January 20, 2015 — “One by one, they became Maryland’s most-ambitious offshore artificial reef project to create homes for fish and an underwater playground for divers,” The Sun reported in May 2008, as a massive front-end loader wrestled more than 40 stainless steel New York City subway cars off a barge, swinging them one by one over the gray, choppy water before releasing them with a splash.
For the Ocean City Reef Foundation and local officials, the deployment of the retired subway cars at a once-popular fishing spot known as the “Jackspot” has been nearly a decade in the making. False starts and modest financial contributions limited efforts to a series of much smaller projects.