⛄ Beach house in winter | Down the Shore

Hello from the beach in winter! It’s a bit of a funny place to be. Where there once were crowds, there is only me and my neighbor talking to one another while parked in the middle of the street. Who will notice, or care?

I’d be lying if I didn’t point out that until maybe this week, the weather has been challenging. The wind! Day after day of a chilling ocean or bay wind, oof. But also, this winter has produced lovely snow down the Shore, a magnificent and soothing site on the beach, maybe one of the most beautifully surprising sights there is. There were snowboarders on the dunes, cross-country skiers on the beach, kids using boardwalk ramps as sledding hills. Nor’Easter Nick Pittman says Cape May got 18 inches this winter and Atlantic City got 13. Plus, people were seeing snowy owls, long-tail ducks, and bald eagles.

Unexpectedly, I got a funny thing this winter at the Shore: visitors! Two sets of relatives who would typically come in summer found their way to me during winter (thank you, in one case, to Atlantic City for hosting this month’s massive U.S. Futsal Northeast Regional Championship youth indoor soccer tournament). Guess what, the Shore is a great place to visit no matter the season (whether the heat in my house is, say, sub-optimal is another question). My little relatives and I climbed Lucy the Elephant, made cold-weather sand castles, gathered and painted shells, inspected horseshoe crabs on the beach, even finished a game of Monopoly, in which I landed in jail seven times and went bankrupt on a hotel-lined Boardwalk. Sounds familiar, eh? Imagine the astonishment of my 7- and 4-year-old grandnephews when they learned the Monopoly board is based on the streets of … Atlantic City!

Massive shoutout to Trish at Hannah G’s and Sally at Tony’s Baltimore Grill for treating my peeps like they were cherished locals, and, now that they’re on an offseason first-name basis with waitresses at two iconic Shore restaurants, I guess they are. My gratitude to the mighty Knife & Fork Inn (always just the bar) for hosting tag-teaming relatives on Valentine’s Day. Keep those pineapple martinis flowing.

And keep scrolling for offseason news, an interview with AC Leef’s Miguel Lugo, reader thoughts on Ocean City, and the saga of the Cape May County toll bridges, which are going all E-ZPass on April 1. Here’s my profile of the county’s last full-time toll taker, who inspired a Springsteen-esque song.

📮 Summer will be here before we know it. What will make this season different? Are you coming back or letting it go? Paging the Canadians! What’s on your mind as we barrel toward the vernal equinox? Are you traveling to other destinations, maybe even Europe, instead this year? I’ll include your most interesting responses sent to this email.

Have ideas or news tips about the Shore or this newsletter? Send them here.

🥶 Could use a little less wind!

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

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🫐 Thousands of undocumented farmworkers in South Jersey are fearing ICE actions.

🎸 The city of Cape May, which became Newport, R.I., in the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, went uncredited, annoying locals.

🇨🇦 Will Canadians take out their annoyance with the U.S. on the Jersey Shore?

🐠 Fish story: The Atlantic City Aquarium will (finally) reopen March 24, or so they say.

5️⃣ The five Jersey-est Jersey Shore stories of 2024.

🥖 A.C. bread entrepreneur gets judge to throw out racketeering indictment.

🏖️ Sandbox: Wildwood and Wildwood Crest don’t want to share with North Wildwood.

🪂 The Atlantic City Airshow was canceled for 2025, and Wildwood booked its own airshow.

⚖️ A.C. mayor pleads not guilty to witness tampering in the abuse case involving his daughter. Also announces run for reelection.

🗳️ Political operative Craig Callaway pleads guilty to running a vote-fraud scheme.

🌊 Ocean wind farms are in trouble.

⚽ How Atlantic City is attracting international visitors with sports tourism (like futsal).

🥯 Kismet Bagels is opening in Ventnor, along with Remedee Coffee, last seen operating out of a garage in A.C.

🥩 A.C. wiz settling into the 1300 block of Atlantic Avenue, near Yardy Jamaican Food, is Cuzzies Steaks.

🐕 Water Dog Smoke House is closing to make way for Kismet, consolidating with Betty’s Seafood Shack, BBQ and Fried Chicken in Margate, and people have thoughts.

🖼️ Go see: the Jersey Gents exhibit of work by Black men from South Jersey at A.C.’s African American Heritage Museum.

🛟 Bart Blatstein’s Island Waterpark is getting an array of helpful tax credits, so check it out already.

☘️ Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in North Wildwood, which has its Shamrock Shuttle on March 8 and a parade om March 15, and Atlantic City, which has its historically lively parade on March 8.

🐭 The Maus documentary: Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, will have its New Jersey premiere March 5 at Stockton University, courtesy of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center. RSVP here.

Which of Cape May County’s five toll bridges no longer needs a bridge tender to open the bridge for marine traffic?

A. Ocean City-Longport

B. Corsons Inlet

C. Townsends Inlet

D. Grassy Sounds

E. Middle Thorofare

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out. And check out the ballad of the last bridge toll taker.

Atlantic City now has more marijuana dispensaries than casinos, with AC Leef, owned by Chris Aponte, the first to locate in an expanded green zone on Albany Avenue in Chelsea Heights. Product manager Miguel Lugo, 38, a native of the Bronx and former chef at Borgata, cited Anthony Bourdain’s loving view of A.C. (”...the bones, the skeleton of this city are beautiful,” Bourdain said) and said the city felt like family after his brother died. He gave us his best recommendations.

Favorite beach: Atlantic City. Chicken Bone Beach.

Favorite summer breakfast: DeMarco’s. Turkey bacon, egg and cheese on a croissant, a little cream cheese spread on the croissant.

Perfect beach day: Usually Sundays, we go on the beach. Some people go to church. I go to the beach on Sundays with the family. We’ll have lunch packed, hit the beach.

Perfect night: Walking the Boardwalk, hitting casinos up. Life in A.C. is pretty cool, do a couple concerts, get a nice cheesesteak at Pizza King.

Best sandwich: Spanky’s. I’m getting Italian, regular with everything. It’s a staple in Chelsea Heights.

When summer approaches: … I feel like the grand opening of AC Leef on Valentine’s Day. A lot of people are coming in, and they’re proud of us. We’re on the verge of breaking even. People thought all dispensaries will lose a lot of money. That’s a dogfight on Atlantic and Pacific Avenues. This summer, spring, 4/20, we’re really gonna rock out.

It wouldn’t be the Jersey Shore without: The Steel Pier.

Best things for kids: The Showboat: the indoor waterpark, the Lucky Snake.

Surfing or fishing? I’m actually a skateboarder. Skate AC is right around the corner at Sovereign Avenue on the inlet side.

Sunrise or sunset? Sunset. There’s a great sunset in Chelsea Heights going toward Ventnor. Purple in the sky.

Shore pet peeves: My pet peeve is there’s a stigma around A.C. This is nowhere near Vegas. It’s its own town, has its own culture, 50 races within 48 blocks. People outside of Atlantic City have so much to say about Atlantic City. Coming from the Bronx, the concrete jungle, now I’ve got a beach, the longest Boardwalk in the world. The salt air helped me with my asthma. There’s something about this place if you look at it.

December’s newsletter about changing Ocean City brought many responses, some nostalgic, many clear-eyed. (Note: Eustace Mita is said to be “tweaking” his plans for Icona in Wonderland.)

Randi Hand wrote: My family has owned a South end beach house since 1954. Ocean City retained its charm for many years but now feels like an overpriced, overcrowded tourist trap. What makes a “family“ resort? I think it is one that is friendly and affordable. It is certainly not the mobbed boardwalk and beaches, obscenely high rental prices and overabundance of wealthy snobs and vendors who cater to them.

Les 1414 wrote a poem: Goodbye Ocean City/It is such a pity/No longer can we stay/It’s become too much to pay/We will vaca in another city.

Send us your Shore memory! In 200 words, tell us how the Shore taps into something deep for you, for a chance to be featured in this newsletter. Email us here.

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