Religion:
Asbury Park was founded in 1870, when the mile-long, untouched
beachfront was purchased for $90,000 by James Bradley, a devout
Methodist, who had been persuaded to buy the property as a buffer
zone between the pious seaside tent city of Ocean Grove, NJ and its
neighbor to the north, Long Branch, where you could indulge in
dancing, drinking, gambling, and horse racing. Bradley had made his
fortune as a brush manufacturer in New York City, and thought he
could make Asbury Park into a successful enterprise as well, by
attracting upscale, Protestant tourists with wholesome amusements and
fresh saltwater air. He named his seaside utopia after Bishop Francis
Asbury, the founder of the Methodist Church, but added the "Park" to
denote it as a place for fun. It's one of the inherent contradictions
that has characterized Asbury Park ever since.
Real Estate:
James Bradley ran his town more like a kingdom than a city; he
actually owned the boardwalk until 1905, and would personally patrol
the beach to ensure that visitors were attired in suitable bathing
costumes (no skin showing) and behaving properly (no alcohol,
dancing, or public displays of affection.) Bradley donated prime
tracts of real estate to Protestant churches, and he insisted on wide
boulevards, multiple parks, and modern sanitation, which gave it a
distinctively charming scale. It is still a city where you can walk
everywhere and see the ocean from blocks away. Now, real estate
developers are planning to build high rise residential condominiums
along the beach front, and it's an open question as to whether Asbury
Park will retain its jewel-box quality for much longer.
Race:
Like most American cities, Asbury Park was segregated by race and
class well into the 1960s. From the beginning, blacks and immigrants
were relegated to their own district, in a separate, shadow city
quite literally "across the tracks". There, on the West Side, there
were stores, restaurants, shopping everything needed for an
existence and one of the most exciting music scenes on the Jersey
Shore. Springwood Avenue is where ragtime was first heard in Asbury
Park; where blues and jazz musicians flocked to hear and play the
latest hot sounds, and where, during the golden age of Swing and
Rhythm & Blues, there was a club on every block. Those clubs exist
now only as memories, as nearly all the businesses and homes on the
West Side were burned out and destroyed when riots swept through in
1970. To learn more about the artist who created the Springwood
Avenue mural, visit bobmataranglo.com.
Ragtime:
At the turn of the century, ragtime was sweeping the country. It was
irresistible music, this hybrid of African-American syncopation and
European melodies. But ragtime was a forbidden taste to the upright
Victorian tourists who vacationed in Asbury Park it was associated
with saloons and dance halls, after all, and was considered to be
dangerous to one's health. But when a young trombone virtuoso and
composer named Arthur Pryor introduced ragtime to John Philip Sousa,
the new music began to acquire a patina of respectability. Pryor
later formed his own band and made Asbury Park his home base.
Thousands of visitors flocked to the band shell every summer to hear
Pryor and his band, who became hugely famous as performers, and also
recording artists. While Pryor is little known today, he was truly
Asbury Park's first musical superstar.
KB
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