Editor’s note: This story was first published in 2023 and has been updated.
The Jersey Shore burns in my memory.
My best childhood memories are there, amid the cots, chairs and foldup kitchen table in the room my parents would rent every summer at a pink-walled two-story hotel in Sea Isle City.
The best year of my life — 1994 — was spent there, in a yellow house with a wraparound porch in Manasquan. In the morning, I’d run to the beach, a mile away, and then back and forth on the asphalt boardwalk, days I thought I could run forever, the shimmering surf at my side.
I’ve lived all over New Jersey, but keep returning to the Shore, despite the traffic, the crush of people, the McMansions and all the maddening qualities that seem guaranteed to keep us home. But we all keep coming back. It’s in our collective DNA.
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There is something about all that water, and sand, and sky, that beckons. And as Memorial Day Weekend is upon us, that familiar pull has returned again for countless Shore visitors, from around the state and beyond.
To an 8-year-old kid from Trenton, the Shore’s appeal was undeniable. There was the car ride through the mysterious Pine Barrens, and the roadside markets, and the sudden whiff of salt air, and the initial thrilling glimpse of ocean.
In Sea Isle, we’d pick up doughnuts and sticky buns from the local bakery, spend the day on the beach, and if we behaved ourselves, my two brothers, two sisters and I would be rewarded with a night out — and spending money — on the spectacularly lit, seemingly endless Wildwood boardwalk.
The Wildwood tram car
Even today, when I walk on the world’s greatest boardwalk (sorry, Atlantic City), I feel a little twinge, a mixture of wonder and loss.
After spending seven years in Manasquan in the ‘90s, I moved to Hunterdon County, to a house in the woods, minutes from Route 78.
It was an idyllic setting, but I missed the Shore, and moved back, to the modest house where I now live, outside Tuckerton.
The house, fronting Great Bay, is not much to look at — call it a cigar box on pilings — but the view is spectacular: marsh and water and the endless circling and squawking of shore birds (I wish they would stop littering my deck and yard with crab shells). At night, with the only lights those of Atlantic City in the distance, it’s so quiet it’s almost spooky.
Which is not, of course, the Jersey Shore experience millions of us face each summer. Epic traffic jams on the Parkway on the way down, and you’re in a bad mood by the time you hit the Driscoll Bridge, knowing you should have left two hours earlier. Then you hit Spring Lake, or Belmar, or wherever you’re going, and you drive round and round the block just hoping for a parking spot in the same ZIP code, and then you realize you didn’t bring enough quarters (thank goodness many meters now accept cards), and your 4-year-old has to go to the bathroom.
Eastbound traffic on Rt. 37 jams the Thomas A. Mathis Bridge over Barnegat Bay as New Jersey beachgoers head toward the barrier island to celebrate Independence Day on a perfect beach day on Thursday, July 4, 2019.(Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media)
And when you finally stagger to the beach, weighed down by backpacks, coolers and lawn chairs, you discover it’s packed, and there’s bad music blasting from a thousand boom boxes, and the sand is desert-hot, and you have to step around discarded soda cups and fast food wrappers — are these the same people who throw stuff out their windows on the highway? — and a slice of pizza is three bucks, and the water is foamy, or greenish, or both, and when you leave late in the afternoon and return to your car, there’s a ticket on the windshield because the parking meter expired just two minutes ago, and the Parkway is jammed all the way home and you wonder somewhere around Red Bank, or Sayreville, whether it was all worth it.
Of course it was; you’ll be back, because a true Jerseyan always returns to the Shore.
It’s 131 miles of sun-splashed beach and uneven tan lines; bikinis and board shorts; suntan lotion, cheap sunglasses and tacky t-shirts.
It is where high schoolers and college kids have the time of their lives, and their parents relive their youth.
Many of our most cherished memories are Down the Shore — summer romances and teary breakups; stolen kisses and whispered I-love-yous; backyard cookouts and dusk-to-dawn parties; fishing off the pier with your kid, just like your dad did with you; sausage sandwiches, zeppoles, funnel cakes and custard; the Himalaya arcing into the great warm American summer night.
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The Ferris wheel turning and turning, to echo Jersey beach boy Bruce Springsteen, like it ain’t ever going to stop.
The ocean, eternal and enigmatic.
I remember being told as a kid that if you waded into the surf on a Jersey beach and kept swimming, you’d end up in Egypt.
Call it urban myth, Jersey Shore style.
I remember trips to Seaside with high school buddies, and 20 years later sitting outside a Brielle restaurant with the girl of my dreams.
Even today, I can still feel the faint breeze that warm August night, and how she looked, and what we said to each other.
Over the years, I jumped at any newspaper assignment involving the Shore. It was my turf, the place I felt most at home.
Wonder Bar, Asbury ParkPete
I rode roller coasters from Keansburg to Wildwood for one story, my knees shaking all the way.
I covered lifeguard competitions and sandcastle contests and the incomparable Ocean City Baby Parade, the most colorful event in any Jersey Shore summer.
I spent a day at the state’s only nude beach — Gunnison in Sandy Hook — wearing nothing but a notebook and a smile.
I’ve eaten my way up and down the Shore: crabcakes at Bahrs, hot dogs at the Windmill, Reubens at Kelly’s, soft-shell crabs at the late, great Circus Drive-In, wings at the Boardwalk Bar & Grill, cheesecake at Charlie’s Cafe, Italian ice at Strollo’s, doughnuts at Ob-Co’s, sausage sandwiches at Dentato’s Clam Bar, seafood at Pinky Shrimp’s, pizza at Tony’s Baltimore Grill, soft-serve at Kohr’s, Cape May Salts at Dock’s Oyster House, and so on. I’ve spent several summers rating boardwalk food and boardwalk pizzerias; yes, there’s more to boardwalk food than funnel cake and watered-down lemonade.
Hurricane Sandy pretty much wiped out my waterfront neighborhood in 2012. I spent the weekend in Philadelphia, fully expecting my house to be gone when I returned. It was still standing, one of just three homes of some 45 not to suffer extensive damage. The reason: my cigar-box house was on pilings.
I remember one reporter’s comment the day after: “The Shore is gone.”
What, I wondered, is she talking about? The Shore, despite all the epic storms over the years, is not going anywhere. Not now, not ever.
I spent an entire summer at the Shore for a book (The Jersey Shore Uncovered: A Revealing Season on the Beach), hanging out with everyone from arcade owners, beach cleaners and bail bondsmen to lifeguards, surfers and bikini contest hopefuls.
That last part was tougher than it sounds.
I walked from Sandy Hook to Cape May (sort of, anyway), for my 2020 report on how the pandemic affected the shore. Walk highlights: struggling through intense heat (the heat index topped 100 the first two days), dodging a tornado and gagging on the worst barbecue I’ve had in my life. (fortunately, that restaurant is no longer open).
My second Shore book, The Ultimate Guide to the Jersey Shore, was released last year. Four hundred pages worth of essential information: where to eat, where to stay, what to do with the kids, attractions/landmarks and so much more. I could easily write a 400-page sequel. There’s so much about the Shore that’s unwritten, or undiscovered.
I still run into longtime Jerseyans who’ve never been to the Shore. To me, that’s unfathomable. Is it because of the traffic? (there are other ways to get there besides the Parkway). The crowds? (there are many uncrowded beaches at the height of summer). The food? (surely that can’t be it).
I can’t imagine Jersey without the Shore, or life without the beach.
I don’t have to be on it, but I have to be near it.
Whenever I drive over the Driscoll, I feel like that 8-year-old again. There will be that sudden whiff of salt air, and all that it promises. The ocean, near. The sheltering sky, just ahead. Another Jersey Shore summer, beckoning.
Stories by Peter Genovese
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Peter Genovese may be reached at pgenovese@njadvancemedia.com. On Twitter, @petegenovese. On Instagram, @peteknowsjersey and @themunchmobile.