Lake Avenue, Ocean Grove. September 1, 2013. By Paul Goldfinger © Click to enlarge image.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
Many of us have already noticed that Lake Avenue has become a destination for walking and biking. It used to be quite a glorious pathway about one hundred years ago.
OG side of Wesley Lake, around 1900. The postcard is from Eileen’s collection.
Now you can go there and enjoy watching the swan boats as they glide around the lake and you can admire those bridges that look like something from Europe. There are ducks paddling around, and you can people watch. On a nice day, quite a few people are moving in one direction or the other. You can go to Asbury Park or head for the boardwalk and the ocean.
In fact, while I was photographing on the New Jersey Avenue bridge the other day, I got into two interesting conversations. One was with a Grover named Jack who was biking to meet someone on the AP side. We got to discuss photography, and we learned some things from each other. One mystery left unresolved was the true story of what famous photographer Robert Frank was thinking about when he shot his celebrated image of a segregated bus down south. Stay tuned for that story.
Captain Midnight; and that’s the guy!
By Paul Goldfinger. September , 2013 ©
Another guy came from the direction of Captain Midnight’s evocative cottage on the Grove side. We’ve been talking on the blog about how diversity of the human kind makes a place more interesting, and certainly that is true of architecture. Captain Midnight has been a fascinating mystery that we should solve one of these days. Is he really a captain? Is he really mysterious? Maybe he’s a super hero.
Meanwhile this guy told me that he was from Colorado and that his brother owned a house along the lake—OG side, near where we were standing. He wanted to know if I was “allowed” to take pictures of those houses. I said, “I don’t need permission.” He said, “Oh, I was just curious.” Really? I asked him if he ever had a Rocky Mountain high. He just walked away.
It reminds me of when I was doing some candid shots of a wedding down by the pier in OG–I was not the wedding photographer, just a photog looking for some interesting OG subject matter. The father of the bride approached me, in his tux, and asked me to stop taking pictures. What to do? Should I say, “Make me,” like we did when we were kids? Instead, I said that he can’t stop me, but then I walked away.
It was a boring wedding anyhow. No hora or chopped liver. In fact, no food at all. Yikes–it’s a photo shoot , and they wanted me to leave. It reminded me of the wedding scene in the Godfather, and I didn’t want $10,000 worth of photo gear tossed into the Atlantic
JOHN DENVER:
Hi! For more information about the home . The man who you spoke to is our neighbor . The home next door owns the little bungalow . My step father rents it out yearly . Captain Midnight was chosen by our land lord Jenean . She is very artistic and creative as she has hand painted walls , windows , and light switches in the home . There’s a separate courtyard connected to her home and Captain Midnight . I like to call it Jeneans magical garden because it’s filled with twinkling lights , broken mirrors , and beautiful plants . This is by far my favorite spot of OG and my home . If you want to know anything further let me know 🙂
Why don’t you show a photo from Ted Bell showing how from the Beach Ave area the ground tapered down to Wesley Lake, and row boats would dock at the edge of the water.
If you go look at the end of Beach where the wall fell apart you will see the old pilings of where the boats tied up.
Why aren’t they bringing the lake back to the original instead of this ugly wall? Also why aren’t they bringing the old lights back to make it look original?