When New York brush manufacturer James Bradley founded Asbury Park in the late 1800s, he could hardly have imagined the course his seaside resort would take. Named for Methodist Episcopal bishop Francis Asbury, it was originally a Christian resort awash in Victorian architecture. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Asbury Park's beach, boardwalk, restaurants, theaters, hotels, and amusements attracted thousands of vacationers every year. Later, the town gained a reputation as a gritty music mecca, known for the clubs where Bruce Springsteen got his start. All along, Asbury Park has had a unique ability to draw people to it, evidenced by the thousands of postcards sent home from the town each year.

The seaside bustle of the boardwalk comes to life in this fascinating saga of a Jersey Shore resort town. The history of Asbury Park is a veritable roller coaster of challenge, triumph and change. In 1871, there was nothing but marshes and sand dunes between the sinful city of Long Branch and the holy haven of Ocean Grove, but for devout Methodist James Bradley, the deserted beachfront was a new Promised Land. Thus, the resort community Asbury Park was born as a wholesome entertainment and relaxation center for middle-class, white Protestant America. From bicycles and baby parades to brawlers and bootleggers, Bilby and Ziegler trace Asbury Park's cycles of transformation from peaceful resort to raucous amusement park, from empty boardwalk to modern, bustling center of business. Book jacket.

As the 20th century got under way, Asbury Park was booming. Real estate advertisements promoted a residential resort where country meets the sea. The nearly one-square-mile gridded municipality attracted individuals who saw opportunities, from architects and artists to entrepreneurs and people looking for employment. But with the death of its founder and leading benefactor, James A. Bradley, and the rise of machine politics under Mayor Clarence E.F. Hetrick, Asbury Park's civic and economic fortunes started to change. In World War II's long aftermath, suburbs, shopping malls, and modern amusement destinations sprang up outside its municipal borders. Its once-bustling economy faltered, and civil unrest festered until 1970, when it turned violent. It took more than 10 years for new changes to find their way to the drawing boards. But it was in the 21st century that new business and civic leaders with a more inclusive pioneering spirit started turning Asbury Park's fortunes around.

Winner of the 2005 New Jersey Author Award for Scholarly Non-Fiction from the New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance Long before Bruce Springsteen picked up a guitar; before Danny DeVito drove a taxi; before Jack Nicholson flew over the cuckoo's nest, Asbury Park was a seashore Shangri-La filled with shimmering odes to civic greatness, world-renowned baby parades, temples of retail, and atmospheric movie palaces. It was a magnet for tourists, a summer vacation mecca-to some degree New Jersey's own Coney Island. In Asbury Park's Glory Days, award-winning author Helen-Chantal Pike chronicles the city's heyday-the ninety-year period between 1890 and 1980. Pike illuminates the historical conditions contributing to the town's cycle of booms and recessions. She investigates the factors that influenced these peaks, such as location, lodging, dining, nightlife, merchandising, and immigration, and how and why millions of people spent their leisure time within this one-square-mile boundary on the northern coast of the state. Pike also includes an epilogue describing recent attempts to resurrect this once-vibrant city.

A colorful history of Asbury Park, New Jersey, provides a chronicle of the evolution of the seaside resort town from its founding as a religious commune through 130 years of social, cultural, and musical development, offering tidbits of local history, profiles of the celebrities who passed through, its decline into blight, and the potential for its future. Reprint.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Asbury Park, New Jersey, was the place to be-to stroll along the boardwalk, to sunbathe, and, most importantly, to listen to live music. But since the city fell into ruin, culminating in the race riots of the 1970s, many were left to wonder if the former rock 'n' roll mecca had been silenced forever. In Local Heroes, author Anders Mårtensson and photographer Jörgen Johansson revisit the myths, legends, and romantic visions of the music scene in a town that is striving to make a comeback. While the story of Asbury Park is inseparable from widely popular artists, such as Bruce Springsteen, Steven van Zandt, and Southside Johnny Lyon, Local Heroes pays tribute to these musicians alongside the many other talents who stayed behind, playing in local clubs, helping to forge what became known as the "Jersey Shore sound." In a series of original interviews, readers will hear first-hand from the people who wrote, performed, and lived the music. Accompanied by exclusive photographs, musical personalities such as Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg, Danny Federici, Bill Chinnock, Vini Lopez, Pete Yorn, and many others are brought to life. Whether the redevelopment efforts underway in Asbury Park today will someday serve as the stage for music legends of tomorrow is a story that has yet to play out. But for now, rock 'n' roll fans can delight in a stunning tribute to a city and its talents whose music continues to play on.