Explosives!

Fireworks display from July 5th. Bradley Beach and Asbury Park ended up doing their fireworks on the same night! My mother and I headed down to the Ocean Grove fishing pier (what’s left of it) to watch the Bradley fireworks at 9:00, and then turned around to watch the Asbury fireworks at 9:30. I never get tired of photographing explosives!

I don’t feel like/ have time to do a lot of editing, so I’m just gonna crop and resize and post a whole bunch of my favorites. (I won’t even STRAIGHTEN them. Yeah I KNOW. The AUDACITY, the ARROGANCE.)

Oh hey, P.S., I have an Instagram account, which is where I’m uploading casual snapshots these days. Follow me there for updates more often than once a year! (Side note: I have wayyyy too much fun with filters.)

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Better bring your beach pass

But you can dip your toes in the water for free before 9am or after 5pm!

New boards

Did I mention that they’ve rebuilt the Asbury Park boardwalk near the casino? I probably did.

Also: I just discovered last month that those funny bicycle-cars are called “surreys.”

But yeah, new construction, totally.

Still here

As promised, the inside of the Asbury Park casino was cleared out and reopened as a pedestrian throughway in time for Memorial Day.

Memorial Day crowds

Memorial Day weekend on the Jersey Shore! Time for everyone to put Sandy behind them and start enjoying the unofficial start of summer!

Unfortunately, the unofficial start of summer has been about 55F at best. Nobody wants to lay out in weather like that.

Today, at least, the sun is out; it’s been rainy and overcast for the past two days. But all the boardwalkers and joggers are dressed in sweatshirts, long pants, fleece jackets, gloves. It’s not beach weather.

Lining up to buy beach passes in Asbury Park

Shore towns have pushed themselves to rebuild hurriedly, to be ready for tourists and beachgoers and commerce-bringers at the beginning of the summer season… and the summer season comes with a tiny fizzle.

Well. Shore towns will have the rest of the summer to catch up, I hope.

Beached

For Mother’s Day, we took my mother for a walk in Ocean Grove (with a quick jaunt into Asbury Park). I hadn’t been this close to the Casino since before Sandy.

They’ve cleaned up the rest of the area pretty well, so the lifesaving boat was likely dragged and intentionally placed here recently. I guess it’s one of those icons of Sandy, a reminder, a curiosity we can show the kids.

Playing in the trashed Asbury Park lifesaving boat.

Just this past week, a brand new 8-foot wide asphalt path was laid between the end of the Ocean Grove boardwalk and the Asbury Park Casino, making that area accessible again.

January 2013— After the boardwalk was destroyed by Sandy, the only access to the Casino from Ocean Grove was by walking across dunes.

The Casino serves as the bridge across Deal Lake between Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, linking the two boardwalks. The structure itself is still fenced off, but sources say that it’ll be open for Memorial Day.

Peeking over the fence into the Asbury Park Casino, May 2013; this will all be cleaned up in two weeks

Currently, people can get from Asbury Park into Ocean Grove by detouring around the Casino onto the beach (which probably won’t work after Memorial Day, when you have to start paying for beach access).

Side of Asbury Park Casino, 2011

The sand drops off into the ocean right about where the old demolished Casino foundations end, so circumnavigating this area isn’t entirely safe anyway, but it’s our only option at the moment. Here’s hoping for better access in two weeks!

Groynes

My mother tells me those rocky things on the beach that we’ve always called “jetties” are technically called “groynes.”

“Jetties” are found in pairs, while “groynes” can function individually. (I’m sure it’s much more complicated than that.)

But sheez Louise, when you talk about groins on the beach, rock structures aren’t what come to MY mind… but hey, to each his own.

Paramount sunset

When I began extending my radius-of-photography to include more of New Jersey, I figured this would allow me to pull from my years of archival photographs from the Jersey Shore (and elsewhere) when I was running low on local New Providence photos.

Unfortunately, as I look through my years of archival photographs from the Jersey Shore, I realize I haven’t been to most of those shore areas since Sandy, and I have no idea whether or not the subject of my photo is still there or not.

I have, however, been to Asbury Park’s Convention Hall/ Paramount Theater/ Grand Arcade recently, and I can confirm that the building is still standing.

Asbury Park even still has a boardwalk to the north! (not shown in this photo, but trust me, it’s there.)

(Image originally posted at Monmouth County Daily Photo.)

Polar bears!

I went down to Asbury Park today, to participate in the 49th annual Polar Bear Races. They didn’t get any snow on the shore!

Due to boardwalk construction, runners found out upon arrival that the 5-mile race had been changed to a 5K, which was two miles shorter than we’d been prepared for. Oh well.

The weather wasn’t great (sunny but freezing [30-35 F], with ~30mph gusts of wind, which made it hard to [a] breathe and [b] run against headwinds), and [insert a bazillion other excuses here], so I didn’t do very well (two full minutes slower than my last 5K!). Oh well.

But SOME of these runners are REALLY hardcore, and took a Polar Bear dip in the ocean after the race.

NUTS, I tell you.

Across Deal Lake

Though its boardwalk sustained some damage (I’m told; the cops chased me away when I tried to get a look for myself), the city of Asbury Park is still generally standing. Just a confirmation.