Fair enough Sandpiper and thanks for the reply.
Please let me offer my own historical understanding, which I believe
I share with Werner, but it is contrary to folks like Wolff and
others who don't really know the history of the West Side of Asbury
Park.
Let me start with my thesis: Asbury Park was segregated. The "West
Side" was not segregated.
The east side was homogenously white, and therefore the area that
was "segregated." The West Side was completely diversified in its
people by race and religion.
Therefore, it's misleading for Wolff and others to suggest Asbury
Park segregation was east/wast-white/black. To do that is to fail
to credit the West Side of Asbury Park for being integrated far
before the rest of America was.
Bradly founded AP with the East-West split. The East Side was his
Christian resort and the west were folks who worked there. The West
Side was not just Blacks. It was anyone who could not just walk
into a bank and get a loan at that time - Italians, Jews, Greeks,
Latinos and others that didn't fit the WASP description.
Bradly passed a law that said black people were not allowed on the
Boardwalk. He said he wanted to pass a law that said poor whites
from the West Side couldn't go either, but, as he put it, "they have
no distinguishing marks" so he couldn't enforce it.
Couple the above with the fact that Bradley tried to keep the
boardwalk privately owned and the City had to wrestle it from him in
a lawsuit to make it public, and that's why I cringe when I hear
people make the false claim that Asbury Park was founded with a
dream of public access to the beach and boards. Nice warm feeling,
but historically inaccurate.
What developed on the West Side was a wonderfully diverse
neighborhood that was well ahead of its time. Blacks, Italians,
Jews, Latinos, all living together and running small businesses.
Was there poverty there too? For sure, it was the poorer side of
the tracks. But it was mixed with middle class. There were Black
doctors and lawyers living on the west side.
Many people paint a false picture of dispair and hopelessness of the
West Side, perhaps to rile a compassionate spirit in others to raise
book sales, but they destroy history in doing so.
They refuse to journal the following:
The black middle class who were doctors and lawyers and business
owners when in other parts of the country they couldn't be.
The whites, blacks, latinos and Jews who went beyond "tolerance" and
were caring neighbors when other parts of the country couldn't get
that done.
The overwhelming majority of Blacks who were appalled as white
people during the 3 days of unrest when Springwood burned. I
include in that list of people my black neighbors who sat on my
porch and cursed them as we choked on the smoke from the fires.
Gone are the stories like the Butler family, who were black, who
that September would come to our house and walk my siblings and me
to school because there were rumors there could be racial trouble.
The media only shows blacks as riotous criminals at that time, when
in truth they were the opposite.
I'll include in that list of forgotten history myself and others
like me. When I meet "historians" of AP and tell them I grew up a
post-riot white boy in AP on the west side who completed his
education and is well adjusted (I know - debatable) all I get is
disbelieving stares. That furrow their brows and twist thier head
like a dog hearing a strange sound.
You see, me and others like me, we don't exist in the "accepted"
history. In their mythology the west side of AP had no diversity,
had no black doctors and lawyers and certainly had no happy white
boys who loved living there. So they continue to kill us off in the
name of bleeding heart pity, which for some reason is a story they
think is better than reality.
Funny thing is when I was growing up, the East Side became the poor
side of town.
The West Side was a great neighborhood and a place of happiness, not
dispair.
Shangri-La? No. I won't mislead like a Tillie lover. There were
problems.
Unlike the blacks who lived there, I happened to be the one who was
the racial minority; not them. Whatever prejudices came my way
didn't ruin me, and it shouldn't be used as an excuse to patronize
others who may have experienced being a minority either. Pity is
destructive, not constructive.
Maybe Werner and I should write a book together.
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "sandpiper15" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "justifiedright"
> <justifiedright@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "sandpiper15" <sandpiper15@>
> wrote:
> >
> > > False dichotomoy. Myths can have great meaning.
> >
> > True, but the Tillie one doesn't.
> >
>
> It all depends on your perspective I guess.
>
>
> > You said 1955 and 1960. The links above are folks remembering
the
> > 1920's and 1930's.
> >
> > Notice the bad memories were NOT about the West Side. The ice
cream
> > story was about the boardwalk.
>
> True, but the realtor said her family couldn't live near the
water. I
> read that as her family was expected to stay west of the tracks.
And
> I think Rainette Holliman is very explicit when she talks about
her
> experiences in Asbury Park Village. She had many happy memories,
but
> she also makes it clear what her economic situation was and how
that
> affected where her family lived.
>
> But fair enough. The years weren't exactly the same. I picked the
50s
> because I am trying to mathematically square when people who are
now
> in their 50s and early 60s may have visited Asbury as kids. But
it's
> hard for me to believe that the very rigid policies regarding race
> and geography from the earlier part of the 20th century didn't at
all
> affect life along Springwood and Prospect well into mid-century,
even
> if they were no longer officially enforced.
>
> >
> > So what do you think life on the west side was like in 1955 and
> 1960?
> >
>
> A close reading of those oral histories makes me think that the
kids
> got along well enough, but the older folks probably hewed to
certain
> unwritten social codes of race and class that were a world away
from
> the carousel, tilt-a-whirl and bumper cars. That was the point I
was
> trying to get at. A 9 or 10 year old from New York or Hudson or
Essex
> County in 1960 hears "Asbury Park" and he or she thinks,
literally, a
> park. An amusement palace. A fantasy land. They weren't thinking
> about the fact that it was also a real, residential town, with
real
> issues to be faced just like any other place.
>
> Sometimes I can get a little obscure. I apologize.
>
> >
> > I see; you were be metephorical. You turn a very good phrase.
Have
> > you done a lot of writing?
>
> Yes. On here. Probably too much. ;)
>
> > > Ensuring everyone in the city could benefit from, or (if they
so
> > > wished) take advantage of, the city's natural and man-made
> >resources,
> > > regardless of color, orientation or economic background.
> >
> >
> > Who made that promise to whom?
>
> Thomas Jefferson, to all of us.
>
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