By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press
SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) -
It is one of the icons of America, the backdrop to a thousand stories -
the place where Tony Soprano's nightmares unfolded, where Nucky
Thompson built his "Boardwalk Empire", where Snooki and The Situation
brought reality TV to the ocean's edge and where Springsteen conjured a
world of love and loss and cars and carnival lights and a girl named,
incongruously, Sandy.
But after the storm of the
same name passed through this week, the seaside towns of the Jersey
Shore, a place that popular culture has picked to exude Americanness,
have been upended, and some of the boardwalks have been pushed into the
sea.
And those who live there,
those who spent their childhood weekends there and those who experience
its stories from afar are asking different versions of the same
question: What happens now?
"This is just a
heartbreaking experience seeing all these places we love that are just
decimated," said Jen Miller, a blogger about the Jersey shore who lives
in the Philadelphia area. "It's just what you do every summer: you go
'down the shore.'
"The pictures are awful; my
heart breaks looking at them," she said. "I run on all these
boardwalks. I go over that bridge between Belmar and Avon. It's one of
those things you think will always be there. And now it's not."
All along the state's
127-mile coastline, the storm wrecked communities rich and poor, from
multi-million-dollar homes in Bay Head and Mantoloking to blue-collar
bayfront bungalows. Boardwalks were trashed, a roller coaster dumped
into the ocean. The worst damage was nearest the ocean, but winds and
water wrecked homes several miles inland as well. Damage assessments
were still being made, but thousands of homes were affected.
"Who ever thought they'd
see a roller coaster in Seaside Heights in the ocean?" New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie asked. He vowed to help rebuild the shore, while
cautioning it might not look exactly the same.
For many people, the Jersey
shore is much more than a place; it's an identity, a brand, an
attity-toode. It's the place where Christie got into it with a heckler
last summer while eating an ice cream cone as he went out for a stroll
with his family.
It's also the economic engine that powers New Jersey's $35.5 billion tourism industry.
The real Jersey shore is
the setting for MTV's "Jersey Shore" reality show about a group of
foul-mouthed, horny, hard-partying 20-somethings, which has enshrined
big hair, fist-pumping and phrases like "Come at me, bro" as part of
Jersey pop culture.
A young Jon Bon Jovi shot
one of his first music videos atop a rest room pavilion on the Seaside
Heights boardwalk in 1985, across from the Sand Tropez clothing stand
and Lucky Leo's arcade; Richie Sambora played the guitar solo to "In And
Out Of Love" in a Seaside Heights lifeboat.
"It's gone," Bon Jovi said
on NBC's "Today" show, hours before he and Springsteen were to headline a
televised concert Friday to raise money for storm victims. "The entire
Jersey Shore that I knew is gone."
That Jersey shore is a
blend of competing aromas: the fried dough of zeppoles just before the
powdered sugar goes on, the extra garlic on pizza slices, the salty
spray coming off the ocean, and the smell of the chemical protectants
they spray on pier pilings to insulate them from water damage.
It's where the click of
spinning prize wheels, carnival barkers' shouts and the "pop" of
breaking water balloon games compete for attention with boom-box rap,
pop and heavy metal from strolling or skateboarding teens.
"When you're a teenager and
you get your driver's license, the first thing you do is get in the car
and drive down to Seaside Heights," said Marilou Halvorsen, a lifelong
shore resident who until recently worked for the company that owned the
now-wrecked Casino Pier in Seaside, where the remains of a roller
coaster sit half-submerged in the ocean.
"You walk on the boardwalk,
you get an ice cream cone, you take your kids on their first carousel
ride: whether you're young or old, these are memories that are part of
your life in every stage of your life," she said. "This is the skyline
of the Jersey shore. It's a special place, a historic place."
Historic, indeed. Atlantic
City built the world's first boardwalk as a way to keep guests from
tracking sand into beachfront hotels. A small portion of that Boardwalk -
now uppercased as a formal street name - was destroyed in the storm,
although the Boardwalk in front of the nine oceanfront casinos remained
intact.
In Wildwood, the widest
beaches in New Jersey - a half-mile from the boardwalk to the water in
some spots - helped protect the famous boardwalk amusements in what is
routinely voted as the Jersey shore's most popular beach. Will Morey,
president of Morey's Piers, said his rides sustained some electrical
damage from flooding, but nothing that won't be fixed well before
Memorial Day.
"This is a part of our
culture; it's deep in the soul of Jersey," he said. "The whole Jersey
shore phenomenon is pure Americana. Is it the sense of freedom, the sun,
the water, the Greek joints and the pizza stands? I think it's a
symphony of all these things. It's an authentic experience and a very
powerful one."
Morey said it is at least
theoretically possible for wrecked attractions such as the Casino Pier
in Seaside Heights to be rebuilt by next summer, provided state
government cooperates with expedited permits and minimal red tape.
The pounding surf wrecked
part or all of boardwalks in Belmar, Sea Girt, and Point Pleasant Beach.
Walkways in Asbury Park, about which Springsteen often wrote, and Ocean
City sustained lesser damage.
Kimberly Blackburn grew up
at the Jersey Shore but has been living near her husband's family in
Joliet, Ill., for the past four years. She described feeling "helpless"
over the past week from 750 miles away as she viewed devastating images
of the communities she holds dear: Belmar, where she went to high school
and took her senior class picture at the 5th Avenue Pavilion; Seaside
Heights, where she'd always pick up a pizza from Maruca's; and Point
Pleasant Beach, where she constantly hung out with friends and even
worked on the boardwalk one summer during college.
"It's like someone washed
my childhood away," Blackburn said. "That's how it feels. It's like this
storm literally just came and washed it all away."
She now treasures photos of
her young daughters taken at Brick Beach over Labor Day weekend, the
last time she visited home. And while she believes New Jersey will
rebuild the boardwalks and piers "bigger and better than ever," there
will still be something missing.
"They can never take the memories away," said Blackburn, briefly breaking down. "But it's never going to be the same."
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