arms and a homemaker. They had purchased the cottage in 1974 and spent summers there surrounded by friends and family. When it became clear that Stratford wasn’t about to allow a road to be built to the community and Bridgeport had no plans to rebuild the bridge, her family walked along the sandbar to the home with wagons and loaded in as much of their mementos and memories as they could, then trudged back to Stratford.
In 1997, Stratford informed the residents it would not renew their leases, in part because it was felt that without a road to the community there was no way to provide adequate police and fire protection. Stratford complained that the lease money and taxes, estimated to be well over $100,000, weren’t enough and chafed at the idea of providing any services of the sort that taxpayers typically receive. A group of residents offered to pay for their own multi-million dollar liability policy in response to the town’s concerns over insurance but according to Kosta, the town didn’t even bother to respond. Many of the cottage owners suspected that jealousy of the cottages played into the town’s decisions as well. Kosta told me about a town meeting where the council chairman said, “We don't have a place there. Why should you?" The fight went to court in a battle that would cost the cottage owners over $80,000 and ultimately proved unsuccessful.
A view of the abandoned homes along the sandbar
I witnessed some of the anti-Long Beach sentiment firsthand when one visitor to my website angrily wrote that the cottage owners “never welcomed the townspeople onto their property” and that “they just left their possessions there for the town to clean up”. To this, Scinto replied, “A lot of people felt like we just abandoned the places. We didn't want to abandon Long Beach. We wanted to get everything out of there but we had no means to do it. There was the barge but if you didn't have the money to do it, you were out of luck.” One by one, the 45 cottages were destroyed, and residents who tried to stay after the fire found it increasingly difficult and unsafe. Vandals and thieves descended on the community quickly. Kosta recalls, “We were going in and out by boat after the bridge burned. Many people left and a few of the cottages were burned by the vandals. Mine was broken into five or six times. You couldn't keep the people out. One idiot was carrying my TV across the bird sanctuary and the police stopped him. I don't think they did anything to him though. The last winter they broke in and smashed all of the windows, so I left all the furniture there and we just packed it in.”
Even the firefighters responding to fires a year after the leases were finally ordered vacant in 2008 had to carry their gear by hand across the sandbar. While there, they noted that the half-filled propane tanks by many of the cottages could potentially lead to a chain of explosions if ignited, a terrifying and dangerous prospect. Despite pleas by the owners, both towns were resolute that no means of egress would be built. State Representative Jacqueline Cocco, co-chairwoman of the legislature’s transportation committee, was quoted in the Hartford Courant in 2002 as saying, “There’s nothing out there other than those cottages. Until there’s something out there, why spend the money necessary for a bridge when we’re already struggling in this economy as it is?”
There was talk that Stratford would sell the land for $10 million to the United States Fish and Wildlife Services and a nature preserve would be created. As property prices dropped, the number slipped to $7 million. Scinto also believes that the town hoped that one of the potential developers like Donald Trump might purchase it to build a casino. Eventually in 2010 a project using federal stimulus money was approved; the US Fish and Wildlife Service would spend $619,000 to demolish the cottages. If the town used the land for any purpose other than a preserve, Stratford would repay the money to the Fish & Wildlife Service. As far as I can tell, Stratford received no money for the land, and lost the income from the residents’ leases and taxes. To clear the area, Stratford allowed a service road to be created across the sandbar out to the cottages. “It was alright for them to do it but not for us to do it,” Kosta remarked, and added something that I’ve heard echoed elsewhere: there had been a road there all along that had been built in the 1930s, hidden away by a hurricane beneath the sand.
A forlorn white home swallowed by trees
I visited Long Beach about a year before it was ultimately bulldozed, and was struck by what a terrible injustice it seemed. These were not enormous mansions, they were cottages owned by retired teachers and factory workers. Many of them had invested in the little neighborhood and lost it all. To add insult to injury, Scinto told me that the city of Stratford offered her grandparents a dollar for the property and failed to even give them that. Looking back, Kosta told me, “It was a tragedy. We never bothered anybody and we got kicked out. It happened, and I'm sort of over it now, but people put a lot of money into their houses.” Scinto also talked about how hard it was on her family, and what fond memories they had of the place – sitting on the patio deck, sleeping out on the screened porch in the sea breeze, or catching minnows in the marsh.
In 2014 Pleasure Beach opened up its section of the peninsula to the public again, ferrying visitors in a water taxi. Long Beach no longer looks like an apocalyptic wasteland, and in that sense it’s an improvement – and I’m all for wildlife conservation areas, though it seemed like the creation of this one was handled in a particularly callous manner, as you’d think at the very least if Stratford was going to vacate the leases they could offer more assistance for people to remove their possessions. For many of the people who once leased land in the area, it’s too painful to return. I can understand. Most of us share a belief in a social contract: that if some calamity befalls you, people will help – or at least not loot and burn your home. To see the veil of order pulled back and the leering face of scorn and indifference beneath is hard to bear. It was hard for me to confront, and I didn’t even have any intimate emotional connection to it, as many of the residents did. It’s bad enough to see a factory or school that was once beautiful trashed by vandals, but these were people’s homes. In the end though, I hope the people who this neighborhood meant so much to look back, they’re able to hang onto the good memories despite the bitter end. When I asked Jeanette Scinto what Long Beach means to her, she didn’t hesitate to reply. "It was a beautiful place. To this day it is - was - one of my favorite places in the world"
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