June 18, 1978: An abandoned pier collapsed into the Hudson River at Bethune Street in Greenwich Village, but that didn’t faze sunbathing New Yorkers. After all, they considered the piers their beaches, according to an article published two years later. “The pier in the Village replaces the stoop,” one West Village resident, Robert Lienhardt, was quoted as saying. “There is no other major place to get the sun.” Photo: Paul Hosefros/The New York Times
