Is Asbury Park Dead?

Last night we watched a pretty depressing movie called City by the Sea. It could have been a very powerful movie, but seemed to lose it's way somewhere along the line. That's not why I sit here scribbling.

A big part of the dark side of the film is the setting for a decaying beach town, which is purported to be to be Long Beach, New York. Shortly after I saw something that looked like the Ocean Grove pier, Sarah started asking if this was partly filmed in Park? I sort of thought so at first, and then backtracked saying that all these old and decaying shore towns look about the same.

Near the end of the film, there is a scene with what looked to be the old amusement house at the south of end of . It was a street I'd walked a hundred times as a kid. I was struck by just how much it looked like somewhere I knew in Park and mentioned it out loud to everyone (we're a noisy movie watching family at home). When the movie ended I halted the DVD at the start of the credits to shoo the kids to bed and then watched a few minutes that I had missed. Afterward, Sarah wanted to go to the credits and I wanted to go check IMDB. I went to filming locations and Sarah watched the credits.

When I came out she announced that there was a disclaimer that none of the film was shot in Long Beach and that the movie specifically mentioned thanks to , the Stone Pony (a local bar, also known locally as the home of Bruce Springsteen) and several New Jersey organizations. The IMDB locations information showed Park and New York, New York.

In one of the commentary pieces (which I suddenly decided to watch), they mentioned that the footage at the beginning of the film was home movies (I'd figured that part out) which they had requested in the Park Press while filming was being done. The DVD has some truly great stuff to see if you are from the area (or even just interested). They show the Convention Center back before it was a relic (which it was long before the last time I was there during the summer of 1980). There are clips with the boardwalk and (even more amazing) the beaches teeming with people. There are a couple terrific shots of the Ocean Grove pier. And then the scene shifts to a view of the current day Convention Center from the north, showing a bit of the ocean front with the pier at the south end of Ocean Grove still visible. The city truly looks dead, which is about where the movies depression begins.

I will say this, the boardwalk is in really good condition, which wasn't possible to say in the late sixties and through the seventies. From what I known about Bradley Beach, located just over a mile south, this is quite amazing. Bradley has had to nearly completely rebuild its boardwalk twice since the last major reconstruction I watched after Hurricane Bell in 1976. I guess they're doing the boardwalks to make themselves look good for the cameras, they've become the Jersey Shore for the Sopranos series on HBO. The film has good (sometimes depressing) shots of throughout.

was dying by the early seventies and didn't seem able to help itself. The city had been all about the circuit for young adults (the first block from the ocean contained a large number of clubs, bars, pool halls and the like, so people cruised around it) and the ocean front attractions for the families. When the first seeds of decay began, local teenagers kept the ocean front attractions going (once your parents won't go, it must be good right?) and the young adults didn't even notice. Over time, as it slid downhill, people began ignoring it. It was alone among its shore neighbors.

All the shore towns are somewhat desolate in the winter. The people who choose to live there do, and everyone else bails for the winter. The more middle class towns (such as Long Branch to the north and Belmar to the south) tend to stay more than half filled. The summer towns more or less empty out (the people who come there expect to find the boardwalk and beach about the same every year). was more the kind of place that should have stayed pretty filled, but suddenly the whole town was decaying and that place was as desolate as the summer towns. Unlike Atlantic City, they didn't have the clout to ask for a gambling bailout (I bet that they did ask).

Deal to the north is very wealthy and all about property, they could care less what happens in (unless it's for sale).

Long Branch, just a bit further north was a grown up, middle class town. Its beach was a profitable sideline business.

Ocean Grove at the time was getting to be a little seedy, and there was a bit of property owner animosity towards the Methodist Church which owned the town and made all the rules. That changed in the late seventies (or thereabouts), and the town looked terrific the last time I was there (August 2001). Remove all the stupid church rules and the town is reborn. What do you know?

Some nice arsonist helped Bradley Beach by burning down the entire block between Ocean and Beach, and LaReine and Brinley back in about 1973 (it still had the long dead carcass of what I think was called the Brinley Hotel until the fire removed that problem). A few lawsuits later, there were condos on Ocean Avenue and more modern (aka smaller) apartments and homes to fill the rest of the block. Several years later they rebuilt the area across the street, tearing down the deteriorating public pool, bathhouses and arcade. Bradley is a summer town and the people who live there work pretty hard to keep it the same year around.

Avon was and still is a lively summer town that is also well maintained all year long. It has more old fashioned hotels on Ocean Avenue, and much bigger homes throughout the town. Avon is also home to the Shark River Inlet Coast Guard Station, which can't hurt.

Belmar is another middle class town that has seemingly rebuilt its beach front area continuously. Every time I see it, there's another bunch of remodeling and different arcades and shops in the young and trendy part of the ocean front. Everywhere else it looks about the same. The basin area where the charter and party boats run from is hurting, but they've offset that by developing what used to be marshy wetlands into an island with a whole bunch of condos and town homes. Otherwise, it is as it was.

I wish for the best, but it's sad.

Posted by Dave at April 27, 2003 11:38 PM