The guts are mostly gone from the city’s oldest pier, Pier A, the 124-year-old remnant of the city’s working waterfront. But just enough of the ancient insides are left to offer a glimpse back in time. There are the original walls of a long hallway that bisects the second floor. A rare pressed wallpaper lines the walls, thickened by layers of paint. Office doors still hang on their hinges, but open onto emptiness. A lonely wooden staircase occupies an otherwise bare expanse while winding iron steps spiral up the pier’s magnificent four-story tower. One floor below the tower’s silent iron bell and timepiece stand the ancient clockworks that has not turned the giant clock hands for years.

Such are the rarely seen remains of what lies inside this long overlooked landmark, soon to be given new life.

An approval last month by the Landmarks Preservation Commission means that a long-delayed restoration of the pier can go forward with a $30 million city-financed renovation. The work—begun more than a decade ago by a private developer but halted amid disputes over unpaid rent—is scheduled to begin again in May and be completed by early next year. Commercial tenants will take over then and configure the space to meet their needs.

The business or businesses that will occupy the pier are yet to be selected by the Battery Park City Authority, the structure’s long-term lease holder. Last month seven “very reputable teams” responded to the authority's Request for Qualifications, said the BPCA’s Director of Strategic Planning Gwen Anderson. She declined to name the interested parties.

The interior of the pier does not have Landmarks Commission protection, but the New York State Historical Preservation Office (SHiPO) is interested in preserving some elements, such as the corridor walls.

“If there is a [commercial] use that’s compatible with saving those walls, great,” Anderson said. “If there is a use that’s not compatible with saving them, then we want to understand why. And if need be, we can take that back to SHiPO and explain why.”

The building has never been open to the public. Built in 1886, it began its life as a dock for harbor police and a headquarters for the city Department of Docks and Ferries. The tower at the western end of the building was added in the early 20th century, originally as a watch post for the harbor and, in 1919, outfitted with a clock and rededicated as a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I. The clock has not been maintained for years.
In the pier’s heyday, luminaries such as Charles A. Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Admiral Richard E. Byrd stepped onto the pier, their entry point to Manhattan and the ticker tape parades awaiting them.

In the 1950s, the city turned the pier into the headquarters of the Department of Marine and Aviation, a predecessor to today’s Port Authority. Its next and last tenant, the Fire Department’s marine division, occupied the building between 1964 and the early 1970s.

The Battery Park City Authority hopes to fill the pier with a mix of commercial uses. Back when the previous developer, Wings Point, was still involved in the project, the pier nearly became the home of a museum  (now in Times Square) dedicated to the Titanic. In recent years, the National Parks Service considered the pier as a base for its ferry operations to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Much of the pier’s distinctive Beaux Arts ornamentation was removed by the Fire Department in the 1960s, in favor of inexpensive metal cladding. An effort in the 1990s to restore the detailing was stopped after a disagreement between the city and Wings Point. The developer spent $20 million on renovations before the city barred it from the pier for failing to pay rent. The pier was then abandoned, with parts of it left open to the elements.
“It’s a miracle that this building is still existing,” said Jack Martin of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, the firm in charge of the restoration. Now, said Martin, the old structure will be preserved for another hundred years.

“Pier A was the back door to Battery Park City for so many years,” he said, “and now it’s becoming the front door.”