Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is my first round-up post about our summer days here in New Jersey. Our time here started a bit early (my friend who cares for the New Jersey cats went to Jamaica for a few weeks) with Kim working here and me commuting. Our two weeks of real vacation wraps tomorrow when we head back to Manhattan – again a bit early to accommodate Kim’s gig speaking at the Library of Congress and then SPX the second week in September. I will need to travel back to New Jersey in late September or early October if I want to see the last of my dahlias bloom however – several have stuck stalwartly to buds only.

Last weekend I seized the opportunity for Kim and I to grab a ride with a friend to Asbury Park. Kim had never been and I had investigated and found a few junk stores potentially worth checking out there. The Asbury of my childhood has receded almost entirely into the background of pricey new condos, townhouses and shore hotels superimposed on it.

We didn’t go to Asbury, or its kissing cousin across the lake Ocean Grove often (or nearly often enough for me), as a kid. I remember going to a doctor there and also a sort of girl scout outing there. We were taken to the amusement pier for a bit although it was largely closed down. (The other feature of that day is we made candles – I have no memory of exactly how all this matched up.) Seeing the pier and the then defunct Merry-Go-Round, lives in memory however and I always itched to go back but it was a little too far and a bit too rough around the edges for my folks to bother taking us. Somehow by the time I was in high school my crowd wasn’t one for going to the Stone Pony and we never got in the habit of going down there.

Kim is still recovering his distance walking and I wasn’t sure how much we could cover of the pier on this hot day, so we started at a smattering of junk and vintage clothing stores (and one rather superior used comics store), in a little downtown area with a larger antique annex next to it. After Kim bought some paperbacks at the comics store, we wandered to the annex. It is one largeish floor. The pickings seemed a bit thin at first but somehow as always, we came away with some interesting bits including this rather lovely plate of Psyche (shown here) and some Bakelite forks and spoons for the apartment in Manhattan. Kim came away with several Gene Autry novels he regrets buying. (He does not appear to regret the paperbacks however.)

While we looked for a place to eat lunch we stumbled on a photo booth, and I insisted that we take photos. They are catnip for me; I can’t pass one without stopping.

Views of the pizza place and a period movie theater playing revivals.

We wandered a bit more and I saw a pizza place in a rather extraordinary old building and snapped these pics. However, in the end we decided on Mexican food. (This has been a bit of a theme for this vacation – we’ve eaten a lot of good Mexican food. Many Mexicans have settled in the area and there is no shortage of great places in Red Bank as well as this one in Asbury.)

Close to a train station, Asbury Park has clearly become a spot for day trippers and weekenders coming for a shore weekend even as their great grandparents may have. Every shop carries copious copies of Weird New Jersey magazine and absolutely every place is playing Bruce Springsteen – the ultimate in native son made good. We visited a shop that appears to specialize in occult publications – Bruce playing there as well (is it one loop somehow piped into all the shops?) but they had a very impressive Zoltar fortune telling machine which I gave a shot for a quarter.

After lunch we walked to the boardwalk. Despite it being the afternoon and sunny, a breeze found its way, off the ocean or the small lake, which made it a pleasant walk. Asbury is beach and the ocean on one side and what they call lakes (small fingers of water) on the other two sides. Old pedestrian walkway bridges, as well as roads, cross them and this feature also always stuck with me from childhood. My grandmother’s preferred, red church was on the outskirts of one side, closer to her home in Long Branch and the town of Ocean Grove is to the south.

Some views of the old buildings in a state of decay or being repaired?

We walked along the south lake to the boardwalk and examined some of the old buildings, in various states of disrepair, there without making it all the way up to the original pier and bathing pavilion which appears to also be the process of renovation.

Heading back to where we were being picked up we walked along the Ocean Grove side. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the area, Ocean Grove is a Methodist camp founded in 1869. Maintained impeccably as a Victorian architecture gem and historic site, with its summer tent inhabitants, has held a dual fascination for the area which I have never had sufficient opportunity to explore. We could see old hotels on the ocean front, still in use, with wide porches with views that must incorporate sea and town in all directions.

In my mind these two towns have had a sort of remarkable Cain and Abel existence all these years. Cheek to jowl, the religious community which doesn’t even allow cars to drive through it on Sunday is a stone’s throw from the music venues and biker bars (we only saw one biker bar while we were there although my guess is that there are still a number of them tucked away) of Asbury. One can’t help but wonder how many Ocean Grove inhabitants sneaked quikely across the river on a Friday or Saturday night in summer for a different kind of fun.