Fire Guts 1920s Restaurant at Maryland Beach
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Apr. 2, 2008
Ocean City, Md., draws 2.4 million tourists a year, and most
see the historic amusement park at the end of the boardwalk.
Credit: Ocean City Tourist Board and Visitors Center
A fire broke out in a pizzeria in Ocean City, Md., this week, damaging the 1920s building and two nearby buildings. No one was hurt in the Mar. 31 blaze, which is still under investigation.
The fire destroyed several apartments above Marty's Playland, an arcade managed by the Trimper family, which has owned three blocks of Ocean City's boardwalk and its historic amusement park for the past 120 years.
The owner of the wood-frame building that housed the Dough Roller pizzeria, constructed after a 1925 fire on the boardwalk, watched his property burn down.
"You just kind of stood there, and you didn't know what to do," says owner Bill Gibbs. "Everything's gone."
Gibbs says he will likely lose $2 to $3 million in business as he rebuilds the beloved restaurant. "It was a nice old building, and it was a piece of the beach, a piece of the boardwalk," Gibbs says. "I had a lot of history with that building. I'd been going there since I was a little kid."
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Comments
Submitted by h at: September 5, 2008
ocean city is the best