Some 600 people lined the sidewalk leading to the shuttered Pier to grab a piece of history during a two hour rally aimed at honoring the Pier’s past while celebrating its future.
The event, overlooking Spa Beach and the iconic inverted pyramid, attracted more people than even city officials anticipated. They came prepared with just 200 brick pavers with the inverted pyramid Pier emblem shown on the front.
Those left waiting were able to put their name on a list to get one as more became available.
The rally closed out the first week of demolition on the Pier. The entire structure will have evaporated into history within 60 days to make way for the Pier of the future – Pier Park.
Attendees were able to visit an impromptu memory station where Pier lovers could record a message about the Pier for St. Pete TV or hang a postcard listing their favorite Pier memory.
Dozens of postcards flapped in the wind representing generations of memories.
“Juli and I had our wedding rehearsal dinner here, 25 years ago,” wrote one resident representing some of the older residents who have enjoyed the Pier over the years.
My dad and I went fishing off the Pier,” wrote another in youthfully scribbled handwriting. “We also went under the Pier in our paddle boards!”
Other couples wrote about seeing their first views of St. Pete after moving to the city from abroad. Some shared first dates or kisses. One couple said they rung in 1994 at the Pier.
A mother wrote that she would miss her young daughter sailing in the water as she and her husband sat at Cha Cha Coconuts.
The memories were happy ones, immersed in a crowd that seemed happy to celebrate a Pier for a new generation. But they were also appropriate of a smaller, more somber gathering growing on the sidelines. About a half dozen or so inverted pyramid preservationists gathered with signs near a tree in the background.
“We won’t forget build a damn Pier,” one sign held by an older woman read.
It referenced Mayor Rick Kriseman’s now infamous exclamation during a contentious City Council meeting in which he proclaimed the residents of St. Pete just want to “build a damn Pier.”
Another sign referenced the Pier public survey in which respondents overwhelmingly chose Destination St. Pete Pier as their preference for a new design. Had that been chosen, the inverted pyramid would not be coming down.
Another sign called Kriseman “the most despised mayor in the history of St. Pete.”
Despite the small gathering of protestors, Kriseman took to a patch of grass with a microphone in the scorching evening heat to address his supporters.
“I think what today really is is a sign of the passion and the love of the city,” Kriseman said. “Today is really part of our vision of honoring our past as we start pursuing our future.”
“After today we start writing the new chapter,” he continued.
The 1973 St. Petersburg Municipal Pier was constructed in 1973 by the architecture firm Harvard Jolly by its founder William B. Harvard. The firm’s current president, Jeff Cobble, walked residents through a history of the iconic Pier.
“Its shape grew organically to provide open views of the water and of the city,” Cobble said of the Pier’s shape. “It was his idea to make the building disappear at the bottom so that you could enjoy the view of the waterscape and then be able to go to the top and look back at the city.”
As he finished the sentence one of the Pier protestors, Sherry Suttrich shouted, “why are you tearing it down then?” Someone else nearby mumbled, “good question.”
Cobble quipped back, “don’t shoot the messenger” and finished his speech.
That was the most anyone heard from the protest advertised throughout the week on Facebook as one that would be quite loud and called on supporters to come wielding noisemakers and bullhorns.
Another speaker, St. Pete Museum of History executive director Rui Farias remembered more than 40 years of Pier history. He reminisced the days of roof top mini golf, a $2.95 dinner at the Harbor Side Restaurant and the time a motorcycle stunt rider petitioned City Council unsuccessfully to jump over nearly two dozen trucks on the Pier approach.
There was also the ill-fated laser light show that ended up serving as the potential inspiration for the internet sensation, “Box of Crazy.”
“It won’t be forgotten,” Farias said. “The inverted pyramid, like all the piers that came before it will be kept forever in that building right over there, the Museum of History.”
