Connecticut's Pleasure Beach Reopens For 1st Full Summer In 19 Years

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A barrier beach is reopening for its first full summer season in 19 years.

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch announced Saturday that Pleasure Beach, a city-owned, 71-acre park on the Long Island Sound, will be open weekends in May and then open all week in June from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The beach will be accessible by a free water taxi departing from the fishing pier at the intersection of Seaview Avenue and Central Avenue.

Finch, in a statement, called the beach "a little piece of Nantucket right here in the Park City.''

Pleasure Beach, which the city took ownership of in 1892, reopened midsummer 2014. It had been home to an amusement park before declining visitor numbers and a bridge fire put it out of business in 1996.

City spokesman Brett Rosner said Pleasure Beach is not only a beautiful setting, but one with a stories history.

Before being elected, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke to a crowd of 20,000 supporters at the beach.

"Bridgeport's always been a big Democratic town and with 20,000 people out there I think it broke the record out there for the most amount of people," Rosner told WCBS 880's Fran Schneidau.

Rosner said some visitors recall when big names like Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington performed at the ballroom which once stood on Pleasure Beach.

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