The current pier was built in 1905. Before that, strollers used to walk on the northern dyke, a little further south on the promenade, to watch the boats at sea. It was one of impressionist painters’ favourite landscapes.

The was the subject of an anecdote in the first text about Le Havre, written between 1587 and 1594, in Mémoires by Guillaume de Marceilles. King Henry II and his court dropped the anchor there while watching a ship land. The same story was related in 1711 by Jean Laignel in Antiquitez du Havre de Grâce.

The pier was described by Gérard de Nerval, when he recalled his boarding to England, in an article published by the journal L’Artiste in 1846. It plays an important part in the plot of Pierre and Jean (1888) by Guy de Maupassant.

The Sunday walk on the “Promenade-Pier” leads to a long scene in Nausea, by J.-P. Sartre.