Seaside Heights Off The Beaten Path

Holly, on the right, is a Genuine Article Jersey Girl. Damn proud of it, too. She's with Robbie from some mid-west place, best I can tell. He didn't know his Boardwalk from a Taffy Pull! They were fun to have around, however.

More history! In 1913, Seaside Heights was incorporated as a borough formed from sections of Berkeley and Dover townships.

Investor and manufacturer Christian Hiering played a key role in nourishing this newborn borough. In 1913, Hiering started the Barnegat Power and Cold Storage Company bringing electricity to Seaside Heights for the first time.

Besides the beaches, the Seaside Heights boardwalk is the main attraction.
During the winter months you will find arcades, and pubs open. There is a calm and casual atmosphere. Some boardwalk attractions may be open depending on the weather. In the summer months, everything is open and geared for the crowds. The boardwalk consists of many wheels of chance where prizes range from small stuffed animals to TV's, bicycles, and scooters. Aroma from the many pizza shops, sausage stands, and cotton candy machines tempt every body's taste buds-including the Seagulls!

Seaside Heights Employs some of the top lifeguards to be found anywhere. Individual lifeguard towers are spread out the entire length. Beach goers can find surf conditions marked by flags flying. One thing unique you will find in the sand in Seaside Heights is environmental advertising from a local entrepreneur. The sand is sculpted each day into a billboard. Don't worry about walking on and over the sculpting, it is replaced each day!

Seaside Heights Beaches are all public and are open throughout the season. Public Access can be found almost each block and badges can be purchased for the day. Come early to claim your spot for the day! Enjoy a book while relaxing to the fresh ocean breeze.

Fun-seeking visitors come from beyond the metropolitan NY-NJ and Philadelphia areas to spend a day, week or more enjoying the entertainment-filled boardwalk, the amusement piers, water park and the spectrum of ocean and bay swimming, boating, fishing, crabbing and other water sports. And of course, the hand-held foods as well as the fine restaurants. It's all centered in Seaside Heights.

It was also Tunney who led the fight for boardwalk expansion back in the 1940s. He knew it was the key to community growth. As a result of lengthening the boardwalk along the entire oceanfront, new homes, hotels and motels were built. Summer residents, renters and vacationers followed.

The efforts to get the new bridge were spearheaded by determined Seaside Heights residents, including Joseph Stanley Tunney who served the community as mayor for nearly 25 years. (It is for Tunney that a second bridge, one that now carries visitors from the shore back to the mainland, was named.)

I wish there was a train from NY that reached Seaside Heights. There isn't! Strolling along the boardwalk was a success from the beginning. It's reported that in 1917 the Pennsylvania Railroad had to send a special 12-car train to get Philadelphia visitors back home. Today's day-trippers flood in from North Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania via freeways and toll roads all feeding into the $6 million Thomas A. Mathis Bridge, which replaced the narrow wooden bridge back in 1950.