Bradley Beach. Paul Goldfinger photograph. 2021. ©  This is a re-post to remind us of other summer avenues, namely small scale attractions for residents. Blogfinger photo.

10/20/22      Have we had enough Saturday tourist events in the Grove?  Other towns do not have the hunger for tourists as we do in this town.  What good do events such as the British car show do for the residents of the Grove?

In Bradley and Belmar, for example, they prefer town activities for the benefit of residents.  Below is a Blogfinger re-post on this subject.

This is an example of a summer program in B. Beach.  Movies in Riley park on their Main Street..     Blogfinger photo. 2022.

By Paul Goldfinger,  Editor @Blogfinger.net   Re-post 2021.

T.J. Coan is a Bradley Beach patriot.  He and other residents were unhappy that the giant Lobster Festival, scheduled for June 23-25, would make their town unlivable due to the crowds, merchants, and cars.

As it were, the summer weekends create some crowding in a beach-town like BB, but at least it is mostly of the home-grown variety with families and their guests coming to the beach for a great time. That sort of summer crowding is comfortable and manageable.

The Festival would have brought about 70,000 people to BB added to the town-generated 30,000.  We spoke to T.J. last March about this issue and how it relates to Ocean Grove.  Below is the link.

Bradley Beach residents fight gridlock

Bradley Beach, a larger town than OG, usually has only one mega-event, the Lobster Festival,  and it doesn’t bring any significant funds to the townspeople to improve their home. The big money is carried away by entrepreneurs looking to clean up during peak season, leaving the residents with nothing but grief in terms of enjoying their own town during a summer weekend.

Ocean Grove has a bunch of mega-events, more than any other area shore town, and the residents are left being imprisoned, afraid to move their cars and unable to enjoy their famous Victorian beach town during such events.

And show us the money!   It goes to the CMA, the Chamber of Commercials, and the merchants.

T.J. likes to divide Jersey Shore beach towns  into the tourist variety  (a la Seaside Heights) and the residential variety where residents get to enjoy their own homes without huge invasions by tourists  ( a la Bradley Beach, Spring Lake, and-sometimes  Ocean Grove.)

So T.J. started an insurrection with the overt and/or quiet support of residents.  He brought a law suit which lead to other complications, and, in the end, the Lobster Festival was cancelled.  If you really want to go into the weeds about what happened, you can search the Asbury Park Press.

But T.J. and his supporters should be ensconced in the Bradley Beach Hall of Fame over this victory.  They have returned their town to the residents and have set a precedent for future similar challenges.

Interestingly, the residents were in favor of having the Festival after Labor Day, but that idea was rejected by the sponsors because they would not make enough money

In Ocean Grove, however, our town, often drowning in cars and tourists, finds itself with no advocates for the lifestyle that once existed here.

I moved to OG as the situation was on the rise  (as described in Ted David’s book “The Other Side of Ocean Grove,”) but now in terms of a “historic, residential beach town” vs. a  “tourist beach town,” we are on a downhill trajectory and tumbling fast.

And if you are unsure of what I am talking about, go to any part of the Grove like the beachfront, downtown, neighborhoods,  Lake Avenue, and parks, on a weekend free of glut, and you will see children running about, dog walkers, small groups biking fearlessly, families enjoying the boardwalk and the beach, teenagers on skateboards, dinner parties on porches, neighbors outside chatting, and some actual parking spaces here and there.

The proposed North End Redevelopment would tip our scales towards Asbury Park, and Neptune would have won the movement to turn the Grove into a money-oriented mess.

If the CMA wants to survive as a community based asset, it needs to change sides.

JANE MONHEIT: