GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, N.J.

Lying on a mile-long stretch of golden sand, Asbury Park is one of the most eclectic and distinctive cities on America’s Eastern Seaboard. A wild mix of hipster cool and faded Victorian glamor, it’s home to modern murals and retro diners, where local churches fly the pride flag and legendary music venues rock out with the world-famous Jersey Shore sound.

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY SIMON URWIN

By night, out-and-proud Kimmie Masi is a cool rock chick who drums with her own band; by day, she’s the owner of a cupcake store on Cookman Avenue called Confections of a Rock Star. And 24/7, she’s pure Asbury Park – the diverse, creative, queer-friendly city on the Jersey Shore, considered a kind of Brooklyn-by-the-Sea.

Masi is the first person I bump into when I arrive in Asbury Park one summer’s day, fresh off the two-hour train ride from Penn Station, NYC, her bakery just a stone’s throw from the railway station. I head inside to get an early morning sugar fix. The walls are painted a glorious Pepto Bismol pink and covered in music memorabilia, and behind the counter is Masi herself, wearing an apron and a broad smile.

“It’s the queer community that helped rebuild Asbury Park,” she says, as she puts my order together: a box of macarons as colorful as the pride flag. “It’s been on this rollercoaster journey of good times and bad ever since it was founded. The recent upward curve has been powered by music, art, and the gay community in particular.”

She tells me the renaissance began when Asbury Park hit rock bottom after race riots in the 1970s. That’s when gay couples began moving in. Drawn by the city’s multiculturalism and its shabby chic, they set about renovating the grand, old Victorian mansions. Then, in 2002, members of the gay community threw a beach party and music festival: the Sand Blast Weekend, headlined by Grammy-Award-winning Cyndi Lauper, a notable gay rights activist. Suddenly, the oceanside city emerged as a place to be for the LGBTQ community.

THEN, IN 2002, MEMBERS OF THE GAY COMMUNITY THREW A BEACH PARTY AND MUSIC FESTIVAL: THE SAND BLAST WEEKEND, HEADLINED BY GRAMMY-AWARD-WINNING CYNDI LAUPER, A NOTABLE GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST. SUDDENLY, THE OCEANSIDE CITY EMERGED AS A PLACE TO BE FOR THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY.

“Since then, the queer profile of Asbury Park has just kept growing. Pride gets bigger every year,” she says. “It’s become this fun, caring, liberal, community-driven utopia of sorts. It’s one of the most progressive places in the state for sure, which was kind of the intention of the guy who built it in the first place. It’s just much gayer now.”

FROM METHODIST TO GAY

Asbury Park was founded in 1871 by James A. Bradley, a Bible-thumping broom manufacturer from New York. One summer, Bradley was visiting a Methodist camp in Ocean Grove, N.J., to the south, when he decided to purchase 500 acres of vacant land to the north and turn it into a thriving residential resort town. And so, Asbury Park was born, named in honor of Francis Asbury, the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.

From the get-go, Bradley introduced an innovative, resident-focused town plan, including broad, tree-lined streets and a trolley-bus system. He built an oceanside boardwalk too, with pavilions, public changing rooms, and a pier. Coney Island impresario George C. Tilyou joined the party shortly afterwards, opening Asbury’s Palace Amusements in 1880, complete with iconic, funny-face mascot Tillie – a symbol of the town to this day. Tourism boomed and by the early 20th century, Asbury Park had cemented itself as New Jersey’s premier vacation destination, its railroad system shuttling in 600,000 visitors every summer from as far afield as New York and Philadelphia.

The letter “L” of the sign that once read ‘Palace’ and an old photo booth are all that remain of Asbury’s Palace Amusements. Both are now housed within the Silverball Retro Arcade, a museum on the boardwalk which also holds more than 150 vintage pinball machines. There I meet Paul

Robinson, a Philadelphia resident who does a 3-hour round trip once a week just to play them. “I used to have to stand on a milk crate when I was a kid to hit the flippers, but now that I’m 66 years old I can manage without,” he says, laughing. “They still have a huge sentimental value for me. They transport me to another era, to the Asbury Park of old.”

Robinson tells me he plays for six hours at a time. In comparison, he has no interest in modern computer games. “It’s like the difference between streaming and listening to a vinyl record,” he says. “These machines are beautiful works of art, they’re tactile, precious. Plus, there are no pay-outs, so I don’t lose any money like I would do if I played down at the casino.”

BEAUX-ART CASINO AND THE CAROUSEL HOUSE

Asbury Park’s own casino opened in 1929 along with the Convention Hall (both designed by the Beaux-Arts architects behind NYC’s Grand Central Station), as the city grew beyond a mere vacation spot to become a cultural destination in its own right — with fine dining, high-end shopping, art galleries, theatre performances, and music concerts. The Casino was torn down in 2006, but its ornate copper-clad Carousel House is still standing, and is now home to the Wooden Walls Project, a non-profit art initiative. “The Medusa icons on the building exterior must have protected it,” says Jenn Hampton, the project curator, who has overseen the creation of some 60 murals across Asbury Park by local, national and international artists.

“When you look at old photos of the city from the 1940s and 50s, what grabs you is the riot of colors: the aquas and pinks, purples, and reds,” she says. “I wanted to bring that palette back - using murals as a way of enriching the urban landscape, of bringing beauty back where there was once blight. Now, in the whole of the USA, maybe only Santa Monica, California, has this amount of public art on its waterfront.”

The Carousel House serves as both Hampton’s office and an artist’s residency, home to present incumbent Beau

Stanton, who, when I visit, is mid-way through building his rendition of the S.S. Morro Castle. “It’s the ship that really secured Asbury Park’s reputation as an exciting tourist destination almost a hundred years ago,” says Hampton.

On September 9th, 1934, the S.S. Morro Castle caught fire while sailing back from Cuba to New York, after what was suspected to have been one of its regular ‘booze cruises’, which offered a chance for revelers to drink freely outside US borders during Prohibition. The blazing ship ran aground just yards from the Convention Hall and quickly became a major attraction. With gossip swirling that the disaster was down to the first mate killing the captain with poison, tens of thousands of visitors descended on Asbury Park to gawp, with nearby Ocean and Kingsley Avenues converted into one-way streets just so passing cars could take a closer look.

FRANK’S DELI, A SURVIVOR

But the grounding of the S.S. Morro Castle soon began to seem more like an omen. By the late 1940s, Asbury Park’s boom was starting to turn to bust. In the decades that followed, new freeways, amusement parks, beach resorts, and shopping malls pulled tourists in other directions. One stalwart of the community that did manage to survive the fast-ebbing tide of visitors was Frank’s Deli, which opened in 1960 and remains one of the city’s oldest businesses.

I arrive at Frank’s in time for lunch and unwittingly take a counter seat next to local eccentric Barbara-Jean, who wears sequined boots and a generous amount of make-up and claims to have dated both Frank Sinatra and Elvis. She also claims to now have the FBI on her tail. I manage to escape her far-fetched shaggy-dog stories by striking up a conversation with Joey Maggio, the deli’s current owner.

I ask him for the house special, and he brings a pork roll sandwich, a Jersey Shore classic consisting of a poppy seed bun, fried egg, American cheese, and thick-cut bacon. “Not many places still do it except us,” he says. “We’re super old-fashioned. We didn’t even have a computer until last year.”

Maggio, of Sicilian-Neapolitan descent, tells me he started working in his parents’ deli-diner (housed in a converted bicycle shop) when he was just 14 years old. Now 68, he’s seen many of the old regulars pass away and watched while the fortunes of his hometown have fluctuated wildly. “Lots of places closed down, but we’ve managed to stay open. I think it’s because we’ve been here for so long. Grandparents always came here, so their kids and grandkids come too. Eating out at Frank’s Deli became like a local ritual.”

LOTS OF PLACES CLOSED DOWN, BUT WE’VE MANAGED TO STAY OPEN. I THINK IT’S BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN HERE FOR SO LONG. GRANDPARENTS ALWAYS CAME HERE, SO THEIR KIDS AND GRANDKIDS COME TOO.

EATING OUT AT FRANK’S DELI BECAME LIKE A LOCAL RITUAL.

Maggio tells me that he thinks that Asbury Park’s cycle of development and decay has had one positive, lasting impact: it’s given the city its spirit. “Asbury Park is a survivor,” he says. “It’s got tenacity. The grime and grit have given it a certain kind of character and magic you just don’t get elsewhere on the coast, where it’s just millionaires’ mansions or soulless beach resorts.”

When the grime and grit hit hardest in the late 60s, the tourism industry all but disappeared, sucking the lifeblood from the city. Middle-class residents left in search of greener suburbs and faster commutes into the Tri-State area’s major metropolises. As it dwindled, racially-motivated anger rose; its black population had already experienced poverty, discrimination and segregation (African-Americans were originally only allowed on the beach before 8 a.m.), and now things were going from bad to worse. By the weekend of July 4th, 1970, that anger erupted into protest, before seven days of full-scale rioting, fire-bombing, and looting engulfed Asbury Park. Those that could leave the city, did. Many of the attractions shut down, houses and businesses were locked up, and the boardwalk lay empty, slowly dissolving into the sand.

Despite the turmoil and apparently terminal decline, it was the city’s music scene that helped keep a faint pulse alive. Asbury Park had traditionally been the music capital of the Jersey Shore; it even once had its own version of Memphis’s Beale Street, with more than 20 music venues on Springwood Avenue that at their height were frequented by the likes of Billie Holiday, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. (Most were burned down in the riots.)

Bruce Springsteen was one local artist who drew inspiration from the urban decay and the dive bars he played in. He went on to release his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., to great acclaim in 1973. A year later, The Stone Pony opened its doors in an abandoned disco, and Springsteen, along with Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny (the ‘Godfather of the Jersey Shore Sound’), helped put the music venue on the map.

There to capture Springsteen at some of his most defining moments was New Jersey-born photographer Danny Clinch, who began his career interning for Annie Leibovitz. “Fans of ‘The Boss’ come from all over the world just to see Danny’s images,” says Tina Kerekes, who manages his Asbury Park gallery, Transparent Clinch. “He has this incredible, spontaneous, natural-light, fly-on-the-wall style.”

On the walls alongside portraits of Springsteen are some of Clinch’s (and the music industry’s) most iconic photographs, including a shirtless, tattooed Tupac and Metallica bringing down the house at San Quentin Prison. Kerekes tells me that the space is more than a photography gallery though: it’s a music venue (where Clinch occasionally jams), hosts community events, and supports local charities including the AP-AMP (Asbury Park African-American

Music Project), an organisation dedicated to the preservation and regeneration of Springwood Avenue.

Kerekes tells me about an AP-AMP benefit gig later in the day which aims to raise finances for the refurbishment of the legendary Turf Club, the last surviving music venue on Springwood Avenue, which dates back to 1956. Star of the show is singer J.T. Bowen, who used to perform at the Turf Club with Clarence ‘The Big Man’ Clemons. (Springsteen would often come to watch them both here, and Clemons went on to play sax for Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band for almost forty years.)

After the sound check, I grab a quick word with Bowen, who tells me he is happy to be back on such hallowed ground. “It might look past its prime right now, but that’s the thing about this city — it’s never quite done living just yet,” he says. “No matter what Asbury Park is up against, there’s so much community energy, so much love for music, it’s always capable of being the phoenix that rises from the flames.”