Blog

Aug 15, 2023

Turning their backs on the Shore, and Taylor Swift mania

Hello and almost goodbye! First off, a price of pizza correction. Manco & Manco’s plain pie tops out at $25.75, not the (in retrospect obviously hyperbolic) $39 alluded to by a reader in last week’s

Hello and almost goodbye!

First off, a price of pizza correction.

Manco & Manco’s plain pie tops out at $25.75, not the (in retrospect obviously hyperbolic) $39 alluded to by a reader in last week’s newsletter. You’d have to get a specialty pie, or a bunch of toppings, to get the bill for a pie up to $39, as Manco’s big cheese Richard Cicconetti, the director of operations, let me know.

With that out of the way, let’s just say the continued response to the issue of rising rents, late summer vacancies, angry visitors, and anxious homeowners has been quite something.

With this, my final Down the Shore newsletter of the season (Jason Nark will bring Down the Shore to its official 2023 close next week), it’s really started making me wonder. Is the Jersey Shore as we know it, as so many of you have known it for decades and generations, no longer a thing? It is … over?

A lot of readers think so. After Hurricane Sandy, then-New Jersey Gov., now Trump trash-talking presidential candidate Chris Christie vowed that the every-person accessibility and neighborly culture of the Shore would be retained, but in the end, it really wasn’t. Whether it has been as fully obliterated as the imploded former Trump Plaza in Atlantic City though remains to be seen.

But after a three-year pandemic surge, it’s safe to say there are a lot of disillusioned former-Jersey Shore diehards. They wrote to me en masse last week, detailing laughably high weekly rental rates, lack of amenities, unaffordable restaurants (not just pizza), and alternative vacations that were cheaper: like Paris, Barcelona, North Carolina, and the good old Poconos.

They’ve turned their back on the Shore.

📮 Let me know what you think by replying to this email.

😰 Had a string of west wind days that were challenging, but the water has consistently been beautiful.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (🐦 Tweet me at @amysrosenberg. 📷 Follow me on Insta at @amysrosenberg. 📧 Email me at [email protected])

If someone forwarded you this email, or you’re reading online (and a lot of you seemed to be last week), sign up for free here.

🍷 Swifties at the Shore Taylor Swift was swarmed by fans in Beach Haven, where she spent the weekend looking lovely in a sky blue Erdem lace midi-dress for her producer pal Jack Antonoff’s wedding.

🚓 She’s not the problem Beach Haven’s police chief said Swift’s presence was no big deal.

🎣 Fish tale Meanwhile, fishermen in Beach Haven for a tournament complained about having to share their venue with a celebrity-studded wedding (c’mon now, I bet most thought it was super cool.)

🥳 Philly pols partied at the Inlet North Wildwood to celebrate the Democratic party machine’s resurgence. Read Sean Collins Walsh’s detailed report in which North Wildwood is declared the Philadelphia Riviera.

🎒 Curfew and beach closings success? Yes, but Ocean City’s police chief, Jay Prettyman, says unruly teens were just displaced to other parts of town.

🌬️ Van Drew’s wind turbine U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who represents Shore counties in Congress and is an opponent of the planned offshore wind farms, pulled no punches at a recent Cape May County chamber speech, as reported by the Cape May Herald’s Christopher South. Van Drew acknowledged he has a turbine in his front yard in Dennis Township, and said the 120-foot turbine was supposed to provide 100% of his electrical needs but only provided 40%, and he no longer uses it after it broke.

☀️ Sunshine daydream Read Bob Moran’s fascinating history of the Mays Landing nudist colony.

🙂 Be kind and patient Seriously, I keep walking into stores where signs plead with people not to yell at the staff. And stop honking. The speed limits are, in fact, quite slow in Shore towns.

🏁 Enough with the Trump flags on the beach. You’ve made your point.

⛄ Come back for snow on the beach. As Taylor Swift knows, it’s weird but … beautiful.

🍜 Lil Saigon is back open in a new location, on Tilton Road in Northfield, at the old Friendly’s.

🎶 Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue are at Ocean Casino.

🦀 Looking forward to the Downbeach Seafood Festival.

🤔 Contemplate the future of Atlantic City innovation here.

Absecon! The Absecon Lighthouse in Atlantic City is the tallest at 171 feet and a highly recommended excursion. Kudos to Dave Karpinski who was first with the correct answer.

This week: This Shore town has become an unlikely hot spot for bachelorette parties. Is it:

A. Wildwood

B. Cape May

C. Margate

D. Ocean City

If you know the answer, email us back for a chance for a shout out.

Mustafa Rashed, 49, of Brewerytown, is the CEO of Bellevue Strategies, a high-powered government relations and communications firm based in Philadelphia. Since 2021, he has been a full-time summer resident of Ventnor and spends weekends at the Shore in the offseason. He’s learned to surf along with his sons (he has three: 27, 8, and 6), to follow the sunsets across the island into winter, and is always up early to catch a beautiful sunrise. His social media, aided by a drone camera that follows him from above as he runs, bicycles, works from the beach (under the shade of the pier) and surfs, sometimes with dolphins, is a daily diary of the Shore’s beauty and inspiration.

How do you juggle work being down the Shore?

The work is the same. A lot of times I do meetings down here. I ask people if they plan to be at the Shore, and I schedule meetings that way. If you ask, at some point in the summer, people from Philadelphia will be here. I’ve found it to be surprisingly efficient.

What are your favorite Shore places?

March through late October, the end of Dorset Avenue [in Ventnor] to watch the sunset. After October it moves. You have to go to the jetty in Longport. One of the things I’ve learned is that in the dead of winter, on the shortest day, the sun rises and sets on the beach. It’s amazing. The library is a treasure; the Ventnor Cultural Arts Center.

Any Shore life hacks you can share?

Before I became a local, we would bring everything that we possibly needed in the car on the way down. What I did not know is how many things are already here. They’ll deliver pizza to where you’re sitting on the beach. That matters. Also knowing the times to go to the beach, to get there early, get your spot. Knowing September is the best time to come. That matters. The cadence of what happens in the offseason.

These towns can be pretty homogenous. How has your experience been?

I believe there are four Black families in Ventnor, Margate, and Longport that I know of. Let’s say that number’s doubled, and that’s a stretch. It is homogenous. Where I grew up, in Southwest Philadelphia, when they go to the beach, it’s Wildwood or Atlantic City or Myrtle Beach. The concept of an hour away as a home and spending quality amount of time is unheard of, dismissed outright.

I invite as many people of color that I know to come and experience it, to do it as an extended visit, so they can make a decision themselves. People have been incredibly friendly. It feels warm and welcoming.

What do you make of the locals?

Incredibly nice, especially families with children. They are always quick to share babysitters, share that information. The opposite of insular.

Is being at the Shore a calming experience? Do you manage to slow down here?

No. It’s the opposite. Especially in the summer, there’s so much to do. You have to try to get in as much as you can. I don’t even like missing sunrises because there will come a time when it’s too cold and you’re not even here.

Here’s mine. My mother cuts up cantaloupe and we head off for Jones Beach in New York for the day. If we’re lucky and early enough, we get into parking lots 6 or 4. Otherwise it’s the bigger parking lot 2. My mother, not much of a swimmer, likes to go out deep and float on her back. Sometimes she’ll take me with her and we’ll bounce together out beyond the waves. I can’t even remember my father on the beach back in the day, but I know he usually wore sneakers and socks when he visited us later in Ventnor. An original shoobie. I remember the waves crashing and sending me under, tumbling, ocean water filling my nose, and my brother or sister, not for the first or last time, scooping me back up.

📮 Send us your Shore moment or memory with a picture for a chance to be featured here.

👋 Bye and over to Jason Nark to finish us off. And sign up for the great Outdoorsy newsletter written by Paola Pérez to get you through the offseason.