This one comes to us all the way from the Grand Forks Herald:
Cooling off on the Jersey shore
When it gets hot in Minnesota, people head to the lake. When it gets hot in New York City, the masses head to the Jersey shore.
When visiting friends in New Jersey this week, we decided to take a Sunday drive to the shore where many New Yorkers have gone to cool off for the past couple of centuries.
No wonder the shore was popular before air conditioning and is still popular today. The temperature was in the mid-90s and the air was stagnant inland, but at the shore it was a perfect 80 degrees and breezy.
The Jersey shore experience is different than going to the lake. The shoreline is about 125 miles long, but every inch of it has been discovered, exploited, developed and fenced off.
Parking near the beach? $20. Purchasing the bracelet that allows you to actually walk on the beach? $7 per adult. Thirsty for something wet? Get out $10.
Boardwalks, restaurants, boutiques, marinas and dance halls dot the beach side of the street while enormous 19th century houses with big wraparound porches, some converted into bed and breakfasts, others into restaurants, line the shore side.
Jammed for blocks behind the enormous homes are rows of wanna-be beach homes within walking distance of the shore. The farther you get from the shore, the smaller the homes get, until they are darn near shacks.
…
Enormous gut? Let it hang out. Swimming suit three sizes too small? No big deal. Nice tan? Fine, but not necessary. You paid your $7 dollars, show your leg dimples to the world!
…
The ocean is still beautiful, despite the crowds. Big breakers ebb and flow. Nobody swims, but there is a lot of playing in the big waves. If you walk out in the water a ways, you can for a moment enjoy some unadulterated natural beauty.Until you look up 500 feet over the water. There, a fleet of airplanes patrols the shore dragging banners behind: “Save on insurance.” “All-U-Can Eat Crablegs, $24.95.” “Find your dream home today!”
As a year-round shore resident and most visitors to the area can tell you, that description is definitely a slice of the Jersey Shore, but far from the only one.
I don’t mind, if that description keeps people away, it’s all good.
Sometimes I think we plant these stories.
-Lindsey
What should a shore in between two large metro areas look like?
It could’ve been a lot worse. Island Beach is a reminder for us of what a beach is, but without the overbuilt commercial areas, millions couldn’t enjoy the beach at all.
We’re lucky.
Somebody could be shelling the beach when we are trying to picnic.
I’ll take the crap we have.
Pat
Isn’t the Jersey Shore where all the B&T from Staten Island, Southwest Brooklyn, & Queens go??? You know those that either can’t afford, or can’t fit into the hamptons crowd??
What should a shore in between two large metro areas look like?
Think the area between LA and San Diego or LA and San Francisco. I’ll take that area over the Jersey shore any day of the week.
PNC Bank alleges that HSBC BANK suspected that Solomon Dwek was engaged in real estate fraud !!!!!
Click: Updates on NEW JERSEY REAL ESTATE MOGUL SOLOMON DWEK`s Bank Fraud Case
My last vaca was in Aruba in January. You can keep the Jersey shore. I’ll take the Caribbean thank you very much.
What’s the point of this comment?
Sure the Caribbean is nice.
Using your warped logic, keep the Caribbean, I’ll take Hawaii, which trumps the Caribbean ON EVERY LEVEL – INCLUDING THAT IT IS THE USA. Oh yeah, I forgot that it is a 10 hour direct flight from NJ and really expensive.
I guess I drive an hour and sit on a beach in Spring Lake.
Great stuff Bacardi-brain.
Sign-carrying protesters want immigration laws enforced
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/25/06
BY HARTRIONO B. SASTROWARDOYO
STAFF WRITER
MANASQUAN — By Ron Bass’ estimate, there were four dozen people waiting at the corner of Route 71 and Main Street in Manasquan. They all were waiting for a ride — not on the NJ Transit bus that stops there, nor on the train at the station one block up the street. They were waiting for a ride to work.
Aside from the group being all male, and that they were in a parking lot clearly marked in Spanish and English, “No congregarse/No traspasar” (“No loitering/No trespassing”), they had another trait in common, Bass said.
“Every one of them is an illegal alien,” he alleged.
Bass, a 61-year-old resident of Elizabeth, is founder and president of Linden-based United Patriots of America, and was among six people representing a coalition of groups protesting illegal immigration in the borough Saturday. Holding signs such as “Don’t hire illegals,” “Secure our borders” and “Save Amer-ican jobs,” they stood at a known gathering spot for illegal immigrants, objecting to what they say is a lax enforcement of immigration laws.
“We’re here to send a message to fellow citizens and to elected officials that we will not accept nonenforcement of the laws of the United States,” said Bass, adding his group plans to hold future protests on Saturdays at the same location in Manasquan, near borough hall.
Joining them were representatives from like-minded organizations such as New Jersey Citizens for Immigration Control, Carlstadt and New Jersey Minutemen.
While relations between the immigrants and the protesters were peaceful, without a word passing between them, some passing motorists yelled at the protesters. One of them asked UPA member Carmen Morales, 58, of Middlesex County, where her ancestors were from.
“That’s not the point,” said Morales, a citizen born to Puerto Rican parents. “Yes, we are all immigrants, but do they (the people waiting for work) have the right to cross the border illegally?”
“We’re not looking to do anything other than educate people on how bad the problem is,” said Ted Mechnick, 58, of Wall. “We’re not looking for confrontation.”
As well, “homeowners don’t realize that if they hire someone who is not insured and that person gets hurt, they can go after your homeowner’s policy,” said Pat DeFilippis of Lakewood, a New Jersey Minutemen member who also runs a home-improvement company.
Mechnick, who runs a construction company in Lakewood, said hiring legal workers is not difficult as long as one is persistent.
“There are plenty of guys out of work today,” he said. Mechnick said he took out a newspaper ad, and though it cost him $1,300, he found four people whom he hired.
“I’m (determined to get) all legal people,” Mechnick said. “It all worked out.”
ON
True the shore is between 2 very large metro areas but is there any way to stop overdevelopment?