Category: Down the Shore Newsletter

It may finally be decision time in Ocean City for the site of the former Wonderland Pier at 600 Boardwalk. It’s been nearly two years since the beloved amusement park owned by Mayor Jay Gillian shut down.

Eustace Mita, the developer who proposed a luxury hotel with a seashore theme anchored by Gillian’s old carousel and Ferris wheel and maybe a kiddie ride or two, told me he’s in the dark about what will happen. The Icona developer has turned his attention to other things lately, he says, like building a Soul Sanctuary Catholic retreat on the grounds of a once-notorious abbey in County Cavan, Ireland.

Closer to home, Ocean City’s City Council is scheduled to vote Thursday evening on whether to designate the Wonderland site is in need of rehabilitation, a designation Mita has been seeking that would then allow a negotiation with Council over zoning and other matters (the Boardwalk is not zoned for a hotel).

The council hired a planner to come up with a report, which pretty much said what an earlier report said: that there is justification for such a designation “to prevent further underutilization and deterioration of the Property and to encourage redevelopment of the Property.”

The city’s planning board in January deadlocked on a recommendation and punted the topic back to Council.

There are a lot of strong feelings about this in town, though the Save Wonderland movement seems to have resigned itself to the idea that an amusement park is probably no longer in the site’s future.

Council is expecting a big crowd and has moved the 6 p.m. meeting to the City’s Music Pier. Stay tuned.

📮 Is it time for Ocean City to move ahead with the hotel plan at 600 Boardwalk? Is it time for another idea? Let me know what you think by replying to this email.

Have ideas or news tips about the Shore or this newsletter? Send them to me here.

🌤️ It’s quite lovely out there. Hope it lasts. The recent spate of land breeze days that left the beach a bit suffocating and ocean water temps plunging was not that great.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Find me at @amysrosenberg. 📷 Follow me on Insta at @amysrosenberg. 📧 Email me here.)

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

Shore talk

🚲 New Jersey says it is now taking appointments for people to get their e-bikes registered, as a new law requires (though not of Pennsylvanians). Read more about the confusing law here.

🚨 An Atlantic City police officer who was shot in the femoral artery, then saved during surgery at the city’s emergency room, was released from the hospital as hundreds gathered.

👰‍♀️ Taylor Swift may have other ideas than Sea Isle City for Jason and Kylie Kelce over July 4 weekend.

🐢 Diamondback terrapins are trying to find suitable nesting spots and are crossing busy Shore roads, especially causeways and blocks near the bay. Please watch out for them!

🤍 A plane took off from Ocean City’s airport and crashed on its way back to Maryland, killing its three occupants.

👑 Egg Harbor Township wrestling alum and Preps Pizza employee Kylie Wright was crowned Miss New Jersey.

🏀 Margate’s favorite basketball superstar, Jalen Brunson, celebrated Father’s Day with brunch at Steve & Cookie’s. His wife, Ali Marks Brunson, is teaching (sold-out) workout classes in Ocean City.

What to eat/What to do

🎡 Go to a pretend Shore Boardwalk at Six Flags.

🏁 Watch Atlantic City’s offshore powerboat high-speed Grand Prix.

📖 Read Brother Epistles, by Shore resident Shanda McManus, a memoir of her brother’s Christmas Eve 1992 shooting death in Philly. McManus talks here about holding joy and grief on the same page.

🫐 Savor South Jersey’s amazing blueberries here.

✈️ Fly direct from Atlantic City to Vero Beach on newly announced flights from Breeze Airways.

🍗 Check out the new New Jersey Black Heritage Trail marker commemorating Chicken Bone Beach in Atlantic City, and the city’s new Black Cultural Heritage Tour.

🏖️ Spend a perfect weekend on 7 Mile Island.

🇺🇸 Indulge in a Mino’s Bakery strawberry shortcake (red, white) and the iconic blueberry pie (blue) at Ventnor’s 7311 and get ready for fireworks.

Shore snapshot

🧠 Trivia time

The pizza magnate whose family owns half of Ocean Casino is now buying the entire pie, and will be sole owner of one of Atlantic City’s most successful casinos.

Which pizza company is it?

A. Lorenzo’s

B. Domino’s

C. Tony’s Baltimore Grill

D. Little Caesars

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out.

Ask Down the Shore: Avoiding traffic

A reader wrote: “Friday used to be the heavy traffic day from Philadelphia to the shore on the Expressway. Now the congestion seems to start as early as noon on Thursday and continues straight through Friday night.”

We turned to our Shore Line group chat (join us here!) and asked: Which is the best window to drive to the Shore?

Here are some replies:

• I go down, believe best time is at 5:30-6 am or after 7 on Friday, still light out at both times, don’t like to drive when dark.
• Here’s my solution to avoiding heavy traffic to and from the shore. Go down on Wednesday before MDW and come back on Wednesday after LDW (it helps to be retired!).
• I work in Center City so I leave after work on Friday’s typically. Hit the road around 5:30, use Ben Franklin. Then on the way to the AC, 42 is a parking lot! Anymore, I’m thinking early morning Thursday or Friday before 8 a.m.? Just a guess.
• No window is better than another — I gave up and moved to the shore.

Have another Shore dilemma? Or an opinion on traffic? Let us know what you think by replying to this email.

Your Shore memory

I’ve been talking to a lot of people about changes in Sea Isle City for an upcoming story, and Diana Dougherty shared these reminiscences of the old days:

My husband was an altar boy at St. Joe’s. When we got married, we started renting for a couple weeks every year with in-laws, wonderful times, low key restaurants, crowds not as bad, felt safe, no issue with teenagers. Now it’s all changed in maybe last 20-25 years. We finally build our own house in 1985. It looks like a tiny house to what is now. Miss my beloved place, but will never sell and just redid inside.

Send us your Shore memory in 200 words! Tell us how the Shore taps into something deep for you, and we will publish them in this space during the summer.

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One Friday afternoon recently, I was in Wildwood on deadline for a story. Famished, with three dollar bills in my pocket, I went over to the Snow White restaurant on the boardwalk and asked for french fries. Alas, it was cash-only, and $3 was not going to get me french fries. But I was offered their $1 hotdog, complete with mustard and sauerkraut. It is a nostalgia-fueled menu item, they said, befitting a family-owned joint that opened in the 1940s. I left a $2 tip.

So look, it’s possible to eat cheap at the Jersey Shore.

It’s also possible to go a little nuts. Rory Tees, a faithful reader, urged me to go to the new Lighthouse Kitchen and Cafe on Pacific Avenue in Wildwood, where he said he’d ordered a $16 omelet and then was charged a la carte for home fries and toast, making the total for two people close to $60. But that seems to have been an opening week glitch because when I went, my $16 Greek omelet included potatoes (thin discs that looked like potato chips but were soft inside) and toast. The menu does say the omelets come with toast and home fries. The cup of coffee, which the server explained came from hand-harvested and hand-roasted beans sourced from the owner’s mother’s farm in Chiapas, Mexico, was $4 — and I’d argue worth every penny. They refilled my cup for free. There are cheaper spots in Wildwood, but it was a delicious meal and a classy (bougie?) treat right there on resurgent Pacific Avenue. I wish them well.

Anyway, I let Rory know he might be entitled to a refund on his a la carte potatoes and toast, but there is still some truth to his experience in Wildwood and elsewhere down the Shore. “I hate that the Wildwoods are becoming unaffordable with the influx of new money,” Rory wrote.

My colleague Michaelle Bond writes this week that starter homes in these 10 Jersey Shore towns average $1 million and up: Avalon, Stone Harbor, Strathmere, Cape May Point, and five of Long Beach Island’s six towns: Harvey Cedars, Barnegat Light, Long Beach Township, Surf City, and Beach Haven.

Meanwhile, I leveled up and had a hot dog in Margate for $13 this week, albeit one topped with mustard, relish, peppers, onions, pickle, celery salt, and tomato. It’s at the new Dock’s Dogs, run by Hillary Bor, the former owner of Philly’s acclaimed but now-closed Pumpkin BYOB. Bor is now a year-round Shore resident and she and her boyfriend, Tim Nedzwecky, have brought a casual sunset vibe to the bay, complete with music jams on Wednesdays and a spectacular view. There’s a crab cake version of a hot dog ($22), and non-dog chicken and egg salad options. Look for my story on the Bor’s new Shore venture.

📮 Are you a $1 or $13 hot dog person? Any hidden gems or other ways to eat cheaply at the Jersey Shore? Send tips here, and I’ll include some responses in a future newsletter. Have ideas or news tips about the Shore or this newsletter? Send them to me here.

🌤️ Weekend looks mostly lovely, with a bit of a cooling trend.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Follow me @amysrosenberg or on Instagram at @amysrosenberg. 📧 Email me here.)

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

Shore talk

🦪 Dylan Dreyer and Al Roker of NBC’s Today Show were visiting Atlantic City this week for a feature set to air , June 23, in the third hour, including a visit to Dock’s Oyster House. They also wound up at Lucy the Elephant.

💔 Cape May’s Sincere Rhea, a former track and field hurdler standout, is still in the thick of the drama on Peacock’s Love Island USA. His mother has thoughts.

📱 Neighbors are upset about a proposed 125-foot cell tower in the 3300 block of Bay Avenue in Ocean City.

🚧 Bart Blatstein has big plans for A.C.’s Garden Pier, portions of which he has leveled.

🇭🇹 Les Grenadiers, the World Cup team from Haiti that is based in Atlantic City, are looking for the big upset against Brazil in Philadelphia on Friday.

🪼 Researchers are cautioning about clinging jellyfish at the Shore.

What to eat/What to do

🏈 June 24 begins the Kelce takeover in Sea Isle in service of the Eagles Autism Foundation.

🎤 Meek Mill is performing Saturday at Boardwalk Hall.

🙌🏿 The African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey has a full Juneteenth lineup of speakers, tributes, music, food, vendors, and story telling. Ubunto the Community is hosting a Juneteenth cookout in Oscar McClinton Park in the inlet in Atlantic City.

👣 The Barefoot Country Music festival comes to Wildwood this weekend. Headliners include Post Malone, Miranda Lambert, Shaboozey, Eric Church, and Kelsea Ballerini.

🏖️ Caesars’ new oceanfront Beach Club is opening on Friday.

🛝 Beach Haven’s new all-inclusive playground at Nelson Avenue Park is open.

Shore snapshot

🧠 Trivia time

Two New Jersey beaches made an Island.com list of the nine cleanest beaches in America. One was Point Pleasant Beach in Ocean County. The other was a beach from Cape May County.

Was it:

A. Stone Harbor

B. Wildwood Crest

C. Cape May

D. Avalon

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out.

Ask Down the Shore

We asked our Shore Line group chat whether it’s OK to reserve spots early on the beach by setting up chairs and a canopy. The results are in! (Join our chat here.)

The majority of people responding were fine with it, while 15% wanted to see some consideration on how much space was taken up. But 30% of you thought it was a breach of etiquette.

Here’s a sampling:

Yes, good for them for motivating early in the day!

I hate when people do that. And 9 times out of 10 when they do it, they are obnoxiously large reservations. Putting up multiple beach cabanas, etc.

It depends on how long they’ve been gone. If they don’t show up for an hour, you could just fold their stuff up in a nice little pile. I’d be okay with that.

No problem with that at all. But those people can’t get upset if another group sets up close to them in their absence.

Have your own thought on this topic? Other etiquette questions you’d like us to tackle? Let us know here.

Your Shore memory

Ernie Russom, of Highland Park, Pa., and Wildwood Crest, texted us this memory:

Around 1991 or 1992, we would bring our now soon-to-be 38-year-old son to the beach at the end of our street in Wildwood Crest. The beach was expansive. Nearly as wide as they are today. We wanted a way for him to know where we were on the beach. I sectioned and used a 12-foot pvc pipe as a flag pole. Back then, we were the only flag flying in our immediate area. Our flag was for his safety.

Today, our 12-foot pole is dwarfed by the 15-to-20-foot telescoping aluminum flag poles. The large number of flags flying resemble tailgating outside of a college football game. We now have a telescoping pole with a unique flag of the day. Our flag is a marker that tells us how far up or down beach the ocean currents have taken us while we are enjoying the surf. It also is the maker of today’s “home base” at the beach.

Send us your Shore memory! In 200 words, tell us how the Shore taps into something deep for you, and we will publish them in this space during the summer.

By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

In Sea Isle City this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was hard at work on a last-minute-funded beach replenishment project. The project will go into the summer, which is going to annoy everyone. From there, the Army Corps will head to Avalon and Stone Harbor. Ocean City is also being replenished on its north end. Together, the projects will cost $56.9 million, with about 5 million total cubic yards of sand being dredged from the ocean and brought to the beaches, the Army Corps says.

The urgency of the beach replenishment was at odds with Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s recent one-year delay for new rules that would require new homes, and those being substantially improved, to be built 4 feet above current FEMA elevation standards in expanded state flood and coastal zones. That’s on top of earlier FEMA requirements that caused houses rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy to be raised, in some cases by 14 feet, to better guard against damage from increasing flooding.

The regulations, known as the Resilient Environments and Landscape (REAL) rules, were adopted on the last day of Gov. Phil Murphy’s term and set to go into effect July 20, over objections from builders, business groups, and elected officials. The decision to wait a year was denounced by environmentalists.

“There is no more time to lose,” said Anjuli Ramos-Busot, citing sunny day flooding down the Shore. “New Jerseyans are at risk, property is at risk.”

The state said it will now be taking the year to reconsider and listen to public comment. What do you think? Let us know.

In other news, Margate has a favorite son in the NBA finals: Knicks superstarJalen Brunson, who according to property records and local scuttlebutt, likes to pop into Aversa’s for a turkey hoagie, tool to the Wawa in a golf cart, play mini golf, and visit his spacious new-construction $7 million home a block from the beach. Earlier this spring, while the Knicks were making quick work of the Sixers, Steve & Cookie’s hosted a dinner for Brunson and his teammates, and there have been past sightings at local basketball courts.

My colleague Alex Coffey, meanwhile, writes that another Nova Knick, Mikal Bridges, made his mom’s predictions come true with a Shore house in Avalon.

📮 Do you want to see new building rules for Shore flood zones? Did the proposed rules go too far or is that what’s needed to deal with sea level rise?

Let me know what you think by replying to this email, and I’ll include the most interesting responses in a future newsletter. (See below for your thoughts on who gets to be a local.)

Have ideas or news tips about the Shore or this newsletter? Send them to me here.

⛈️ Beaches were packed last weekend with the hot weather, and the steamy weather will continue this weekend.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Find me at @amysrosenberg, or on Instagram 📷 at @amysrosenberg. 📧 Email me here.)

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

Shore talk

🇭🇹 Les Grenadiers, the World Cup team from Haiti, landed at the Atlantic City Airport and settled in at its base camp at Stockton University. Chef Jackie Jean of A.C.’s Gouté Créole, which made Craig LaBan’s top 25 Shore restaurants last summer, told Fox29 he was “overwhelmed” at the chance to cook some Haitian specialties for the team. Jonathan Tannenwald profiled Haiti team member and Penn grad Duke Lacrois, a native of Ocean County. And columnist Sabrina Vourvoulias writes about the joy felt by Philly’s local Haitian community. Haiti plays Brazil in Philly on June 19.

💰 The privately owned Margate Bridge is increasing its tolls June 16.

💔 The mother of Davoris Carter III wants answers after her 14-year-old son went missing in the ocean in Wildwood while on a field trip.

🔊 Neighbors are complaining about decibel levels from the Oar House in Sea Isle.

🔊 Wildwood added commercial properties to its noise ordinance.

What to eat/What to do

🇧🇷 Check out some Brazilian street food and ambiance in West Cape May’s DeckSide Boteco.

🥙 Craig LaBan is still savoring the grill platter and pan-Middle Eastern flavors of Ruhani Kitchen on the Black Horse Pike.

🚒 Ocean City is hosting the Emergency Responder 5K on June 13.

🐢 Avalon’s upgraded Bay Park Marina, compete with a “turtle retention barrier,” is officially open.

🎡 Hear the final report about the future of the Ocean City boardwalk at 6 p.m. at the Tabernacle on June 12.

⛯ Is Wildwood’s Pacific Avenue getting some love? The folks at the new Lighthouse Kitchen and Cafe are all in.

🍩 Federal Donuts opened a store at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.

Shore snapshot

Your thoughts on: Who’s a local

There were plenty of opinions about who gets to call themselves a local, and how long the process takes. (Is there a tribunal in the back of Robert’s in Margate where such decisions are made?)

Here’s a sampling:

Susan Wessel: I am a transplant to the Jersey shore myself. Born and raised in Philly. I have never and will never consider myself a local even though through the past 43 years I’ve lived in Barnegat, Manahawkin, Brant Beach and Galloway.

Tom DeAngelo: I live & work in North Cape May for 36 years. My native Cape May friends say I can call myself “A local” but never “a native.” My 3 children were born in Philly. All my grand kids are born here. Native? Local? It’s all very confusing!!!

Brian Steiner: As far as I’m concerned, anyone who pays property taxes is a local. PS… We should get free beach tags.

Mary DeCotiis: I am truly from the shore. I was born at Fitkin Hospital in Neptune, now Jersey Shore University Medical Center, in 1956. I have lived in Belmar, 2 blocks from the beach my entire life. Soon I will have lived at the shore for 70 years. Can’t get any more local than that! I plan to remain here until the day I pass away and move on to the Ocean in the sky!!!

🧠 Trivia time

Soccer’s U.S. Men’s National Team member Brenden Aaronson was married in this Jersey Shore town at the base of a causeway bridge. Was it:

A. Rio Grande (outside of Wildwood).

B. Manahawkin (outside of LBI)

C. Cape May Court House (outside of Stone Harbor).

D. Linwood (outside of Margate).

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out. Or take a guess and email us with the answer here.

Ask Down the Shore: Beach flags

Our trusty Shore Line group chat followers had a lot of thoughts this week about beach flags. (Join the conversation!)

We asked: Should political flags be allowed on the beach? Are any flags acceptable?

Here’s a sampling:

Political flags are not my thing, but people are free to express themselves. Honestly, it’s the beach and everyone should be chilling. Live and let live regardless.

My humble opinion about political flags on the beach is…ABSOLUTELY NOT!! I go to the beach to relax, not to discuss politics, religion or any other issues our country may have. PLEASE… NO FLAGS!!

I’m a Phillies fan but flags on a beach infringe on the space of others.

My husband I grew up on opposite sides of the state. It’s all about togetherness, never divisiveness. That’s why we made our own Steagles flag from a t-shirt and printed heat transfer.

Hmm. Not sure about that one. Have a Shore etiquette question you’d like to see us tackle? Please reply to this email.

Your Shore memory: A hurricane and a ham

John Judge of Ocean City writes:

The first we hear of the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 was when a massive ocean wave crashed into the second floor of our Long Beach Island rental.

The war time government had banned coastal weather forecasts lest German U-BOATS prowling the Jersey Coast take advantage of meteorological data. My parents and four-year-old me survived but the storm reduced the house to driftwood.

Also not surviving was my father’s salt-water swamped 1930s Pontiac. While dad was sad to lose a hard-to-come-by car during wartime scarcity, mom was madder to lose a ham bought with hard to come by ration stamps.

Send us your Shore memory! In 200 words, tell us how the Shore taps into something deep for you, and we will publish them in this space during the summer.

Staff writer Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this newsletter.

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By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.