Gillian’s Wonderland Pier is already being painted over three days after closing for good
Painters were already starting to erase a nearly century old legacy at Gillian’s (W)onderland Pier, which closed Sunday for good in Ocean City, N.J.
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OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Three days after Gillian’s Wonderland Pier closed for good, they were already painting over paradise.
By midday, the side of the iconic nearly century-old amusement park read “onderland” with the W painted over. The painted red gate to the castle-like structure had been painted over white, as had part of the bearlike palace guard figure.
Developer Eustace Mita, who took ownership of the property when it was $8 million in debt and about to be foreclosed upon, said Wednesday that painting over the facade was the decision of Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian, whose family owned the pier and its predecessors for 94 years.
Around the front of the structure, meanwhile, the spinning letters spelling out Wonderland had been lopped off from their poles, and the windows of the turrets had been boarded up.
The gates were closed for good shortly after 6 p.m. on Sunday, as winds shook the Ferris wheel cars on their last few cycles around, and children struggled to understand what closing for good really meant.
» READ MORE: Sunday was the final day for Gillian's Wonderland Pier. Here's what that felt like.
Gillian, who did not immediately return an email asking about the painting, announced the closure of the beloved pier on Ocean City’s boardwalk this summer, saying it was no longer a viable business. He cited the pandemic, Hurricane Sandy, a failed investment in Sea Isle City, and higher minimum wages as underlying reasons.
The land itself is owned by Mita, a developer of the Icona resorts and other properties, who has expressed a desire to build a hotel, currently forbidden by zoning.
Mita said that he was out of town and that the painting and removal of other identifying markers was “what the mayor wanted to do.”
On Facebook, where groups were organized to try to save the Ferris wheel and the pier itself, people lamented the abrupt disappearing of Wonderland before their eyes, though others wondered if it meant the structure itself would not be demolished. “This might be the saddest thing I’ve seen all week,” one poster said.
“They wasted no time, unbelievable,” said a passerby as the face of the little palace guard was painted over.