Built to transfer coal from Pennsylvania mines between rail cars and ships in the last century, the facility was stripped of its machinery in 1991 and for all practical purposes abandoned by Conrail, the company that still owns the property. People began to visit - fishermen at first, then paint-ballers, vandals and graffiti artists. The explosive growth of social media in the 2000s and 2010s made the pier a popular attraction. Artists and vandals with spray cans painted virtually every ground-level surface over and over.

  Early on Wednesday morning, July 31, 2024, a 20-foot piece of the eastern viaduct -  on the far left in these pictures - collapsed into the Delaware, calling into question the structural integrity of the entire pier. In fact, a number of  other, smaller pieces of the pier have fallen  into the water over the years. The cost of making Graffiti Pier safe and insurable has to be prohibitive even for a well-funded civic group like the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation which has been in discussions with Conrail to buy the pier and six acres of adjacent land. In September, Conrail said they hoped to conclude the sale by the end of 2024. It still hasn't happened.  Demolition now  seems more
 likely than restoration.

I hope I'm wrong.