Glory Days: Dispatches From an Academic Conference on Bruce Springsteen (Part 2)

I took a walk late Friday night along the boardwalk in Asbury Park. It’s been almost seven years since I was last here, and things have certainly changed. Most of the Glory Days conference attendees, at least the ones who can still stay up this late, were listening to Gary U.S. Bonds at the Stone Pony.

Since I was presenting at 9 a.m. the following morning, I decided to be a good boy and abstain.

Seeing the change in the town is hard to take it in at first. Even in the off-season, as the breezes off the Atlantic make it just cold enough at night that dining al fresco in one of the numerous and new chic eateries is out of the question, things are downright bustling.

Where I once remember concrete craters, spring new businesses and diversions, several upscale retailers, a diner, a place where you can blow your own glass, an excellent Italian restaurant...or two.

Perhaps it leans a little too chic though, like the dance club at Convention Hall, the organic bistro on the boardwalk (what the hell ever happened to hot dogs and chili fries?) and a place simply called Posh Den.

When Springsteen cut his teeth and lived in this town back in the later 1960s and early 1970s, Asbury Park was beginning its long slide downhill. The race riots in 1970 accelerating an exodus of anyone with any means, the malls outside of town killing local retail, years of municipal incompetence and corruption (New Jersey’s state sport, it seems) made the place a pathetic shell.

Perhaps that edginess, that pallor of decay, is one thing that attracted Bruce. Well, that, and the numerous places to play, but even he would argue that to restore something is to change it in ways that you may not ever have intended.

Asbury Park, once it ceased being the religious community that Ocean Grove just to the south remains, was a popular family summer destination for working class and middle class families. It should be that again.

Refreshingly, there is also a new mini-golf course and water park for kids, something to bring people down to the beach besides high-end retail. Beaches should first and foremost be places to play, not just to look cool.

I joked once to a friend years ago that the oceanfront in Asbury looked like it had recently been victim of some errant airstrike. The first few blocks inland fared a bit better in the initial raid, and it seems that reconstruction efforts by the conquering nation has begun. It’s a weird mix of pesto and peeling plaster.

There is a full marquee on the Paramount Theater, people just hanging out, sounds of music drifting from several places, and signs that work goes on at numerous locations despite the slow economy. So far, so good.

Still, though: driving into town I saw desperation, dilapidation and neglect among the islands of hope along Main Street and Kingsley Avenue. Some blocks even reminded me of West Baltimore. This is no way to run a beach town.

You can have as many condominiums and luxury apartments as you like, but the people who have been sticking it out in this town for the last 30-40 years deserve their reward as well, the ones who never gave up or are out of options. As Bruce himself sang once, “No one, baby, but the brave…”

In a town that is only one square mile, a slight loss in the tax base can be catastrophic, and filling that in with retail and luxury living is a shortsighted plan. Promises have been made that the development will in fact reach the some thirty percent of Asbury Park residents who live below the poverty line. Most are still waiting.