Asbury Park ?
"Asbury Park " ? . Who can tell us about this place ?
The problem of the prophet at the begening : he does not know why people hate him.
........................................mosash ...................................
I was there last summer. They have really cleaned up the area. You can walk through one of the large buildings in the film. They kind of restored it and is open to the public during beach season. I can tell you that Long Beach, LI, NY is NOTHING like it is portrayed in the film. It's a nice beach community. This obviously is filmed in Jersey, they didn't even set foot on LI to do any shots for this movie even though thats where the true story apparently took place.
shareThanks , Kingfrat
It's nice to know the truth .
Yes its definitely Asbury Park. A lot of what you see is what they tried to rebuild in the '80-90s from the destruction bad years of the '60-70s. A lot of the buildings were Condos and Hotels that went bust in mid-build state while others are what remained from pre-WWII Asbury when it was a very nice vacation area.
I lived my first 20 years near Long Branch which this isn't and the last 20 years near Asbury Park.
I go to Asbury all the time to see shows at the Stone Pony. For those who have never been there a lot has changed since the movie was filmed. The big skeleton of a half built hotel that was sitting in the middle of the road in the movie has been demolished. Construction on that began in the 80's, the developer went bankrupt and it sat there for about 20 years the way you saw it in the move. Currently there is 2 storys of another highrise built in its location, Thats sitting unfinished as well because the current devolopers are now bankrupt and they only got 2 stories into building it before they haulted all work.
The big green building in the movie with the face on the side is palace amusements, the face is named tilly. The building was built in the late 1800's and has since been torn down after the filming of the movie because it was too far deteriorated for restoration. However, the Tilly face was saved because of petitions and protests, The section of wall with Tilly on it is currently in the Asbury DPW lot waiting to find a home.
The Casino building where the cop was shot is still there, The buildings real name is Casino, that wasnt just for the movie. However, Half of it was torn down because it couldnt be restored. The half that was torn down is the part right after all the windows over towards the ocean where it goes out over the sand. It was supposed to get replaced with a new addition that looked like the one that was torn down, however like i said, the Asbury Partners is now in bankruptcy.
The boardwalk was completely rebuilt, i have pictures of it being rebuilt since i personally worked on building the new one. So if anyone would like the pictures let me know.
All the buildings that were on the boardwalk were either completely remodeled or completely torn down and new shoppe buildings put in their place.
The Building across the boardwalk from the casino is the Convention Hall, also called the Paramount. I cant remember exactly what scene in the movie it is, but this building is in it, There is Grafitti in the background on the building that says "Brick City". That building is still there and still the same, It is currently open and was open during the filming of the movie. Usually concets and shows go on in there and there are a few small stores and food places.
Thats all i can remember for now because i havent seen the movie in a while, but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask,
Nice answer . I thank you very much .
shareIt's a bummer that they couldn't save Palace Amusements, that was one of my favorite buildings. But the roof was caved in and it was just a complete disaster. I miss the facade though. At least they saved Tillie.
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"Love means never having to say you're ugly." - the Abominable Dr. Phibes
Many thanks for your comments. Wife and I had a small typesetting shop there in the early '60s. Lived in Bradley Beach for a while, then moved to a boarding house on Fourth St. in Asbury, run by some German Concentration Camp survivors. My oldest boy was born there and in the middle of winter we used to bundle the kid up in the carriage and stroll the boardwalk. Left there for California in '66 with good memories of the place.
Watched this movie last night, for a while thought it was Atlantic City, and bemoaned the way the place deteriorated. In a way we felt it was a metaphor for how America is today - a dilapidated shadow of itself.
We always read most of the ending credits as we had friends in the movie business and was stunned/horrified to see them mention Asbury Park as the film site. Glad to see there was SOME restoration going on. We plan on swinging by there the next time we visit relatives back East (we're not in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia now, but still out West).
Wife came in while I was typing this up and I read her your report and boy, she was really bummed out as she had fond memories of how it used to be.
If you still have pictures, we'd like to see them.
Borg, it's nice to read your memories (you and your wife).