The Knickerbocker Ferry passes through the Route 50 Bridge in February 1971. Planned as a floating shopping mall with two restaurants and a 200-seat movie theater, the former Staten Island, N.Y. Ferry met with nothing but disaster during her three-and-a-half-year stint in Ocean City.
Owned by the Washington-based company, Ferryboat Ltd., the boat got stuck on a sandbar off 15th Street and spent the summer of 1971 stranded in the Sinepuxent Bay.
After being towed to a mooring at 32nd Street, the Knickerbocker sat empty for two-and-a-half years. No work was ever done on the proposed shopping mall/restaurant project and the city filed suit again Ferryboat Ltd., which filed bankruptcy. The old ferryboat was put up for auction and scrapped with the last pieces pulled from the bay in August 1974.
Photo courtesy Dale Timmons