Many Shapes to Select

Capital T-shape pier. The U.S. Atlantic Coast’s longest pier at 1,206 feet built in 1994. Apache Pier, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

• The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA) was offered many different pier shapes from which to choose by its engineering firm. When it saw that a cross-shape was one of them, it immediately chose that shape without regard to its effect on residents of Ocean Grove and Neptune Township, and without regard to history. Why? Because it’s their pier, their land, and their ocean – in their view. All of this, when the pier and its connected boardwalk are pubic accomodations.

• The OGCMA should explore a different shape pier, such as a return to the historical precedence of a straight pier, perhaps a capital T-shape, or alternate shape.

• The objection is to the OGCMA, a religious, unaffiliated, off-shoot of the conservative wing of the United Methodist Church, turning a secular public accommodation, the Ocean Grove Pier, into a Roman cross, a Christian religious symbol of faith.

• Some people say, “There are lots of cross-shape piers.”

  • That may be, but the context of a cross-shape pier in Ocean Grove in particular is everything. For a cross-shape pier to be built on the Neptune Township beach and ocean matters. Just because the OGCMA may or may not be permitted to build a cross-shape pier doesn’t mean that they should, given residents’ sentiments.

  • This Pier, if built in this configuration, will alienate thousands of Neptune Township residents, visitors, and tourists each year from enjoying Ocean Grove.  We are already aware of instances in which people with existing reservations in Ocean Grove cancelled said reservations in light of the recent exposure of the OGCMA’s latest actions, as they did “not want to contribute to such a town.”

• Some people say, “A cross-shape is needed for engineering and stability.”

  • Contemporary civil engineering for fishing piers states that the survivability of a fishing pier depends less on shape and more on state-of-the-art infrastructure and pylon construction, and how well water flows through a pier with the aid of break-away decks and rails.

• Many Christians may not want to walk on a Cross. Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, other non-Christians, and secularists may even be prevented by their religions or by their conscious from walking on this Christian symbol.

• People are already choosing not to live in Ocean Grove, or are selling their houses because of this issue and because they no longer feel that Ocean Grove is a welcoming place to live. Property values will be the next to drop.