For the past two decades, Rocky Point Park sat abandoned and closed to the public — the remnants of an amusement park barely visible under overgrown vegetation and chain-link fence. Rocky Point Amusement ran from 1840 until it closed for good in 1995. I visited often as a kid and have a lot of fond memories of the place.
Over the years, Rocky Point has become a favorite spot for my camera and me to greet the sunrise. There’s a peace and tranquility to the place that’s hard to find elsewhere. I remember summer nights at the amusement park — laughter and midway music drifting through the air, the smell of clam cakes and doughboys mixing with the salt air.
On Saturday, October 25, 2014, the park reopened to the public. The amusement park itself is long gone, but the 80-plus acres it once occupied have been cleaned up and opened up, along with the 40-plus acres the city of Warwick had already made available. It’s going to be a great spot to explore.
In honor of the reopening, here’s a photograph I took of the abandoned pier this past winter — a cold January morning, a cold breeze off the water, and a 34-second long exposure that turned the wind-whipped clouds into streaks of color across the sky. You can see this print, and others from the same pier, here: Rocky Point Pier.