Asbury then and now

I stopped by Asbury Park today on the way back home from Cape May.
Some progress since my last visit but very slow.
A few nice shops open on the new boardwalk but the Casino remains an eyesore and the Casino Carousel building is fenced off.
Take a look and keep your fingers crossed.
Emil

Ocean City NJ 1944

As I feel asleep in the Cape May cottage last evening the day had turned from bright,sunny and 87 degrees to a thunderous hailstorm with a wondrous show of lightning.  The wind off the ocean picked up around midnight and the the awnings and windows howled into the morning. I laid in bed and thought of the ever changing weather of our Jersey Shore which makes it so exciting to live here.

In September of 1944 The Great Atlantic Hurricane as it became known - no names back then - ripped the resorts along the coastline to shreds and turned towns and boardwalks into piles of kindling.

Pictured here is Ocean City the Day After.

PS This morning in Cape May it is cold, windy and sunny. A nice day for a taking photographs.

Emil

Arson? Cape May,NJ Style- 1878

The ancient Ocean House hotel was located on a precious piece of real estate..only one-half block from the beach and near most of Cape May's best cottages and hotels.

Sometime during the early hours of November 9th, 1878, while the city slept and all of the tourists had left months earlier, one or more arsonists entered the vacant Ocean House which had closed for the season.

The fire was first observed by a workman repairing the roof of the Stockton Hotel at approximately 7 AM. Although he noticed smoke emitting from the roof, no alarm was sounded until a few minutes later when, as the local paper would later report, " a lady standing at the corner of Washington Street was remarked by Colonel Sawyer, a member of city council, to be gazing intently in the direction of the Ocean House."
Shortly after the alarm was sounded, flames burst through the Ocean House roof in half-a-dozen places. A thirty-six mile an hour northwest wind fanned the flames and it soon became apparent that the old hotel was lost.
Excited residents wondered if their inadequate fire department could save the city. The local fire fighting equipment consisted of an antiquated hand engine with fifteen feet of rubber hose, three small chemical trucks and one hook and ladder truck.
I document the fire building by building in my book, The Summer City by the Sea, An Illustrated History of Cape May, NJ ( Rutgers University Press ) and it is one hell of a story.
Calls went out to the large cities of Camden and Philadelphia and their fire fighting equipment was loaded on trains headed for the tiny wooden city.
Historians would later erroneously write that the fire did so much damage because there was not enough water at hand. Not true. There were plenty of artesian wells owned by the hotels and a main city well that was 25 feet in diameter and 30 feet deep and they were all full of water.
The problem? Old rotten hoses and pumps that had been shut down by the hotels for the season. Water, water everywhere and no way to bring it to the fire.

When all was said and done the Philadelphia newspapers declared it was the city of Cape May's Greatest Fire. Thirty -five acres of devastation and ruins. Seven major hotels were lost and more than thirty cottages and bathhouses.

If you were going to rid yourself of an old hotel in need of expenive repairs well starting a fire in November was the perfect time. Owner of the Ocean House, Samuel R. Ludlam, was conveniently seen on the early morning train for Philadelphia the day of the fire and was not aware of it until he reached the trains first stop. Ludlam was dragged before the court but was released due to lack of evidence. Very convenient.

The good news..no loss of life and in the end the conflagration created a thirty-five acre blank canvas for the city - still popular with the public and investors - to be rebuilt as a smaller, scaled-down version of its pre-fire self.
The charming buildings that we love Cape May for today were built around the same period of time due to an immoral owner looking for a way out of his repsonsibilites for an aging, once great hotel. Funny how things work out in the end.

The Sindia - Ocean City NJ - treasure ?

In 1901 the brave men of the Ocean City, NJ, U.S. Life-Saving Service were put to the test when the 3,068-ton-, 329-foot, four-masted, steel-hulled bark Sindia was driven ashore by a four day gale that the ship had encountered off the coast of Cape May.

The crew of thirty three, including Captain Allen McKenzie, fought the gale fearlessly until the seventy-mile-per-hour winds and waves drove the Sindia onto to a sand bar off Ocean City and eventually split her hull in two.
The ship, now filling with sand and water, came to rest parallel to 16th and 17th Street. All hands were saved by the U.S.Life-Saving Service. The owners, the principal being oil mogul John D. Rockefeller, sent a salvage crew and security guards immediately to the site.
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It is a long story - you can buy my latest book- Jersey Shore-Vintage Images of Bygone Days ( GlobePequot Press) :) :) to read the entire tale but I will say there was thought to be a solid gold statue of Buddha that was never recovered. In 1991 the Ocean City, NJ beach was replenished by the Army Corps of Engineers and the remains of Sindia now lie under the beach where thousands enjoy the sea every beautiful summer day. A small marker on the boardwalk is the only reminder of the doomed ship and indicates the location to those who stop and take a look.
Got a shovel ???

The Abbey- Cape May

Many of you Cape May lovers know this as The Abbey, a popular B&B.
The house was designed by famous Cape May architect Stephen Decatur Button who over three decades designed more than forty buildings in the tiny resort.
Button's influence was even greater because pattern books featured structures that had his imprint and local builders would use pattern books to "design" cottages for those who could not afford an architect. This is one of his surviving masterpieces, the John McCreary House located at Columbia Avenue and Gurney Street. McCreary was a coal baron who resided in Philadelphia and summered in Cape May.

Hindenburg Disaster-72 years ago today

Seventy-two years ago, May, 6, 1937, the giant German airship, the Hindenburg, the pride of the Third Reich, met a fiery end as it attempted to dock at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in NJ.

In less than one minute 35 of the ship's 97 passengers perished thus ending the promise of giant, trans-Atlantic, passenger rigid airship travel.

Pictured here is a photo of the Hindenburg with the Nazi Swastika on its fins passing over the seaside town of Atlantic City on its way to a date with destiny.

Seaside - Fun Town - 1967

One of the oldest Seaside Amusement complexes, Freeman U.S.A. ( now Funtown Pier ) was destroyed by a boardwalk inferno in 1955. Beach property was too valuable to remain undeveloped, and in short time Funtown USA emerged from the ashes. Lost in the fire was the hand-carved Dentzel Carousel. This 1967 photo shows the Sky Ride, an elevated monorail that was added to the new amusement center. It also depicts the children's' favorite- the miniature railroad.