Asbury Park Things to Do

The Stone Pony looks like any roadside bar in the United States but is unquestionably one of the world's most revered rock music venues. Originally constructed as a biker Beer garden with occasional live band performances, Mrs. Jay's was forced out of business over the issure of see-through blouses on the waitresses. With the downfall and racial riots soon to follow, the building lay empty until the Stone Pony opened in 1974. State of the art sound and light equipment brought many top flight bands here as well as many future stars to be including a young Jon Bon Jovi.
Asbury's downward spiral forced closure of the club at least twice in the 1990's. Re-opened in 2000, it was rebuilt as it originally appeared with top flight equipment and today attracts both touring rock bands of modest repute as well as local bands. The musical boundaries have widened considerably - a recent top flight appearance was the Tony Tryschka band, one of my favorite bluegrass bands.

Since 2000, the new management has become extremely active in the community. It has a small museum of old artifacts, and is involved in chairtable causes including world hunger, local food drives, and supporting young musical acts and musical education.

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The 180 room Metropolitan Hotel is a classic example of the upscale ornate hotels located within two blocks of the boardwalk and beach. This Spanish style building with an attached motel unit was one of the last large facilities to close, finally, in 1989. The ornate style includes Doric columns and both external and internal porches, and a large central pavilion. Sold in 1987 for $2.25 million dollars, the more recent sale price by a bank after foreclosure was only $10,500 -- for a piece of prime real estate. The city of Asbury Park refused an offer several years ago to create a home for the welfare population and this remarkable building remains shuttered and boarded up, a sad reminder of former glories. Now owned by the city, its status as a landmark prevents destruction of the outer walls. The city has offered the building for sale for over 2 million dollars - understandably, there has been no interest.

2008 Update - the hulk of the Metropolitan is no more. Despite heritage status, the building has been levelled by the development company and remaining is yet another vacant lot with debris.

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The mile-long boardwalk between the North End and Ocean Grove has been reconstructed with re-opening of the long closed segment through the Casino at the south end. Grass no longer grows through the cracks and the wood segments are no longer rotted. Previously lined end to end with food stands including the famous Kohl's custard, games of chance with wheels of fortune, and arcades with pinball machines and skeeball, the modern boardwalk
is mostly lined by shuttered decrepit stalls and empty spaces. But some changes for the better have occured.

Howard Johnson's circular restaurant has been re-opened under new manangement and some of the older stands have also re-opened with souvenier stores and fast-food places. On selected weekends, vendors offer from their tents art work mostly reminiscent of the past. Walkers and joggers fill the boards in the morning hours, but during peak hours the magnificent boards are half-deserted. Even the mediocre miniature golf course is again available.

The included images are of the boards, with images of the old shuttered stands and the vast and empty spaces fronting the ocean waiting for the rebirth of Asbury.

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Asbury's long white sandy beach will remain one of the main attractions for all time - clean, wide, and well-maintained. For the first time in years, lounges and umbrellas can be rented at the stairs down from the boardwalk. On shore breezes are delightful along the Jersey coastline and the beach used to be jammed with families and young people. Today the beach is as beautiful as ever, but the infrastructure has disintegrated. There are, sadly, no showers and no changing facilities or lockers. The few open restaurants and stores limit their bathroom facilities to paying customers. And for the entire mile-plus length, the only public bathrooms are in one trailer on the boardwalk. Not hooked up to the sewer system, it is basically a large port-a-john. Parking years ago was in fairly expensive lots 2 blocks off the beach. Today, one can park at meters on Ocean Avenue or for free perhaps half a block inland without any difficulty at all. The latest rebirth of Asbury will require a crowded beach and boardwalk but the lack of basic amenities cannot work in its favor. These images give an idea of how deserted the beach can be on a summer Saturday afternoon.

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Casino refers to a gathering place or place of entertainment and in the glory years of Asbury this remarkable building fit the description perfectly. There has actually never been gambling in Asbury. The original Casino from the early 1900's was replaced by this Warren and Wetmore plan in 1929 after a major fire and housed some of Asbury's greatest attractions. The famed Carousel 87 was a great merry-go-round, the prancing hand-painted wooden (and later fibreglass) horses carrying laughing children including my own. Strange images surrounded on the glass windows of the roundhouse like bizarre Medusa figures. The fun house, the Mad-O-Rama dark ride, the Skeeball arcade. It was here, in Kevin Smith's famous movie Dogma that God as an old man went to play skeeball and was mugged on the adjacent boardwalk. The Casino was also used in Robert DeNiro's movie City by the Sea as a stand-in for a fallen Long Beach NY which is not. There was even an ice-skating rink, along with the usual t-shirt and fast food stands, a mirror maze and a fun house barrel.
The boardwalk through the Casino has been re-opened in the last few years allowing access to Ocean Grove but the Casino remains totally fenced and barricaded both outside and inside. The damaged roof and busted windows are unfixed as the building decays through planned neglect. The exterior, especially around the carousel, however, remains a Deco masterpiece and a symbol of the Jersey Shore.

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This venerable bar and music venue on Ocean Avenue near the north end has featured over the years many well-known rock musicians. Originally famous for having "the mile-long bar" around the periphery, it achieved real fame after the demolition of Palace Amusements in 2004. The previously white building was painted pale green in the style of the amusement hall and an image of Asbury's iconic Tilly was painted literally overnight.

The face of Tillie on the Palace Amusement outer wall was the face of Asbury - a demonically smiling old-time face welcoming visitors to the rides and attractions in a bygone era, mine. The new owners of the Wonderbar will not volunteer that the image is not the original, but the true Tillie is in storage. The exterior of the building is a New Jersey Heritage site.

Like the Stone Pony, the Wonderbar serves a short greasy lunch menu with all the usual suspects. On selected nights, local and third rate travelling rock bands bring small audiences for the music and Miller Lite beer by the pitcher. In the past, some notable acts have appeared here and Bruce Springsteen was an occasional unannouced visitor, but the highlight of this year is a one night only visit on Labor Day weekend of Gary (US) Bonds, tickets $20.

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The most famous of Asbury Park's hotels was the Berkeley Carteret, located just across Ocean Avenue from the Convention Center and Paramount Theatre and connected by a second story bridge. Originally built in the 1920's, it was designed as a luxury hotel to serve "all the best people" and it did. In my memory, it was the hotel - convention center combination that hosted many state wide conventions for Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, Political Parties, given Asbury's midpoint location between north and south New Jersey. A large facility, it had decorous ballrooms and over 250 rooms. After the decay and race riots of the 1970's the hotel fell into disrepair and ruin. It has been rebought and resold and renovated many times. Over $20 million was sunk into the hotel in the mid-1980's and in 1989 the Paramount and the hotel hosted the premiere of Asbury Park native Danny DeVito's film "Throw Momma from the Train". Again in 2007, recently purchased for $34 million, it is undergoing yet another total renovation. Notice on the images the absent windows as the two north wings are gutted.

While built under totally separate ownerships, the Paramount and the Berkeley Carteret have very similar exteriors, quite harmonious. Red brick, with white, copper green, tan, and sky blue was the dominant color scheme for town.
Of interest, during WWII the hotel stayed alive by housing thousand of naval personnel from the British Navy.

This latest renovation, like so many earlier, depends on the revitalization of Asbury Park as a major shore destination. A risky investment, based on history.

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The over the top tower just south of the Casino is one of the tallest buildings on the boardwalk. It is currently totally shuttered and barricaded and gives no evidence as to its function. The strange architecture draws all sorts of guesses about its former life, but the rather mundane answer is - the boilers and heaters for the Casino were housed here. In order to keep open as long as possible the Casino, which was at least in part open to the elements, required a lot of heating.