Asbury Park and Ocean Grove Historical Society meet at Firemen’s Park for a holiday trip into New York City. Blogfinger.net photo 12/5/21 ©
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net 12/5/21
Today, Sunday morning December 5, 2021, two tour buses were parked along the edge of Firemen’s Park. They were gathering for an all day Christmas trip into New York City sponsored by the Historical Societies of Asbury Park and Ocean Grove.
I went over to see what was going on and I was told that the Asbury Park Historical Society were the sponsors, but later I was informed that the OG group were also sponsors. The web site of the Historical Society of Ocean Grove does not mention this activity and we did not receive any email ads for it.
Two full tour buses accommodate about 150 people, and we suspect that most of this group are from A. Park and that a decision was made to park all day in the Grove because of our wonderful custom of free parking for Asburians, and it is ironic that our problems with A. parkers usually occur in this same neighborhood
Yesterday, Saturday Dec 4, we had some parking issues due to Christmas events by the CMA and another street closing fair by the Chamber of Commercials trying to attract customers into the Grove.
You know why these historians chose to meet here, but this was a little different from individual tourists riding around looking for free spaces to go into A.Park.
This is an organized event for a large group of people, and probably most of them were from A. Park and were parking here. Their ads said, “Board buses in Ocean Grove.”
These people will not be enjoying the Grove today; they will be using our free parking to hold their cars over all day until they return tonight.
Is this neighborly to have an organized parking space heist in the Grove?
Even if half of the group were from OG, it still is presumptuous that they would meet and park here because all who drove would park in this one particular neighborhood.
LENA HORNE “Any Place I Hang My Hat is Home.” by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) from a 1940’s Broadway show called St. Louis Woman.
Anonymous: Whether or not you enjoy this trip and whether or not there are “open spots” now on the streets are irrelevant. This town is not a parking lot.
You may not like our points of view on OG’s parking problems, but there are many prospective residents, current residents, realtors, beech goers, tourists, contractors, shoppers and others who are unhappy with our congested parking situation.
It is true that there is plenty of parking this time of year, but the solutions needed cannot be micromanaged according to the time of year. The Camp Meeting, for example, is striving to expand its activities to year-round.
Blogfinger is the only media source that shines a light on this problem and is consistently on the side of the residents.
And, if you want to have credibility with your opinions, you might consider telling us your name.
As a resident of Ocean Grove, I resent that you always have a negative spin on our rights to park on our streets.
I and many other Ocean Grove residents have enjoyed this bus tour for many years. There are many open spots this time of year.
Thank you. We stand corrected, but you didn’t tell us how many were from Ocean Grove. Your comment suggests that most of the 90 were from the “Jersey Shore area.”
We didn’t say how many people came, only that two full buses can carry about 150 people. The buses should have gathered the crowd in Asbury.
When it came time to go home that night, many cars drove off heading out of town. Meanwhile they tied up parking all day and into the night in that OG neighborhood.
Grovers are sensitized to the crowding of our parking. And the idea that OG should be used as a place to board buses is clearly a scheme to avoid parking elsewhere—especially in Asbury where almost all parking is for pay.
We don’t need additional sources of free parking. What other organizations will do this in prime season? It’s a bad precedent for us.
This trip has been going on for 10 plus years and always have been organized with OGHS and APHS, many of passengers were from OG, A minimal amount of passengers were from AP, the majority were from the Jersey shore area.
There were not 150, only 90 people, most carpooled and several Ubered in. The trip was advertised publicly in The Coaster at least 7 weeks and clearly noted the sponsors. Many passengers commented that they will be back to visit the stores and restaurants during Christmas Season. Merry Christmas and may God Bless you.
At 9 pm the streets around the park lit up as the buses returned and many headlights popped on all around, and those cars then hurried out of town.
On-street metered parking will be free from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every Saturday between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day throughout the city. The bus outing was today, Sunday/
As I recall, Asbury Park has promoted free parking from Thanksgiving through end of year to encourage Asbury shopping, restaurants and more. There was really no need to take advantage of OG in this manner.
Anonymous: Thank you for the correction.
The OG Historical Society used to sponsor lovely trips into New York to see Broadway shows. Those trips were fun, and the bus did stop here.
But they didn’t have to co-sponsor with A. parkers to fill up one bus.
Why did they need to cosponsor this trip? The Historical Society of OG did not mention this event on their web site, and I doubt too many Grovers read the A. Park site.
According to the AP Historical Society Facebook page, The Ocean Grove Historical Society and the AP Historical Society are sponsoring this trip to NYC.
“The holiday season will be here before we know it – and we have a fantastic event planned. The Asbury Park & Ocean Grove Historical Societies presents the New York City Christmas Lights Tour!”