This is one of my favorite photos of Cape May, NJ .
There is so much history in this one image. An early horse-less carriage on a street, Beach Drive, that is today impossible to find a parking space.
On the far right are the massive columns of the old Lafayette Hotel-now replaced with a newer hotel.
Center right is Denizot's Ocean View Cottage ( built 1879) and operated at the time as the Arnold Cafe. The proprietors of the cafe altered the old cottage and replaced the bathhouses with an open beer garden.
The electric railroad on the left ran from Cape May Point to Sewell's Point along the boardwalk and on the beach, and was eventually extended to Schellinger's Landing in 1913. The boardwalk arches were illuminated with electric lights and extended the entire length of the old wooden boardwalk until the early 1920s.
The boardwalk was destroyed by the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, rebuilt and destroyed again by the Great Atlantic Storm of 1962. It was then replaced with a macadam seawall still referred to by the locals as the "boardwalk."
Emil Salvini
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