New building to take longer
By BILL BARLOW/Special to the Sentinel
OCEAN CITY — After a devastating fire on Saturday, the crew at Playland’s Castaway Cove say they expect the rides to be open for business this summer.
Replacing the devastated building will likely take longer, however.
On Monday, Playland owner Scott Simpson said he was tied up dealing with insurance matters, directing questions to Brian Hartley, the company vice president he described as his right-hand man.
So far, the cause of the blaze had not been determined. Hartley said he has not yet been on site, but from what he’s seen from news photographs and aerial images it looks like there will be little left of the building or its contents.
For now, the staff is not even allowed on the property.
“With the weather that’s going on right now, that’s really hampered the investigation,” Harltey said, as a northeast storm bore down on the city, bringing high winds, rain and flooding. “We won’t be able to get the site turned back over to us until sometime over the weekend or on Monday. Then we’ll see if there’s anything that can be salvaged at all.”
According to Ocean City officials, the fire was first reported as a smoke alarm at 7:40 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 30. The flames grew quickly, with firefighters and emergency crews from throughout the region responding to battle the massive blaze.
Images of the boardwalk landmark engulfed in flames, and of the thick black smoke pouring out over the beach, were shared around the world on social media and news sites.
According to Hartley, it was not known on Monday where the fire started, whether in the downstairs arcade or upstairs in the building. While it’s a busy place in the summer, most of the machines were off this time of year, and there would have been no one in the building on a weekend morning.
“It’s wintertime. Besides the office staff, there’s really not much going on inside that building right now,” he said.
The popular arcade was on the boardwalk level, with other sections of the building leased out, including a juice bar and the Dairy Queen, along with the Hamburger Construction Co. According to information from city officials, structural firewalls between the buildings checked the fire’s spread and limited the damage.
Hartley expects little damage to the rides behind the building, if any. The electrical systems that run the rides were inside the building and will need to be replaced, he said, and there may have been damage to some of the wiring leading to the rides.
“For the most part the rides are fine,” he said. “It might require new main feeds, but as far as the rides themselves are concerned there shouldn’t be too much damage.”
Before any rides can open, state inspectors will evaluate them for safety, he said, a process that takes place every year. Offices will likely be moved to another building that housed them years ago. Another issue: Some key parts to rides were taken inside for storage for the winter, to protect them from the weather. Those parts will almost certainly need to be replaced.
Some things should be back to normal by late spring, he said, albeit more open air than previous years.
“The park will be open. There’s no question about that,” he said. “We won’t have an arcade this summer. There’s no way we can get a building up and approved this year.”
What will be built in its place will depend a great deal on what the city will allow, he said. The organization plans to work closely with city staff and with the planning and zoning boards. It is possible the current zoning will not allow a building of the same size, he said.
Playland has been an Ocean City landmark for generations. During the fire, multiple people described it as like watching part of their childhood burn.
The building has been at 1020 Boardwalk since 1959, Hartley said. Before that, it was used as part of the New York World’s Fair in 1939, before it was disassembled and moved to the boardwalk.
In the 1970s, there was a walk-through haunted house upstairs, with characters dressed as mummies scaring participants and young passersby on the boardwalk, who could see them stalking along an exposed deck.
“I was a kid. I remember being scared of it, and when we walked by staying to the outside rail of the boardwalk,” Hartley said.
The highly visible pirate ship and giant parrot were added to the roof in the late 1990s, he said. There was some doubt from staff about the design, he said.
“Scott had a vision for what he wanted,” Hartley said. “I’ll tell you what, people came to know us by that pirate ship. When they thought of us, that’s what they thought of.”
Whether a new pirate ship will top a new building is yet to be determined, as with most other details of what will be built at the site. Hartley expressed confidence in the future just the same. The building was insured, although the process will take time.
“We’ll be fine,” he said. “We were well positioned going into 2021, even given what 2020 was like.”
