Loved Dogvoices, we were pretty tight with the bassist, sucks they all split up now. Keep meaning to go see Ed's (bassist)new band, but he always plays too far North. Don't remember Hyperactive though...

__________________
"Beer..the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!" Homer J.

Asbury Park and Ocean Grove have been "gay" since i was a kid. It's only in the last 5-7 years that it's been "discovered" by the more mature, Manhattan gay set who got tired of Fire Island and didn't have the money for the Hamptons. Convenient too because the train from Penn Station to Asbury takes about the same amount of time as the train from 30th St. to Atlantic City.

While Ocean Grove has long been quaint, downtown Asbury, across Wesley Lake from OG, has come a long way. My grandparents used to live in one of the high-rises on Deal Lake in the early 80's but that part of town, the northeast, has always been nice. It's really just the west side and the first two blocks off the boardwalk where all the hotels/motels used to be that are lagging behind but now the oceanfront is one giant construction site now so who knows what it will look like next year.

I took some of these pics years ago and some of them last spring and already they're outdated:

Close up - on the north is Deal Lake, in the middle is Sunset Lake, on the south end is Wesley Lake.


Downtown
If it looks old and decrepit it's most likely from March 2001


If it looks like shiny and new it's probably from March 2007




Back then


last March
















More shots of downtown from last year




back then


now






back then


now




heading towards the beach
2001


Palace Amusements (where Tillie's face used to be) in 2001


in 2007


back then


ahora


















Sunset Lake and Northeast
These are all from 2001








Main St. - Main St. and the commuter train to Hoboken/NYC run side-by-side and cut the town into east and west. East being the nicer half. The Asbury Renaissance really started 8 years ago when a lot of gay couples from NYC started rehabbing the crap out of the old victorians in the northeast part of town.




This is a fairly typical street in Bradley Beach, just south of AP.


This is a typical street in Allenhurst - which is just north of AP