Rev. W.B. Osborn was the founder of Ocean Grove. This bio was written by his wife. Let’s see if she writes about a commercial North End.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net (Re-post from 2018)
Speaking at the Home Groaners meeting on August 6, 2018, CMA President Michael Badger said, ” The maps of Ocean Grove from the 1880’s contained a plan for the North End hotel and it will be excellent to have the founders’ vision fulfilled again,”
This quote is from the Coaster which reported on that meeting.
Here is a CMA map from about 1879 when Stokes and other founders were in charge, so you know that it is very early:
Ocean Grove from about 1879. Map commissioned by Dr. Stokes, President of the CMA. Click on map for details. North End has 26 lots for single family homes. See Jack Bredin’s comment below about this map.
Ocean Grove 1889 map. It shows 12 lots at the North End property. Those lots were for single family houses for Methodist clergy. No sign of a planned hotel there.
1881 Library of Congress map. Detail below this map.
Detail. Library of Congress map of OG and A. Park 1881. No North End hotel. There is the Ross bathing pavilion located there, by the ocean. The North End is otherwise shown as a barren lot. Click to enlarge.
Click on these maps to see the details. If you look carefully near the Ocean at the North End you will not find a “plan for the North End Hotel.”
Obviously CMA President Badger would like to find a historic precedent for a “very early” North End Hotel plan to back up his latest (2018) new North End plan. He says that there are maps that reveal “the founders’ vision” for a North End hotel.
We have never seen such a map, so it would be good if President Badger could back up his statement with at least one of his 1880’s maps, and we would be pleased to post it on Blogfinger.
We have reviewed Elwood Stoke’s biography as well as the book about early Ocean Grove written by Mrs. W.B. Osborn. Neither of these books mention a hotel.
In fact Mrs. Osborn tells us that James Bradley, who developed Asbury Park, saw that the two cities might compliment each other, so he offered Osborn a chance to partner with him and make some money. But Osborn refused, saying that he founded Ocean Grove not for money but for the “glory of God.”
The Grand Ocean Grove North End Hotel complex opened in 1911, about 40 years after the founding—hardly a good historic precedent for 2018 justifications.
Besides, even if that founders’ vision can be verified, who’s to say that it justifies the CMA’s 2018 North End Plan to build a hotel? OG’s history is full of hotels, but zoning normally would not allow one to be built from scratch now.
ELVIS PRESLEY