Chelsea Piers is a series of piers on the West Side of
Manhattan in
New York City in the Chelsea neighborhood, on the northern edge of Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District. They were a passenger ship terminal in the early 1900s that was used by the RMS Lusitania and was the destination of the RMS Titanic. The piers are currently used by the Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex. Pier 59 is home to the Chelsea Brewing Company the only micro-brewery in Manhattan. The new complex includes film and television production facilities, including those for CBS College Sports Network and Food Network, a health club, a day spa, the city's largest training center for gymnastics, two basketball courts, playing fields for indoor lacrosse and soccer, batting cages, a rock climbing wall and dance studios. In addition there is an AMF Bowling center, a golf club with multi-story driving range, and two full sized ice rinks for skating. The complex also includes a marina for mooring private boats. Principal owner is Roland W. Betts.
After the collapse of the
World Trade Towers due to the September 11 attacks, EMS triage centers were quickly relocated and consolidated at the Chelsea Piers (and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal).
Historically, the term Chelsea Piers referred to the luxury liner berths on Manhattan's west side from 1910 to the 1930s. Most of the major trans-Atlantic liners of the day docked at the piers and they played pivotal roles in the RMS Titanic and RMS Lusitania disasters.
With luxury liners such as the Titanic becoming bigger and bigger,
New York City was looking for a new luxury liner dock in the early 1900s. The Army, which controlled the location and size of piers, refused to let any piers extend beyond the existing pierhead line of the North River (the navigation name for the
Hudson River south of 30th Street). Ship lines were reluctant to build north of 23rd Street because infrastructure was already in place, including the
High Line Rail line and a train station near the river at 23rd Street.
