3) The Towns Around Asbury

Allenhurst, Part 2

 

Allenhurst has a narrow three-block boardwalk and a beach club. It's a real pleasure to be around here in summer - lots of activity, flapping flags, a general brightness that still retains a sense of tradition. Indeed, you'll find people at the pool who have been coming here for years and years and whose parents and grandparents still do.

 

3.1.2 Part of the Allenhurst boardwalk. The pool (see image below) is just across the street from the farthest house on the right. Note that Asbury Park's Convention Hall and Paramount Theater are visible in the distance just left of center. The tall "office-style" building in the distance at center marks the site of the old Monte Carlo Pool. If you look in the opposite direction (northeast), on a really clear day in spring or autumn, can see Long Island on the horizon as it stretches way out to sea.

3.2.2. The Allenhurst Pool, which sits just above the beach on a low bluff. Today a white wall with blue designs surrounds the pool. All of the houses in the background of this old postcard exist today. Click HERE to see a modern shot of the pool and the beach.

 

3.3.2. A side street (Spier Avenue), just off the little boardwalk.

 

3.4.2 Another side street (Cedar Avenue), just off the boards.
That's my car, spoiling the shot.

In closing, I should note that songwriter Dorothy Fields (1905-1996) was born in Allenhurst. She co-wrote several well-known songs, including I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby and The Sunny Side of the Street. Along with Jerome Kern, she won the 1936 Academy Award Academy Award for the song The Way You Look tonight (from the film Swing Time). With Cy Coleman, she wrote the score for the musical Sweet Charity. In 1973 she was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.

3.52. Fields appears in the songwriters postage stamp series.
(First day of issue, September 11, 1996.)

To see yet a few more interesting images of Allenhurst, Click HERE.

 

But wait! I promised a "singular treat." Those of you who have QuickTime installed can go inside the Allenhurst Gazebo and look around. CLICK HERE!

(The basic version of QuickTime is free. Download the "QuickTime Player.")

***

But the summer ends in Allenhurst - fades off. The world turns. The beach people vanish and Autumn is upon us. Then winter. The squee of the gulls and wide white noise of the ocean take over. Quietly the mansions look on. Take now a brisk, healthful walk on the uncrowded boards. Now's the time to sit on a boardwalk bench with your pad and pencil. People do it all the time. A new kind of poetry has returned.

Now let's go to the spot where the branches of Deal Lake split off from the main basin. Here we will find Interlaken!

 

[PREVIOUS PAGE] [TOWNS INDEX] [NEXT PAGE]

[Asbury Index Page] [Main Page]