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Asbury Park’s Rich History

The West Side of Asbury Park has traditionally been home to Black music, including jazz, soul, gospel, doo wop, and R&B. African American artists such as the Jersey Shore’s own Count Basie as well as Duke Ellington, Lenny Welch, the Broadways, Josephine Baker, Claude Hopkins, Bobby Thomas, Rex Stewart, Manzie Johnson, Sidney Bechet, and Clarence Clemons “either played or were inspired by the [Black]-centered Springwood Avenue club circuit on the West Side of Asbury Park” in the early to mid-century period at places like the Smile-A-While and Gypsy George’s.

During a visit to the West Side in 1928, Fats Waller wrote “Honeysuckle Rose” with Andy Razaf at 119 Atkins Avenue in a property that still stands.

Billie Holiday, Tina Turner, Little Richard and the Four Tops all played at Cuba’s on the West Side in the mid-century period. The former home of the Turf Club, once a well-known mid-century jazz and R&B joint across from what is now Springwood Park, was recently decorated with jazz-themed mural art by a team of local artists to mark its heritage. At the present-day site of Springwood Park in 1918, Black entrepreneur Reese DuPree turned Lafayette Hall (later the Roseland Hall auditorium) into a popular nightclub. The location was also used for civil rights activities; Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois both spoke at Roseland Hall. The Asbury Park Music Foundation, working with Lakehouse Music Academy and the Boys & Girls Club of Monmouth County, founded the Hip Hop Institute to teach music and life skills education relevant to young hip hop enthusiasts.

The Asbury Park Museum hosts an exhibit on the history of music on the West Side, spanning the decades from 1880 to 1980.

The Asbury Park African-American Music Project, or AP-AMP, created a virtual West Side museum dedicated to the history of Black music in the city.

In a town that was once nearly abandoned, there are now many restaurants, bars, coffee houses, two breweries, a coffee roaster, and live music venues in Asbury Park’s boardwalk and downtown districts. This makes Asbury Park, NJ, perfect for ATM Placement with your Empire ATM Group ATM Machine.

Why is Asbury Park, NJ, so unique?

Asbury Park is a beachfront city on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area.

As of the 2020 United States census, the city’s population was 15,188, a decrease of 928 (−5.8%) from the 2010 census count of 16,116, which reflected a decline of 814 (−4.8%) from the 16,930 counted in the 2000 census.

In 2022, Asbury Park’s Beach was named one of the best in the world by Money and one of the best in the country by Travel + Leisure.

Asbury Park was originally incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 26, 1874, from portions of Ocean Township. The borough was reincorporated on February 28, 1893. Asbury Park was incorporated as a city, its current type of government, as of March 25, 1897.

Palace Amusements and the Tillie mural have been featured in numerous works of popular culture. Additional works reference Asbury Park, specifically.

Asbury Park in Music

The Asbury Park music scene gained prominence in the 1960s with bands such as the Jaywalkers and many others, who combined rock and roll, rhythm and blues, soul and doo-wop to create what became known as the Sound of Asbury Park (S.O.A.P.). On December 9, 2006, founding members of S.O.A.P. reunited for the “Creators of S.O.A.P.: Live, Raw, and Unplugged” concert at The Stone Pony and to witness the dedication of a S.O.A.P. plaque on the boardwalk outside of Convention Hall. The original plaque included the names Johnny Shaw, Billy Ryan, Bruce Springsteen, Garry Tallent, Steve Van Zandt, Mickey Holiday, “Stormin'” Norman Seldin, Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez, Fast Eddie “Doc Holiday” Wohanka, Billy “Cherry Bomb” Lucia, Clarence Clemons, Nicky Addeo, Donnie Lowell, Jim “Jack Valentine” Cattanach, Ken “Popeye” Pentifallo, Jay Pilling, John “Cos” Consoli, Gary “A” Arntz, Larry “The Great” Gadsby, Steve “Mole” Wells, Ray Dahrouge, Johnny “A” Arntz, David Sancious, Margaret Potter, Tom Potter, Sonny Kenn, Tom Wuorio, Rick DeSarno, Southside Johnny Lyon, Leon Trent, Buzzy Lubinsky, Danny Federici, Bill Chinnock, Patsy Siciliano, and Sam Siciliano. An additional plaque was added on August 29, 2008, honoring John Luraschi, Carl “Tinker” West, George Theiss, Vinnie Roslin, Mike Totaro, Lenny Welch, Steve Lusardi, and Johnny Petillo.

Musicians and bands with strong ties to Asbury Park, many of whom frequently played clubs there on their way to fame, include Fury of Five, The Gaslight Anthem, Clarence Clemons, the E Street Band, Jon Bon Jovi and Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Patti Smith, Arthur Pryor, Count Basie, The Clash, U.S. Chaos, Johnny Thunders, The Ramones, The Exploited, Charged GBH, and Gary U.S. Bonds.

In 1973 Bruce Springsteen released his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. On his follow-up album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, one of the songs is entitled “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)“. Several books chronicle the early years of Springsteen’s career in Asbury Park. Daniel Wolff’s 4 July Asbury Park examines the social, political and cultural history of the city with a special emphasis on the part that music played in the city’s development, culminating in Springsteen’s music. Beyond the Palace by Gary Wien is a comprehensive look at the local music scene that Springsteen emerged from, and includes many photographs of musicians and clubs. Against the backdrop of the fading resort, Alex Austin’s novel The Red Album of Asbury Park tracks a young rock musician pursuing his dream in the late 60s/early 70s, with Springsteen as a potent but as yet unknown rival.

A black-and-white multi-camera recording of Blondie in 1979, just prior to the release of their fourth album, Eat to the Beat, was taped at the Asbury Park Convention Hall on July 7, a home-state crowd for Jersey girl Debbie Harry, who was raised in Hawthorne.

Live music and arts venues in Asbury Park are perfect for ATM Machines

With its long history as a resort town for varied social classes, Asbury Park is considered a destination for musicians, particularly a sub-genre of rock and roll known as the Jersey Shore sound, which is infused with R&B. As of the 2020s, it is a frequent touring stop for both burgeoning and well-known acts. It is home to venues including:

• The Stone Pony, founded in 1974, a starting point for many performers.
• Across town, on Fourth Avenue, is Asbury Lanes, a recently reopened functioning bowling alley and bar with live performances ranging from musical acts (formerly with a heavy focus on punk music), Neo-Burlesque, hot rod, and art shows. The reopened venue’s latest focused has been mostly on indie rock and pop.
• The Saint, on Main Street (formerly the Clover Club), which brings original, live music to the Jersey Shore.
• Convention Hall holds larger events.
• The Paramount Theatre is adjacent to Convention Hall.
• The Wonder Bar
• House of Independents
• The Asbury Park Brewery hosts small shows with a focus on punk music
• The Turf Club. “Tuesday at the Turf” is a summer music series held by the Asbury Park African-American Music Project (AP-AMP) at the Turf Club site across from Springwood Park, which is the last extant structure that once contained one of Springwood’s many mid-century live Black music spots. The AP-AMP hopes to transform the space into a community venue for music and culture.
• The Empress Hotel is an LGBT resort owned by music producer Shep Pettibone that features Paradise Nightclub.
• The Baronet, a vintage movie theater which dates back to Buster Keaton‘s era, was near Asbury Lanes, but its roof recently caved in and the building was demolished. The Asbury Hotel pays homage to this once great theater with its 5th floor rooftop movie theater called “The Baronet”. The Asbury Hotel also has an 8th floor rooftop bar, paying homage to the former building inhabitants and calling it “Salvation.”
• The Kingsley Theater at the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel. The newly formed Asbury Park Theater Company (APTCo) presented Green Day’s American Idiot, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, as the company’s debut production at this theater in 2022.^[109]
• The Upstage Club was a legendary blues, R&B and rock club that was alcohol-and-drug free and is said to have influenced the Jersey Shore sound in its short run from 1968 to 1971.

In a town that was once nearly abandoned, there are now a large number of restaurants, bars, coffee houses, two breweries, a coffee roasters, and live music venues situated in Asbury Park’s boardwalk and downtown districts.

Asbury Park, NJ, in Film

Asbury Park was used for the location filming of the crime drama City by the Sea (2002), starring Robert De Niro, James Franco, and Frances McDormand, which was nominally set in Long Beach, New York, where no filming took place, according to a disclaimer that was included as part of the closing credits. The film features scenes on a shabby, dilapidated boardwalk in a ruined/abandoned casino/arcade building. Residents of both places objected to the way their cities were depicted.^[310] Asbury Park appears at the start of the 1999 film Dogma.

The 2006 horror film Dark Ride is set in Asbury Park.

The Season 2 finale of The Sopranos, “Funhouse,” originally aired in April 2000, includes several discrete dream sequences dreamed by Tony that take place on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, including Madame Marie’s as well as Tony and Pauly playing cards at a table in the empty hall of the Convention Center. The episode’s title alludes to the Palace, which is also shown.

In a 1955 episode of The Honeymooners (“Better Living Through TV”), Alice Kramden ridicules their husband Ralph Kramden‘s seemingly never-ending parade of failed get-rich-quick schemes, including his investment in “the uranium field in Asbury Park.”

Parks in Asbury Park include:

• Springwood Park – a park established in 2016 near the Asbury Park train station, adjacent to the Second Baptist Church of Asbury Park, a historically African American congregation founded in 1885. It is across from Kula Urban Farm and Kula Cafe, an urban farm and small restaurant that grows produce for local restaurants. Springwood Park is home to Music Mondays, weekly live-music outdoor events in the summer months hosted by the Asbury Park Music Foundation. The park has been home to political and civil rights rallies.
• Wheeler Park
• Extensive and lush floral plantings were present in Asbury Park’s Bradley Park during the 1930s, as seen in archival footage.

Every winter, when the surf grows colder and rougher than in the summer, the city is home to the Cold War, an annual cold water surfing battle.

Asbury Park, NJ, the New York Yankees, and Points of Interest

In 1943, the New York Yankees held spring training in Asbury Park to comply with restrictions on rail travel during World War II.

The project is a parody of a modern pro soccer team from a joke between social media professional and soccer taste maker Shawn Francis and his friend Ian Perkins, guitarist with The Gaslight Anthem. Asbury Park is the tiny home to Asbury Park F.C., described as “Asbury Park’s most storied sports franchise and New Jersey’s second-best football club.” despite laying games, the club has an extensive merchandise line available online, including new and retro replica jerseys.

• The city of Asbury Park’s website
• Asbury Park Public Schools
• Schools
• Asbury Park Public Library
• Asbury Park Fire Department
• Asbury Park.co: The most comprehensive calendar of Asbury Park concerts, theatre, cultural and municipal events
• Historic postcards and current photos of Asbury Park- including the inside of the Casino and Palace Amusements
• asburypark.net: News and information about Asbury Park
• thecoaster.net: Printed and online weekly newspaper located in Asbury Park

From 2002 onward, the rest of Asbury Park has been in the midst of a cultural, political, and economic revival, including a burgeoning industry of local and national artists. Its dilapidated downtown district is undergoing revitalization while most of the nearly empty blocks that overlook the beach and boardwalk are slated for massive reconstruction. In 2005, the Casino’s walkway reopened, as did many of the boardwalk pavilions. In 2007, the eastern portion of the Casino building was demolished. There are plans to rebuild this portion to look much like the original; however, the interior will be dramatically different and may include a public market (as opposed to previously being an arena and skating rink). By 2020, the Casino building still remained unrestored and had no permanent use, although it had been used to host temporary art installations.

There has also been more of a resurgence of the downtown as well as the boardwalk, with the grand reopening of the historic Steinbach department store building, as well as the rehabilitation of Convention Hall and the Fifth Avenue Pavilion (previously home to one of the last remaining Howard Johnson’s restaurants). The historic Berkeley-Carteret Hotel, which is to be restored to four-star resort status, was acquired in 2007; the first residents moving into the newly constructed condominiums known as North Beach, the rehabilitation of Ocean Avenue, and the opening of national businesses on Asbury Avenue.

After Hurricane Sandy, Asbury Park was one of the few communities on the Jersey Shore to reopen successfully for the 2013 summer season. Most of the boardwalk had not been badly damaged by the massive hurricane. On Memorial Day Weekend 2013, Governor Chris Christie and President Barack Obama participated in an official ceremony before a crowd of 4,000, marking the reopening of Asbury Park and other parts of the Jersey Shore. The “Stronger Than The Storm” motto was emphasized at this ceremony.