This is Part 2 in my continuing saga about my vacation to the east.
I had stayed for two nights in an idyllic inn called the Black Bass, dating back to 1745. Checking out on Saturday morning, my dear friends Jeff and Laura had given some recommendations for how to spend our last day in the Bucks County, PA area. A scenic road called Fleecydale was just to the north of the Black Bass, off River Road.
Within minutes, we were transported to another world!
We admired the beautiful ivy trellis on the side wall of this home on Fleecydale Road.
Three distinctively different facades fronted this lovely home
Loce this grazing goat, fashioned from steel oil drums! (I bought a flying pig from the same artist to add to my garden art collection!)
Residents of historic Carversville, PA lined up with their pooches for the annual Pet Parade, which included goats and horses.
A ragtime band added to the ambiance of the small-town festival.
Could it get any prettier than this?
We got happily lost on the back roads of the area and came across this freshly-painted Mail Pouch barn.
Susan, doing the “WOW” pose on a pedestrian bridge across the Delaware – connecting Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
My traveling companion was Susan Rosenberg, a friend I first met when she participated on my philanthropic trip to Vietnam in 2014 and who has joined many of my WOW! adventures since then. We proved to be great travel buddies and could have spent days exploring the back roads, antique stores, and charms of the countryside, but we were heading to Susan’s hometown of Asbury Park, at the Jersey shore.
Love the architecture of these grand houses on magnificent lots at the Jersey shore.
Susan is a member of the Asbury Park Historical Society and was the perfect guide to introduce me to the area. It was developed in the late 1800s and named after the first American Methodist bishop. The population swelled in summer (which officially began on Memorial Day weekend) as New Yorkers and Philadelphians traveled here by rail to enjoy the amusement park, boardwalk, white sandy beaches and downtown shops. Large Victorian boarding houses lined the wide shady streets leading to the beach. Fronting the ocean, a huge brick convention hall was built with 3,000+ seats.
The town declined in the decades after WWII as developers rushed to build shopping malls, office parks and single-family homes in the suburbs. Parkways and turnpikes were constructed to accommodate the surge of car owners. Railroads declined, along with the amusement park and attractions on the boardwalk which couldn’t compete with glitzy places like Six Flags. Race riots broke out in the 70s.
Like so many places that languished and died and (fortunately) were preserved from the wrecking ball, Asbury Park is thriving again. The “creatives” – musicians, artists, and the gay community – have brought it back and made it a much sought-after destination.
When Madame Marie began telling fortunes from her small booth in 1932, the boardwalk was a formal place to stroll in dresses, evening gowns, and tuxedos. “You couldn’t walk on the boardwalk without shoes. You couldn’t go on the boardwalk in a bathing suit. And there was never any drinking.”
Along with the Stone Pony, the Wonder Bar is a thriving part of Asbury Park’s musical heritage. An adjacent sandy lot is a popular “Yappy Hour” for patrons and their pups. House rules include “No Humping allowed.”
At night, the sign on the top of Convention Hall is illuminated to read, “Greetings from Asbury Park” in reference to Springsteen’s 1973 album.
Love this little sign!
Stay tuned for Part 3 of my east coast adventure!
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5 Comments
Margaret Theobald May 26, 2017 at 9:51am
You were in my childhood stomping grounds! I loved Asbury Park, especially the “Merry-Go-Round”, which Susan no doubt told you about….and when we were “kids”, on a weekend car trip with Mom and Dad we used to count the Mail Pouch signs painted on barns, whoever had the most picked the lunch spot….they never looked as good as the one in your photo! This trip proves that there is magic everywhere you travel, if you do so with sense of wonder.
Marilyn May 26, 2017 at 12:31pm
Margaret – my theory completely! WOW Vow #1 is “I promise to travel with my sense of humor and my sense of wonder!”
Julie Franz May 26, 2017 at 1:28pm
These photos were great! I hadn’t heard that Asbury Park had undergone such a resurgence! I pictured it as rather seedy and rundown based on what I’d read by and about Bruce Springsteen. How perfect that you got to have Susan as your guide! Bob and I might need to take our own road trip out there – maybe the next time we are in New York?
Marilyn May 31, 2017 at 6:24pm
I would highly recommend it. I was astonished at the beauty – and unhurried pace of life within such a short distance of huge urban populations of NYC and Philadelphia, etc. It was like driving the back roads of Europe – without crossing the pond!
JulieFranz May 31, 2017 at 6:39pm
Sounds great!