Bluebishop82 wrote:
"I was referring to Asbury's fall, from the latter 1950's to the
early 1990's. The series of events that brought AP down had nothing
at all to do with corruption."
early 1990's. The series of events that brought AP down had nothing
at all to do with corruption."
I was just a child in the 1960s and early 1970s. What I have gathered recently is that corruption may have been part of the problem in that period. Didn't Mayor Kramer jump into demolition of the Mayfair Theatre and other buildings, in part to benefit a relative, or in-law, who was in the demolition business? I don't recall whether the Monte Carlo pool closing was for good reasons or corrupt ones. Wasn't a ridiculously high tax burden then (which continued long afterward), to pay for big spending projects (and possibly for the pockets of some in government), the cause of many of the business closings and demolitions in the 1970s?
When I was a child, my family knew Mayor Joseph Mattice and went from respecting to being disillusioned with him, but I didn't know the details. Daniel Wolff's book Fourth of July, Asbury Park calls Mattice corrupt as well, and he pled guilty in the 1970s to falsifying names on petitions (dead people voted).
Obviously the riots were a turning point as well. (I remember during the riots, as my family were walking back from Ocean Grove to Asbury at night, we were not allowed in town until we were given a police escort to take us home after the curfew.) The riots may have been used as justification for big spending, which was used as a justification for big taxation (and administration pocket-lining), which was why people and businesses couldn't remain in AP. Different sources say different things and I haven't done much research so I don't know for sure how much of that's true.
Then my memories are that, for decades after the riots, the police failed to arrest vandals, muggers, thieves and drug pushers aggressively enough, destroying quality of life (not necessarily a corruption issue).
My question to Bluebishop82 is, what is your opinion as to what brought down AP after the 1950s, if there was absolutely no corruption involved? Again, all that I wrote above is from various sources over the years and I don't know how much is true.
Greg Zeigerson
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