Monday, August 30, 2004
Asbury Park: A perfect day for ruins
Not much to cheer me up on the Asbury Park boardwalk yesterday. A sunny, warm Saturday in August, quite warm until one caught the sea breeze a block from the ocean, nearly perfect weather headed toward a balmy boardwalk evening.
From the crumbling Casino Pier to Convention Hall there were few businesses, those all serving food or drink. A new bar had opened. The Mayfair hadn't died. Howard Johnson's was serving, if it still is a Howard Johnson's. And along the veranda of Convention Hall pier, a makeshift Tiki Bar that actually seemed to be doing well. The beach was nearly empty except for clusters of people around two lifeguard chairs. The beach next to Convention Hall was a lively scene, mostly gay men who looked like they went there regularly, along with a few families, maybe 100 people. Weren't nearly that many on the beach the last time I visited, two years ago for a live broadcast by Glen Jones. But Jonesy attracted another 100 to the HoJo's. In that respect, the boardwalk has not gotten better.
In the old days, well into the Seventies, people poured out of sedate Ocean Grove on late Saturday afternoons. Now the two boardwalks do not connect; The boardwalk on the south side of the Casino is ripped up, the pier shuttered. That section was once very active, a bottleneck with a restaurant & beach shop that collected caricaturists & various peddlers. There's still a restaurant on a small pier, & it's probably a bargain to eat there with an ocean view.
So Asbury Park remains a whole lotta gimme with a mouth full of much obliged. This was obvious in the Cookman Ave. business district, more than half vacancies but with several attractive restaurants. Most visible were the real estate offices sprouting up with signs touting soon-to-come half-million dollar loft condos. We'll see who bites on those. Commercial property is overvalued, whether from greed, desperation or impatience. But houses on the oceanside of the railroad are a relative bargain, & I saw many homes that are nicely renovated or in the process of being fixed up. These sit on the same streets with grotesque, boarded up edifices like the Metropolitan Hotel & run down but inhabited properties. Buying into Asbury Park is still very much in the homesteading phase. Crime is high. Wherever I go, I observe with the eye of someone looking for a place a place to live. I found a slightly down-at-the-heels high rise apartment building with balconies, obviously renting to people of modest means. I hope these residents aren't uprooted altogether by gentrification. Because a lot of people - mostly blacks - will be pushed back west across the tracks, where they all lived when Asbury, like Atlantic City, maintained de facto segregation. Asbury Park has a high crime rate, & crime rates are lowered only by investment in single family homes, at which point property owning taxpayers get tired of being burglarized & mugged, become more possessive of their neighborhoods, & demand better police protection.
I saw two great success stories. The Empress Motel on Ocean Ave. has been completely renovated into a gay-oriented hotel & club. The Paradise Club has been open for some time, the motel just reopened. I don't see how it can fail; it's the only establishment of its kind I know of on the Jersey shore. The owner, music producer Shep Pettibone, would be wise to put a plastic bubble over the pool for off-season patrons. The other winner is Moonstruck Restaurant. Located in what had been an old style guest hotel facing Wesley Lake, Moonstruck has three stories of outdoor dining on each of its old-fashioned verandas. The place was packed, with a steady stream of customers coming from Ocean Grove across a pedestrian bridge. The nouveau American cuisine is reputedly excellent. From the outside, It's one of the most charming restaurants I've seen on the Jersey shore. Both of these businesses are visionary models for what is possible in Asbury Park.
I'm not sure how crucial the Springsteen connection will be for the city over the long run. Asbury Park has of necessity had to inflate its musical importance. The town has an excellent live music scene, but it never has wielded wide influence. It was an enclosed, provincial scene even back in the Seventies. Bruce helped preserve the clubs but he couldn't save Tillie & The Palace. The Stone Pony exists in a self-congratulatory fantasy. Nils Lofgren was headlining Saturday night, one night only. Opening for him was Vinny "Mad Dog" Lopez with a version of Steel Mill. Nils has better stories to tell about Keith Richards than about Bruce, & the last I heard "Mad Dog" had a day job at a golf course. A small line of devotees snaked in for the late afternoon band. I heard them playing outside, an awful song about The Stone Pony & meeting Bruce in 1995. Jersey shore clubs from Wildwood to Keansburg are unapologetically guido. & face it, both Bruce & Bon Jovi are essentially guidos. For that sort of thing, I recommend Martell's on Point Pleasant boardwalk, which also has an aphrodisiac raw bar.
Say hello to my next bike, a 16" 3 speed Dahon folding bike. I know it looks odd. But it can be carried on a bus, or a NJ Transit train during rush hour.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
From the crumbling Casino Pier to Convention Hall there were few businesses, those all serving food or drink. A new bar had opened. The Mayfair hadn't died. Howard Johnson's was serving, if it still is a Howard Johnson's. And along the veranda of Convention Hall pier, a makeshift Tiki Bar that actually seemed to be doing well. The beach was nearly empty except for clusters of people around two lifeguard chairs. The beach next to Convention Hall was a lively scene, mostly gay men who looked like they went there regularly, along with a few families, maybe 100 people. Weren't nearly that many on the beach the last time I visited, two years ago for a live broadcast by Glen Jones. But Jonesy attracted another 100 to the HoJo's. In that respect, the boardwalk has not gotten better.
In the old days, well into the Seventies, people poured out of sedate Ocean Grove on late Saturday afternoons. Now the two boardwalks do not connect; The boardwalk on the south side of the Casino is ripped up, the pier shuttered. That section was once very active, a bottleneck with a restaurant & beach shop that collected caricaturists & various peddlers. There's still a restaurant on a small pier, & it's probably a bargain to eat there with an ocean view.
So Asbury Park remains a whole lotta gimme with a mouth full of much obliged. This was obvious in the Cookman Ave. business district, more than half vacancies but with several attractive restaurants. Most visible were the real estate offices sprouting up with signs touting soon-to-come half-million dollar loft condos. We'll see who bites on those. Commercial property is overvalued, whether from greed, desperation or impatience. But houses on the oceanside of the railroad are a relative bargain, & I saw many homes that are nicely renovated or in the process of being fixed up. These sit on the same streets with grotesque, boarded up edifices like the Metropolitan Hotel & run down but inhabited properties. Buying into Asbury Park is still very much in the homesteading phase. Crime is high. Wherever I go, I observe with the eye of someone looking for a place a place to live. I found a slightly down-at-the-heels high rise apartment building with balconies, obviously renting to people of modest means. I hope these residents aren't uprooted altogether by gentrification. Because a lot of people - mostly blacks - will be pushed back west across the tracks, where they all lived when Asbury, like Atlantic City, maintained de facto segregation. Asbury Park has a high crime rate, & crime rates are lowered only by investment in single family homes, at which point property owning taxpayers get tired of being burglarized & mugged, become more possessive of their neighborhoods, & demand better police protection.
I saw two great success stories. The Empress Motel on Ocean Ave. has been completely renovated into a gay-oriented hotel & club. The Paradise Club has been open for some time, the motel just reopened. I don't see how it can fail; it's the only establishment of its kind I know of on the Jersey shore. The owner, music producer Shep Pettibone, would be wise to put a plastic bubble over the pool for off-season patrons. The other winner is Moonstruck Restaurant. Located in what had been an old style guest hotel facing Wesley Lake, Moonstruck has three stories of outdoor dining on each of its old-fashioned verandas. The place was packed, with a steady stream of customers coming from Ocean Grove across a pedestrian bridge. The nouveau American cuisine is reputedly excellent. From the outside, It's one of the most charming restaurants I've seen on the Jersey shore. Both of these businesses are visionary models for what is possible in Asbury Park.
I'm not sure how crucial the Springsteen connection will be for the city over the long run. Asbury Park has of necessity had to inflate its musical importance. The town has an excellent live music scene, but it never has wielded wide influence. It was an enclosed, provincial scene even back in the Seventies. Bruce helped preserve the clubs but he couldn't save Tillie & The Palace. The Stone Pony exists in a self-congratulatory fantasy. Nils Lofgren was headlining Saturday night, one night only. Opening for him was Vinny "Mad Dog" Lopez with a version of Steel Mill. Nils has better stories to tell about Keith Richards than about Bruce, & the last I heard "Mad Dog" had a day job at a golf course. A small line of devotees snaked in for the late afternoon band. I heard them playing outside, an awful song about The Stone Pony & meeting Bruce in 1995. Jersey shore clubs from Wildwood to Keansburg are unapologetically guido. & face it, both Bruce & Bon Jovi are essentially guidos. For that sort of thing, I recommend Martell's on Point Pleasant boardwalk, which also has an aphrodisiac raw bar.
Say hello to my next bike, a 16" 3 speed Dahon folding bike. I know it looks odd. But it can be carried on a bus, or a NJ Transit train during rush hour.
