In 1938, Edgartown undertook a grassroots effort to purchase the former steamboat dock nestled next to the Chappy Ferry, sensing its potential for the town as one of the only public access points on the harbor.
Doggedly championed by Captain Winthrop B. Norton, the town completed the purchase for $12,000. Now known as Memorial Wharf, the dock has served for the past century as the town’s nexus to the world — home to sailors, fast ferries, fishermen, dock dances and dock dancing fishermen.
“From the town’s standpoint, the dock is beyond price,” reads a 1963 Gazette story. “Without it, Edgartown might as well be landlocked. Transfer of property to the town must be considered one of the most important events of the whole quarter century.”
With Bobcats, I-beams, and a big, old fashioned yank-and-tug, Edgartown undertook a more physical transfer of property Tuesday as the dock did its own dance, raising Memorial Wharf’s roof, pavilion and captain’s walk three feet, lofting it in the air on more than a dozen, life-sized Jenga blocks, and then rolling the entire building into the neighboring parking lot.
“We had a convenient storage area for it,” joked Edgartown dock builder and chairman of the Memorial Wharf Committee Steve Ewing on Tuesday.
The work kicked off a long-sought, $4 million capital project to raise the pier about 18 inches and rebuild its crumbling infrastructure, preserving Memorial Wharf for decades to come as sea levels rise and strong storms threaten Edgartown Harbor. Construction will continue through the winter, with an expected finish date of Memorial Day, 2022.
Funded by a $1 million state Economic Seaport Council grant and an approximately $3 million town meeting borrowing article, the unique construction project to raise and reconstruct the pier has been in the works since 2016, when the town formed the committee and tasked it with the charge of saving a dock that had soldiered on long beyond its useful life.
“We had a conditions assessment done of the underside of the wharf and there were a lot of areas that were...approaching a dire status,” said Juliet Mulinare, who serves on the committee and has led the procurement process.
“There’s quite a bit of rot on the steel pier, the timber is rotten out in a lot of places,” Ms. Mulinare added. “We determined that a big portion of the wharf would have to be rebuilt.”
With a colorful past that dates back to the Island’s whaling years and ownership by Dr. Daniel Fisher, the dock has since fallen out of safety code over the past century. Even dock dances — a raucous summer Tuesday live music event held under the dock’s pavilion — were cancelled in part because of concerns about the structure.
“The old pier, it’s tired,” said Edgartown dock builder Steve Ewing, who has served as chairman of the committee. “It’s going for a Viking funeral.”
According to Mr. Ewing, there are two ways to reconstruct a pier. The first is to keep the building in place and drive pilings around the perimeter, spanning it with big, heavy beams. The second is to move the building out of the way, allowing builders to drive a center row of pilings with smaller beams.
While the Edgartown Yacht Club’s nearby, $7 million project to raise its building two feet opted to keep the building in place during construction, the Memorial Wharf Committee opted for the second option. The project contractor is BTT Marine Construction, according to Ms. Mulinare.
“That proved to be the most cost-effective way of doing it,” Mr. Ewing said. “It’s going to look just like it did, except the legs that go underneath...there are going to be less of them, and they are going to be made out of steel.”
After stabilizing and restoring the pavilion in 2017 — which Mr. Ewing estimated at a weight somewhere between “a breadbox” and “two pavilions” — it was ready for its slide into the parking lot on Tuesday. House movers from New Jersey jacked the pavilion three feet in the air and then attached it to criss-crossing I-beams with wheels, similar to a roller-coaster car, allowing it to move forward or laterally — depending on the strength or direction of the tug.
“Ever seen those things where they unload boxes from the supermarket?” Mr. Ewing said, referring, possibly, to a dolly. “It’s kind of like that, but a little more sophisticated and heavy duty.”
The move is the first time since at least 1950 — when according to the Gazette the town undertook extensive repairs to its “much-disputed captain’s walk” — that the building isn’t situated next to the water. It will also be the first time in as many years that fishermen won’t be able to hang or cast lines off the dock — a common landing spot for anglers during the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby.
Ms. Mulinare said that the town could not delay work until after the derby because of Jan. 15 underwater work restrictions on the project’s construction permit.
“I know there are going to be a lot of very disappointed fishermen, and we’re sorry this season is going to be cut short,” Ms. Mulinare said. “But we are looking at long-term advantages. They’ll be able to fish off the pier for the next 50 years.”
The pier reconstruction is the second step of a three-phase, five-to-ten year project to overhaul and raise the entire stone wharf parking lot, hopefully integrating it into a raised Dock Street sometime and somewhere down the road. Along with the Edgartown Yacht Club reconstruction and a project to raise the historic Vose Boathouse more than a foot two winters ago, the Memorial Wharf is the third major climate change-inspired project undertaken on the Edgartown Harbor in recent years.
While the pier is expected to last at least 70 or so more years from a structural perspective, Mr. Ewing also said that the reconstructed steel beams would be easier to raise if sea levels continue to rise throughout the next century.
“You don’t want to raise it too high now, because it wouldn’t be usable,” Mr. Ewing said. “If we have to raise it again, we’ll shim the existing pier and leave the pilings, and hopefully we’ll get 100 years out of the pilings.”
On Tuesday, a group of Edgartown residents, fishermen, sailors, luminaries — and town officials — gathered by the water to watch the dock do its dance 30-feet inland.
Chappy Ferry owner Peter Wells said that he had reconciled with the work crew after their 40-foot flat-bed truck caused a traffic snarl on Monday. Police chief Bruce McNamee did his best off-duty effort to divert wayward car traffic on Tuesday, succeeding to various degrees throughout the afternoon. Town administrator James Hagerty breathed a sigh of relief when the pull was complete — and the pavilion, to his shock, didn’t go tumbling into the harbor.
“I checked the insurance policy yesterday,” Mr. Hagerty laughed, wiping a drop of sweat off his brow.
But Mr. Ewing, who has spent his entire career on the Edgartown Harbor, with Memorial Wharf as his backdrop, said the move would take some adjusting.
“This is huge. It’s a new experience for everybody, including the pavilion,” Mr. Ewing said. “It’s going to be like when you lose a tooth, for a little while. You get it pulled out and you see it sitting over on the tray, by the paper towel, and you feel the gap in your mouth and you know something’s different. So I know I’ll get used to it. And it’s in good hands. And we know that it’s going to be set back for my grandkids’ kids to enjoy.”
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