24 December 2024

Scenes from the Pine Barrens and Asbury Park

I grew up on the Jersey Shore, living in Forked River until I graduated college. My parents moved a town over to Whiting not long after, where my grandparents were living in a retirement home. The nearby town of Toms River was the destination for shopping back then; both my parents worked there, and we had family there, too.

I finally got around to reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin, which is about the cancer cluster that formed in the 1990s possibly due to chemical dumping in the area. I was a teenager when the events described in the book were happening, and as such didn’t pay much attention to what was going on. It was fascinating to read about it as an adult, though. The egregious dumping of chemicals in and around the town was really stunning to learn about, especially the Superfund site on a farm that I’d never even heard about!

To lighten the mood, I also read Jon Bon Jovi : How a Kid from New Jersey Became a Rock ‘n’ Roll Legend. Bon Jovi was from Perth Amboy, just outside of NYC, but spent a lot of time in the Asbury Park music scene. I was never a big fan in particular (though I remember my girlfriend Susan was over the moon about him!). Unlike when I re-listened to Bruce Springsteen, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bon Jovi’s music was really quite good!

The majestic convention hall on the boardwalk has hosted both Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, as well as Jersey native Frank Sinatra.
A beautiful Beaux-Arts building, the Asbury Park Casino and Carousel House now sits vacant on the boardwalk.
Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage, among other books and stories, lived in Asbury Park from 1883 to 1892. I had no idea!
We walked over to Ocean Grove to see The Great Auditorium, which was built in 1894 as part of the Methodist summer camp that has existed here for more than 150 years (which I also had no idea about). There is still a community of tent homes surrounding the large central wooden auditorium.
Cedar Bridge Tavern in Barnegat Township contains the oldest surviving standing bar in the U.S. Built in the 1740s, it was a waypoint between the Jersey Shore and Camden, N.J., (which used to be a hot spot) and Philadelphia, Pa. It’s now a historic site, so no beer for Doug.
But here’s the thing! Cedar Bridge Tavern is also the site of the last skirmish of the American Revolution! What?! Right here in the middle of the Pine Barrens — again, I had no idea!
The fire tower at Apple Pie Hill sits atop the highest point in the Pine Barrens at 209 feet! What a hike!
There are so many ruins to be found in the Pine Barrens (and lots of other things too, like dead bodies a la The Sopranos and the Jersey Devil). The Brooksbrae Brick Factory from the early 1900s is now a haven for graffiti artists, and we saw some at work while we were there!
Memorial to Emilio Carranza, “the Lindbergh of Mexico”. His plane crashed in the Pine Barrens in 1928 while on a goodwill flight from Mexico City to DC to NYC.

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