After urban blight, residents strive to return Asbury Park to its glory days

Asbury Park comes alive in Bruce Springsteen's reverberating rock anthems. But the beach town's "Glory Days" are long gone.

The condominiums are abandoned and crumbling. The parking meters are ancient and have taken too many beatings from overzealous Chevy Blazers. The meters seem to bend and droop with the area's desolation.

Despite recent attempts to rejuvenate the city, its appearance remains depressed and its visitors frustrated.

At the turn of the century, Asbury Park and other cities on the Jersey Shore, like Long Branch, were considered among the finest resort towns in the nation — more fashionable than the Hamptons in its heyday. But expanded commercial airline travel and the automobile allowed tourists to flee their cabanas and vacation elsewhere.

Since then, Asbury Park and its 16,800 residents have been cursed with political instability — government officials come in and out — racial struggles and an increase in shopping malls and commercialization that drove tourists and residents away to other thriving, revitalized cities on the shore.

A resident of nearby Middletown, and a die-hard Springsteen aficionado, Jack Clabby '02 has close personal ties to the Asbury Park area.

"My father tells me about his experiences growing up in Red Bank and how, as a boy and young teenager, he would spend a great deal of time on the boardwalk in Asbury Park," he said.

"Asbury Park was once a focal point and vacation spot for New Yorkers and New Jersey residents alike," Clabby said. "But race riots caused a 30-year decline in the area."

He refers to Springsteen's nostalgic ballad "My Hometown," which refers to the 1960s race riots that tore through Freehold.

Clabby used to venture into Asbury Park to visit the beach and play basketball at Asbury Park High School.

"It is a tough place to go," he said.

Clabby said that Jersey Shore residents would like to see Asbury Park make a comeback, like Spring Lake and the Red Bank area, which have undergone extensive revitalization with the state government's help.

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Clabby grouped Asbury Park with two other cities, Camden and Newark, cities plagued by racial strife, crime and poverty since the 1960s.

"The towns have had a hard time coming back," he said.

But minor league and professional sports teams in Newark and the new government-subsidized aquarium in Camden are drawing crowds, and the future of these cities looks brighter.

In contrast to government officials, locals and visitors who remember the way Asbury Park once was are spearheading revitalization efforts, which have been neither pervasive nor effective. The government is not doing all it can to renew the blocks closer to the shore, Clabby said.

"The richer towns are getting richer and the poorer towns are getting poorer," he said.

Clabby credits a streak of Republican governors for the improvement of other Jersey Shore locales.

Despite its shabbiness, Asbury Park — and its rock and roll legacy — still draws devoted music fans from near and far.

Benjamin Kabak, a Swarthmore College student made the three-hour train trip and drove an extra hour and 20 minutes to see the place where Bruce made his start. Kabak counted the 24-hour diners and bowling alleys all the way to Asbury Park.

Standing across from the boardwalk and looking around, eyes fixed on a deserted, dilapidated carousel, he seemed in awe of the city's desolation.

"It seems like the end of the world at the end of New Jersey," he said.

"The buildings around Asbury Park looked like there was a history. If they fixed up the buildings they do a really nice job turning that city into a destination," he added.

In the center of it all is the Stone Pony, the rock club where Jon Bon Jovi and Springsteen were discovered. The club is a gem in the middle of this abandoned city and has undergone its own transformation.

"It was the place on the shore for new music and now we see its role changing. It's a real tragedy," Kabak said. "It's now a night club and bar. It used to be more honky tonk."

He recalled a recent Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes concert which, for him, epitomized the sound of Asbury Park and the rock-and-rollers who emerged from its trenches.

Opened in 1974, the club was fully renovated in 2000. Locals despise the club's renovation, as it now resembles a Hard Rock Cafe, reflecting its "new way of being," Clabby said. He has visited the Stone Pony at least 10 times.

If the new Stony Pony reflects the future of Asbury Park, the Golddigger Bar and Grille down the block reflects the city's current state.

On a Friday night, one could be both charmed and frightened by its decaying decor, colorful crowd and local flavor.

Silver duct tape and perennial Christmas lights seem to hold the Golddigger together. Local men hustle the bar's patrons, asking them to "come over here and do us a favor." Potted plants on each table struggle to stay alive.

Get a watered-down beer and get out. Don't bother choosing one of the snacks off the "Daily Specials" blackboard: hot dog, hot dog with peppers, or hot dog with sauerkraut.

"To me, the Golddigger seemed like the stereotypical end-of-the-road bar you might see in a movie," Kabak said. "It was decrepit and sketchy to the extreme."