🦶On location with the Wildwood Seasquatch | Down the Shore

The other day, in the middle of breaking news about chaos at the Shore, I got a call from the Wildwood Seasquatch.

Who, you may ask?

For those who haven’t run into the Seasquatch in the wild (or on Facebook), this is the mythical creature-slash-mascot that’s been haunting or maybe just heckling Wildwood this summer. Initially, the Seasquatch was aiming for a Sasquatch vibe, its handlers posting grainy video purporting to be real, Big Foot-style.

Would people become obsessed?

But soon, like most things in Wildwood, it devolved into something more ridiculous. It donned its own merch, a blue T-shirt with a picture of Seasquatch surfing, quite tame by Wildwood T-shirt standards.

Despite a lifelong mascot phobia, I agreed to meet in person.

I had questions (and keep scrolling for Seasquatch’s slam book rapid fire Q&A).

Seasquatch quickly began explaining itself.

“I’m on a much lower plane than these historic mascots,” he said, unexpectedly humble, referring to Philly’s hierarchy of undefinable mascots: Gritty, the Phanatic, and, even, maybe even, Swoop. The Seasquatch is a mascot that knows its limitations.

“All the mascots out there are definitely influences,” Seasquatch says.

An odd combination of Gritty, Big Foot, and if Lucy the Elephant was a guy in a costume running around Margate, the Wildwood Seasquatch is trying to go viral. Rather than tormenting Wildwood, the Seasquatch wants people to love Wildwood as much as it does. It will heckle you, but mostly it wants a selfie with you.

With apologies to Sunny the Seagull, the Morey’s Piers viral mascot whose existence I have tried to ignore, and with all due respect to A.C. Batman, an enduring spiritual presence in Atlantic City, please read my deep dive profile of the Wildwood Seasquatch.

Meanwhile, my colleague Erin McCarthy was onto a much more rigorous journalistic endeavor: the economics of Wildwood’s senior week.

She found that while some businesses wish the teenagers, who famously can become unruly, wouldn’t come, they’re also making money off them. Erin interviewed one property owner who makes $40,000 in two weeks renting to new high school graduates.

And speaking of teens, Margate made the news (again) with its new police policy of ticketing parents of unruly teens.

📮 What do you think? Is Senior Week worth the hassle of extending a welcome to crowds of unsupervised teenagers? Does it make you wish you had a Shore house so you can pay the mortgage off the bank accounts of teens and their parents?

Do you think parents should be liable for the actions of their teenagers? Let me know what you think and I’ll include your most interesting responses by replying to this email.

🚨 Be my eyes at the Shore! Send news tips or story ideas to me here.

🌊 Not to rub it in Philly, but it is actually quite lovely down here with a cooling ocean breeze. Ocean temps are inching toward 70 degrees.

⬇️ Keep scrolling for news, recs, the Seasquatch slam book, trivia, and a lovely Shore memory.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Find me at @amysrosenberg, on Insta at @amysrosenberg or 📧 Email me here.)

🛝 Waterpark blues: A judge will decide July 5 whether to appoint a receiver over Bart Blatstein’s waterpark construction company, with subcontractors on the $100 million Atlantic City attraction saying Blatstein owes them millions.

🤬 The Juneteenth celebration this year in Ocean City, planned by Dan Sinclair, who grew up in Ocean City and organized last year’s successful event, was marred by sparse attendance and racist comments on Facebook.

⛔ Ocean City will not ban ski masks on the Boardwalk.

🫢 Margate will ticket parents of unruly teens, and they could be fined $1,000 and given 90 days of community service alongside their teen.

🚶‍♀️ Avalon Borough Council accepted a $4,690 payment from a Stone Harbor developer and a homeowner, allowing a two-home development to skip building a public access walkway between the homes.

⚖️ Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. and his wife, schools Superintendent La’Quetta Small, did not appear in court as scheduled this week on charges of assaulting and endangering their teen daughter. Attorney Ed Jacobs told me the couple waived the pre-indictment conference.

🥖 Shore bakery owner charged in sweeping racketeering case.

🚗 Beach Haven’s Chamber of Commerce wants to know if you want to pay for parking.

🥐 Eat where the Kelces eat: The Shorebreak Cafe in Sea Isle, where Kelce kids had a croissant breakfast sandwich and pop tarts, with Baloo the dog there to “clean up any crumbs.”

🍺 Drink where the Kelces (and you never know who else might show up?) bartend.

🎨 See paintings by the late Atlantic City native Wayne Manns now through July 28 at the city’s African American Heritage Museum at 2200 Fairmount Ave. Reception is 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, featuring jazz trumpeter Eddie Morgan.

🏖️ Stretch out on North Wildwood’s newly replenished beaches.

🚲 Watch out for police enforcing bicycle hours this year on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk (how about some bike lanes?).

🪘 Howl at the moon: Ventnor’s full moon drum circle will be Friday at 6:30 p.m. at Sacramento Avenue beach.

🎶 See Taylor at the beach: Even if she doesn’t show up in Sea Isle to bartend with Travis, you can go to the Stone Harbor Museum’s Taylor Swift exhibit, including cool pictures of Swift in Stone Harbor as a girl.

The recent demolition of the Silver Sun Mall in Beach Haven revealed the sign of the old family hardware store that had been there since the 1950 and had been hidden by the mall.

Was the hardware store:

A. Hands

B. Gardner’s

C. Wallace

D. Koseff’s

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out. Or take a chance and email me with the correct answer for a possible shout-out. Congrats to Bill Ross first with last week’s answer of Absecon (location of the Jonathan Pitney House).

Terry Maher writes: From the late 60s to the mid 1970s, my friends would rent a house for the entire summer, and so would a lot of other college students and recent grads. It was a rite of passage. Do 20-somethings still rent for the summer? We would pay about $1,000 per season for a house in Margate, Sea Isle, Ocean City or Avalon and split it 8-10 ways (sleeping on the floor was no problem back then). With today’s rental costs, I wonder if it happens anymore.

Good question! Despite the popularity of Bravo TV’s Summer House, renting for the season has fallen out of favor in recent years. It’s so much money!

I checked with super-knowledgable real estate agents Dana Hartman of Margate and Ann Delaney of Avalon, and both confirmed that 20-somethings nowadays tend to come to the beach and stay … at their parents’ Shore house. Or their friends’ parents’ Shore house.

Delaney knows of only one summerlong group house, where the weeks are parceled out, and everybody is … in their 50s.

🤔 Have a question for Down the Shore? Ask us here.

A few rapid-fire questions for Seasquatch, slam book style:

Favorite beach: The Wildwoods, naturally, specifically 15th Street, where the lifeguards are.

Favorite breakfast: Seagulls!

Perfect beach day: 80 and sunny.

Perfect night: A stroll on the boards, Friday night fireworks.

Best sandwich: Russo’s cheesesteak.

Mack’s or Sam’s? Mack’s. I like to sit at the counter and get local dirt.

When the summer season approaches, I feel: Relieved. All the preparation has essentially been done.

It wouldn’t be the Jersey Shore without: Sun, sand, and salt.

Best thing for kids: Be kids.

Surfing or fishing? Fishing (Obvi).

Sunrise or sunset? I am a sunrise guy.

Shore pet peeve? Feeding the seagulls, that’s got to be number one.

The Shore could be improved if: We all just respect each other.

John Shiffert writes: June 1998 … just short of her third birthday, my daughter Maggie is visiting Ocean City for the first time. She’s on a blanket on our traditional 35th Street beach, eating a chocolate chip cookie. I come back up from the surf, and she says, with a mixture of indignation and resignation, “Birdie took my cookie … right out of my hand!” This was the first time I knew the seagulls in OC were (as they still are) going rogue.The sequel is, my dad and I took her to the Philly Zoo the next day, and she chased after the pigeons there, saying, “Cookie! Cookie!” She wanted that cookie back. To this day, no one, man or bird, messes with Maggie’s chocolate chip cookies.

🎆 We’re looking for your memories of Fourth of July Down the Shore. Send them here.

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