Saturday, November 14, 2009
Whenever there's a serious or even moderately strong coastal storm, Sea Bright NJ gets battered. Sea Bright is a narrow, developed barrier beach south of Sandy Hook, the northernmost part of the Jersey shore. In other places on the shore where there's beach front homes, you probably wouldn't think of parking in someone's driveway & using their private path to the beach. You could get arrested. Shore towns are supposed to provide reasonable public access to a public beach, & there have been many lawsuits to make them do it. Sea Bright, which has nice little downtown, has a public beach & parking, & you can have a good day & evening there in the summer.
But I never got that stretch north of downtown to Sandy Hook. There,"beach front" homes are not on the beach. They're separated from the ocean by a state highway, a high rock & concrete seawall extending north into Sandy Hook & south into Monmouth Beach, & an artificial beach that has to be replenished & duned at great expense to the state & federal governments. The wall & beach are there to keep Sea Bright from disappearing into the ocean. The home owners on the other side of the highway "own" the part of the seawall directly across the street, with private stairways & decks & a walled off beach & keep out signs. This never made sense to me.
"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
But I never got that stretch north of downtown to Sandy Hook. There,"beach front" homes are not on the beach. They're separated from the ocean by a state highway, a high rock & concrete seawall extending north into Sandy Hook & south into Monmouth Beach, & an artificial beach that has to be replenished & duned at great expense to the state & federal governments. The wall & beach are there to keep Sea Bright from disappearing into the ocean. The home owners on the other side of the highway "own" the part of the seawall directly across the street, with private stairways & decks & a walled off beach & keep out signs. This never made sense to me.
Labels: jersey shore, weather
