Asbury Park Revisited
By Lisa Lamb
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About this ebook
Lisa Lamb
Lisa Lamb has documented Asbury Park's history for more than a decade at side-o-lamb.com. Here, she presents postcard scenes chosen from her own extensive collection, hoping to spark the memories of those who spent childhood summers in the town during its glory days and to give those who never got that chance a glimpse into what they missed.
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Asbury Park Revisited - Lisa Lamb
collection.
INTRODUCTION
On an overcast day in June 2004, a group of about 150 people gathered on the northwest corner of Asbury Park’s Kingsley Street and Cookman Avenue. Across the street, a painting on a foot-thick piece of cinderblock wall attached to a partially demolished building was being framed in steel. News cameras recorded as a crane pulled the frame upwards. Applause broke out once the painting was free from the wall, and it was clear that it had remained intact. Normally, a construction project like this would not draw much of a crowd. On this day however, Tillie, the smiling de facto mascot of Asbury Park, was being salvaged from the side of Palace Amusements, an entertainment complex dating almost to the founding of Asbury Park.
A little more than 130 years earlier, James Bradley, a wealthy New Yorker who had made his fortunes in brush manufacturing, visited the Methodist retreat of Ocean Grove, New Jersey. Taken with the positive effect he believed the seashore had on his health, Bradley paid $90,000 to purchase 500 acres of oceanfront property north of Ocean Grove. He named his town Asbury Park after Francis Asbury, America’s first Methodist Episcopal bishop. Founder Bradley,
as he was often called, had a vision for Asbury Park of polite cleanliness in both morality and physicality. The town would be a secular counterpart to Ocean Grove, where one could enjoy wholesome entertainment and healthful sea breezes. In order to make sure the atmosphere remained respectable, many of the restrictions in place in Ocean Grove would also be in place in Asbury Park: gambling and drinking were strictly prohibited, women were expected to be chaperoned and dress modestly, and businesses were closed on Sundays.
To say that Bradley was intimately involved in shaping the early direction of Asbury Park is an understatement. In addition to dictating the layout of the town’s large lots, parks, and wide streets, Bradley served as the town’s first postmaster and the editor of the town’s first newspaper. He personally bankrolled the construction of the boardwalk as well as miles of sewer pipes for the town’s sanitation system, which was the first of its kind in the area. Despite his civic-minded nature, Bradley was not completely beneficent. He posted signs along the boardwalk bearing prohibitions against what he perceived to be immoral behavior and hired special beach police who made sure people dressed and behaved respectfully. African Americans were not welcome east of the railroad tracks unless they were there for work. Lots were sold at Bradley’s discretion, and he wrote restrictions into deeds to ensure that hotels and restaurants could not serve liquor. By the turn of the 20th century, Bradley’s desire to keep the boardwalk free of commercial interests was at odds with local businessmen. In 1903, after years of contentious dealings with city hall over the direction Asbury Park should take, and facing a lawsuit that was likely to result in the city taking the waterfront, Bradley sold the boardwalk and sewer system to the city for less than a tenth of what it was worth.
In the early to mid-20th century, Asbury Park f lourished. Grand hotels were constructed to house the thousands who came to spend time strolling the boardwalk and beautiful beachfront. Buildings along the boardwalk offered music, dancing, and dining. The daily summer population was as high as 50,000 people, with more than 100,000 coming for events like the annual baby parade and carnival. A chamber of commerce was established in 1913 to promote the town, and due to its convenient rail service and multitude of downtown shops, Asbury Park became known as the commercial center of Monmouth County.
Beginning in the 1950s, a number of factors came together to cause Asbury Park’s popularity to wane. As highways allowed the public to travel farther and more quickly than before, daytrippers replaced people who would have come for the two-week stays that were common in the early 1900s. The boardwalk remained popular, but other towns with longer boardwalks, like the one at Seaside Heights, were easier than ever to get to. The Garden State Arts Center arena in Holmdel, with its ample parking and easy access to the parkway, drew bands that would have previously been booked at Asbury Park’s convention hall. Disney World was a short plane ride away, and Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, presented thrills beyond what any boardwalk could offer. The city’s already declining tourism was made worse in 1970 when long-simmering racial tensions came to a head in riots that lasted for days, leaving 100 people injured and blocks of town destroyed. Downtown shopping fell out of favor as indoor shopping centers like Monmouth Mall in nearby Eatontown allowed consumers to make purchases in temperature-controlled comfort. In the late 1970s, a quarter of the commercial space on Cookman Avenue that had helped Asbury Park remain a year-round retail destination for so long was vacant.
By the time Bruce Springsteen began playing the Stone Pony, Asbury Park was well into a decline that has taken nearly 40 years