As Asbury Park looks to the future, a new book explores its past.
By: Susan Van Dongen
It was trends in travel that altered the fortunes of Asbury Park, along with a number of other seaside cities and resorts in New Jersey. But for Asbury Park, which enjoyed its glorious heyday in the first two decades of the 20th century, other factors seemed to just pile misfortune upon misfortune. The Great Depression, the coastal blackouts during World War II, a flurry of corrupt civic leaders and bungled business deals all contributed to the decline of what had been a vibrant city.
"The glamorous, exciting Asbury Park that had drawn wealthy vacationers and celebrities existed only in people’s memories," writes author Helen-Chantal Pike, whose most recent work is Asbury Park’s Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort (Rutgers University Press, $22.95). Writing about the city in the 1990s, she reflects "…new generations had been born who did not know what it meant to ride the entertainment circuit, (or) buy freshly baked bread on Springwood Avenue…
"Even fortuneteller Madame Marie had moved from her boardwalk booth to a two-story brick building on State Highway 35 in Ocean Township, one of the city’s many postwar suburbs," Ms. Pike writes.
A former reporter for the Asbury Park Press and The Coaster, Ms. Pike is a lifelong fan of the city and is hopeful Asbury Park can find its way back to a place on the map. In the meantime, her book is a historic and visual treat for anyone who remembers spending time in the city.
Indeed, older generations might recall the place as a seashore Shangri-La filled with wonderful retail stores, movie palaces and musical entertainment. Like Atlantic City in the early 20th century, folks walked on the Asbury Park boardwalk in their finery and formal dress was required for dinner.
The Depression put a damper on the spirits of the shore communities, as well as the whole country. However, Ms. Pike, who has written frequently about New Jersey’s tourism industry, says it was the changing travel habits of Americans that dimmed the lights for Asbury Park and other seashore destinations.
"During the Depression, only the very wealthy could travel," she says. "Also, the 1930s opened up the era of flight. People had gone to the shore in the first two decades of the 20th century but they lost interest, because they could fly elsewhere.
"Business owners weren’t thinking about the future," Ms. Pike adds. "Even Cape May was in the pits until the ’70s and ’80s, when a group of entrepreneurs recognized the bed and breakfast potential in the old Victorian homes. Now it’s taken this long and the market forces (in Asbury Park) have changed again, with new entrepreneurs and politicians backing their community."
Aside from her well-researched historical narrative and a bevy of vintage photographs and postcards, there are 60 diverse sidebars, written by people from all walks of life who remember their slice of Asbury Park. Ms. Pike found many of them through her contacts at The Coaster, but some of the most interesting contributors were collected through good old detective work.
One conversation brought up the name Sheldon Gunsberg, a former executive with the Walter Reade Organization, the theater empire that flourished in Asbury Park. Ms. Pike went to the Manhattan phone book, looked up the name, made a call and found Mr. Gunsberg’s widow.
"She was more than happy to talk to me and then she referred me to her daughter, who in turn gave me the name of John Balmer, who lived in Monmouth County just about seven miles away from me," says Ms. Pike. "He had amazing theater memorabilia and some of the photos in the chapter on entertainment are thanks to him."
Ms. Pike is quick to answer a question about the July 1970 riot that virtually destroyed a part of the town and explains that the issue wasn’t race but economics.
"It’s not the color of your skin, it’s the color of what you had in your wallet," Ms. Pike says. "There were many middle-class African-American families, but after World War II, they moved to the suburbs around Asbury Park. Coming out of the war, you went to the subdivisions. Nostalgia is amazingly strong but in the nostalgia there’s a lot of misrepresentation and I’m trying to (set the record straight). It’s time to have new dialogues about civics and economics in this country."
On the lighter side, perusing the pages of Asbury Park’s Glory Days, you stumble on amusing old pictures of celebrities who were born, worked or had some connection with the city. You learn that in the 1930s, Greenwich Village bohemian poet Tiny Tim opened a gay-friendly tearoom on Bond Street. The photo, however, is a mystery. Is this the same hirsute, falsetto-voiced guy who sang "Tiptoe Through the Tulips?"
Surrounding a shot of "Mr. Danny" in his hair salon is text that explains Asbury Park native Danny DeVito was a hairdresser for a while and originally went to New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts to study makeup. A color photograph the center of the book is an album of nostalgic shots of Asbury Park shows the famous Stone Pony nightclub before it was home to Bruce Springsteen and company. It was called "Mrs. Jay’s" and at one time was decorated with a circus theme.
There’s also a photo of Jack Nicholson’s pretty aunt, whose mother was the beautician for "Eddie King’s 1936 Juvenile Follies." The caption implies that Nicholson’s mother, June, a student of Mr. King’s, might have had an affair with him, which may have resulted in the birth of young Jack.
"King, rumored to be the actor’s father, was often seen taking the youngster to Red Petillo’s barbershop on Asbury Avenue near the Ridge intersection," Ms. Pike writes.
The final paragraph in the last chapter of the book recalls a moment of recent glory for Asbury Park. In July 2002, to celebrate the release of his album The Rising, Bruce Springsteen gave Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC’s Today Show, a tour of Asbury Park, showing evidence of the city’s revival. The morning show broadcast live from the boardwalk and viewers saw the beach lined with freshly planted palm trees, the ocean shimmering under beautiful blue skies.
"More than 10,000 people crowded into Asbury Park that week," Ms. Pike writes. "Nostalgic memories of the days that once were and dreams of what they might be once again were everywhere."
"Asbury Park is now a construction zone and this is a summer where people will see changes there," she says. "There’s a lot more landscaping along the boardwalk and the avenues. There had been plywood all over the carousel house but it’s been removed and the place is all lit up from within to prevent vandalism. (A friend and I) were driving by at midnight and I could see the casino all lit up and it had this sense of ghostly potential. It was magical in a hopeful kind of way. Here’s our past and here’s our future all rolled into one."
Asbury Park’s Glory Days: The Story of an American Resort by Helen-Chantal Pike is available at bookstores and online.