a.

OG boards: April 23, 2022. Blogfinger photo. What’s going on?  Could this be the start of something big?   More equipment is at the South End lot.  It turns out that these machines are remodeling the beach.

Steve and Eydie:

b.  Ocean Grove’s Firemen’s Park has a concentration camp style decor with a spiked  and locked steel  fence around its fire bell, but this town is the only one around here which does that.  The rest, including Asbury and Bradley, have their bells in the open and accessible.

Kids love to touch big bells except in the Grove where the bell is more secure than the Liberty Bell in Philly.

Bradley Beach Riley Park is all open. They even have a bandstand. Paul Goldfinger photo.   Click to enlarge this image.

c.  Bradley Beach has no giant events.  Today there is a small-scale craft show downtown:  No bands, no street closure, no hot dog trucks.  This is a local event.  It is not meant to attract tourists.  There is plenty of parking. I parked in front of the police station.

Small craft show in Riley Park, Bradley Beach. Saturday 4/23/22. Looked like mostly locals in attendance.  Paul Goldfinger photo.

Bradley Beach  has a larger population than Ocean Grove, but no stifling congested tourist events.  They may have their Lobsterfest, but that will probably be after the summer season is over;   there have been controversies in BB about big tourist events, and they have only one—-maybe.

OG giant craft show.  Giant, but still something to smile about.  Paul Goldfinger photo.©

Yes there are benefits to our huge tourist shows, but enough is enough.   How about one giant flea market and one giant craft fair each season:  one in June and one in September?

And no OG Chamber of Commercials events that would bring in throngs of tourists and cause loud music, shlocky goods, unhealthy foods, and street closures.  What is the point?

What other shore towns allow their Chamber to commercialize their streets and do what ours do to draw outsiders into town?

These events do nothing to help the town of Ocean Grove or improve the life styles of its citizens, and the same will be said of the forthcoming Giant North End money-making, tourist attracting, fake-Victorian, new part of town—not a neighborhood.

it needs a new name:  How about “The North End, High-End, Extension-of-Dubious Intention-by-the-Sea.”

We could have a name for our North End that would be famous because of  more hyphens than Avon-By-The-Sea.

A. Park is all about tourism–it is not about families, retirees, history, porch culture, kids, bikes, or neighborhoods. We are not like Asbury nor should we be trying to emulate them.

We don’t need to be them—-we can just go over there whenever we are in the mood for upscale lifestyles, expensive bourbon, great girl watching, pot smoking, 40 kinds of Sake, Guinness on tap,  sushi to die for,  frivolous conversation, and fine multicultural dining.

Who are they kidding at the HPC/OGNED/Neptuner Comedy Road Show currently in progress by ZOOM?   Will all that fussing and complaining over minutiae result in a law suit?  Will Jennifer Krimko find a reason to file one?

LOUIS PRIMA: