Hanging out downtown Ocean Grove. 1999. Getting ready for the July 4 parade. Paul Goldfinger photo.
We arrived in Ocean Grove in 1998. It was our weekend special destination. The newsstand was a central place to visit in the morning. OG had its own newspaper, “The Record.” As the demographics in town began to change, young dads came down to pick up the New York Times and coffee and a roll with butter at Freedman’s Bakery. The cars were beginning to change: Porsches and BMW’s—no electric cars.
There used to be a doctor’s office, a seashell shop, Tina’s gift shop, a barber shop, a flower shop, Moonstruck restaurant, (now in A. Park) a fully functional post office, Nagle’s–a casual restaurant and ice cream place, another lawyer, another bank, and a grocery store with its own butcher. (Pathway Market today). There still are no public bathrooms in our commercial area.
Some of you will be able to recall others.
And here is a Main Avenue anecdote from 1999:
I was sitting on that bench with a coffee one morning when an old guy tried to park head on. I was sitting at the ocean end of the bench while he pulled into the other end, where the man in the photo and white sneakers was sitting. But the driver did not stop. He crashed into the bench—the coffee and I went flying. I was not hurt.
The driver got out of the car and approached the crowd which had quickly assembled. He looked at me as I got up and said to the crowd, “He’s OK. No problem here.”
A giant Neptune cop pulled up, got out, asked how I was and spoke to the driver privately and announced that there would be no ticket or other charges. He said that the driver was local. I didn’t sit there again. Head on parking is overused and dangerous in parts of Ocean Grove.
Paul Goldfinger. Pre-Blogfinger. (began 2009)
The cast of The Most Happy Fella: