The landmark B.L. England smokestack was imploded to make room for an off-shore wind facility and more
The 475-foot tall smokestack was a visible landmark for decades from the Garden State Parkway bridge over the Great Egg Harbor Bay into Cape May County.
SOMERS POINT — Like a King piece knocked over at the end of a game of chess, the landmark B.L. England smokestack toppled over nearly intact to the west during a Thursday morning implosion at the former Beesley’s Point generation station.
With a series of loud booms and a cloud of dust that hung near the ground, the familiar Jersey Shore landscape was changed forever shortly after 10 a.m. The cooling towers of the power station, built in 1961 as a coal generating plant and shut down in 2019, had been imploded earlier in the year..
The smokestack had been rebuilt in 1987 to resemble a lighthouse. It was an addition to a series of odd Jersey Shore landmarks to fall by the wayside in recent years, like, most notably, the old Shack on the causeway into Long Beach Island. Over the weekend, people had been invited to pay one last visit and sign their names on the soon-to-be imploded tower.
“You see something your whole life, and now it’s gone,” said Colin Stewart of Five Tribes Cinema Productions, one of a half-dozen drone flyers and dozens of residents who had gathered on the Somers Point side of the Great Egg Harbor Bay. Television helicopters circled around the site, and others watched from boats.
The smokestack’s future
The property, owned by the Beesleys Point Development Group, will now be converted into a hotel, marina, retail shops, and housing.
More controversially, it will also serve as a collection point for Ørsted’s controversial Ocean Wind 1 offshore wind power farm.
At one point the property housed a golf course and swimming pool; and plans to convert it into a natural gas plant were never realized.
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Donna and Steve Sinclair of Williamstown, brought their dog, Sparky, and two beach chairs to watch the implosion from Somers Point, near what used to be the Beesley’s Point Bridge. Driving down to their home in Ocean City a few nights ago, they saw the smokestack at sunset, a weird but beloved view out over the Great Egg Harbor Bay.
“Coming in over the bridge, we said, this is the last time we’ll see it,” Donna said.