Time in Asbury Park

What a great time to get out and enjoy the beautiful spring weekend we had on the East Coast. This weekend Ms.Moorecock and I headed to the beach community of Asbury Park so I could pick up art work from one of my co-workers art showings. The hospitable staff at the Hotel Tides had  a beautiful room set aside for the night, my favorite massause and later met up with the Jersey friends for pre-dinner cock-a-tails and dinner at the Tides, followed by a drag show at Paradise.

Now it is usually early for me to go to the beach, but the weather was so beautiful, who could not resist a walk on the beach since we were there....... we decided to walk the long jetty out in the ocean......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there was even fishing going on......

 

 

Ms Moorecock's pup, Posey, even liked the beach. Figures she would have a wiener dog!

 

 

Now Asbury Park is much different from the beach I usually vacation in, of Rehoboth Beach. While both are gay destinations, Rehoboth draws a crowd almost year round and is more modern with new amenties. But off season, Asbury Park in very quiet, and it is also mush more beach vintage,  more old world bijou,  with extremely beautiful architecture and art deco reigning supreme. Riots that broke out in the city on July 4, 1970, resulted in the destruction of  much of the beach and aging buildings along Springwood Avenue, one of three main east-west corridors into Asbury Park and the central shopping and entertainment district for those living in the city's southwest quadrant. Many of those city blocks and the boardwalk,  have still yet to be redeveloped into the 21st century. The vacant streets of Asbury Park were a common sight in the 1980s and 1990s and lots of the restorations came to a stand still with economic funding running out,  and then Hurricane Sandy didn't help either. But thanks to the gays, Asbury is finally getting a make over. It only takes a few queens bending over with gas, and glitter begins to fly! After the property values plummeted, gay people from New York City purchased and restored Victorian homes, leading to a rejuvenation of parts of the city. In 2000, Shep Pettibone opened Paradise Nightclub, a gay discotheque on the ocean. He has since also opened the Empress Hotel, the state's only gay-oriented hotel. What has already re-opened is extremely chic! Every summer the Sand Blast Weekend draw tens of thousands of gay people to the city. I am slated to attend this year. But the building are just so glorious, I hope they are able to rehabilitate them......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And how stunning is this window on this old building where the carousel once was. Hurricane Sandy took a few of these with her.

 

 

 

But I will say, everyone in the community is extremely friendly, maybe the Mistress should look for a place there before the big boom hits again? I have always wanted to live by the sea.  But I will say, it was a great weekend to enjoy the ocean! And the boys, Tootles!