OCEAN CITY, NJ — For generations of vacationers heading to Ocean City, the towering “Giant Wheel” was the first thing they saw from miles away.
The sight of the 42-foot ride let them know they were getting close to the Jersey Shore town that calls itself “America’s Greatest Family Resort,” with its promise of kid-friendly beaches, seagulls and seashells, and a bustling boardwalk full of pizza, ice cream and cotton candy.
And at its heart was Gillian’s Wonderland Pier, an amusement park that was the latest in a nearly century-long line of family-friendly amusement attractions operated by the family of Ocean City’s mayor.
But the attractions would fall silent Sunday evening, when the park run by Ocean City’s mayor and fueled by generations of his ancestors closed for years, a victim of financial troubles exacerbated by the lingering aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Superstorm. Sandy.
Gillian and his family have been operating carnival rides and attractions on the Ocean City Boardwalk for 94 years. The newest version of the park, Wonderland, opened in 1965.
“I have done my best to keep Wonderland going as long as possible, through increasingly difficult challenges each year,” Mayor Jay Gillian wrote in August when he announced the park would close. “It 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 for the 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 and I have been coming here since she was 2 years old in a stroller. Now I am here with my grandchildren.”
For decades, she remembers bringing her family from Gloucester Township in the southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia to create happy family memories at Wonderland.
“Just the excitement on their faces when they get on the rides,” she said. “It really made it family friendly. A large part of that will now be lost.”
There were long lines Sunday for the Ferris Wheel, log flume and other popular attractions as people used the last of their ride tickets that many had purchased earlier this year, thinking Wonderland would last forever.
A local nonprofit, Friends of OCNJ History and Culture, is raising money to try to save the amusement park, possibly under a new owner who might be more willing to buy it with some financial support. Bill Merritt, one of the nonprofit’s leaders, said the group has raised more than $1 million to help meet what could be a $20 million price tag for the property.
“Ocean City will be fundamentally different without this attraction,” he said. “This city relies on being family friendly. The park has attractions aimed at children; It’s not called ‘Wonderland’ for nothing.”
The property’s current owner, Icona Resorts, had previously proposed a $150 million, 325-room luxury hotel elsewhere on Ocean City’s boardwalk, but the city rejected those plans.
The company’s CEO, Eustace Mita, said earlier this year that he would take at least until the end of the year to propose a use for the amusement park site.
He bought it in 2021 after Gillian’s family were at risk of defaulting on bank loans for the property.
At a community meeting last month, Gillian said Wonderland would not be able to recover from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the pandemic in 2020 and an increase in New Jersey’s minimum wage to $15.49 an hour that doubled its labor costs, leaving it in debt of 4 million dollars.
Mita put up money to prevent a sheriff’s sale of the property, and gave the mayor three years to get the company back in order. That deadline expired this year.
Mita did not respond to requests for comment.
Merritt said he and others can’t imagine Ocean City without Wonderland.
“You look at it with your heart and you say, ‘You’re losing all the precious memories and all the history; how can you let that go? ” he said. “And then you look at it with your head and you say, ‘They are the reason this city is profitable; how can you let that go? ”
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