The Rio Grande is the way in. Not to Mexico; this Rio Grande is not a river between the nations. This one is Rio Grande Ave, the thoroughfare between mainland New Jersey and the Wildwoods, the collection of communities that comprises one of the state’s most popular vacation destinations. It’s actually an interesting inverse. Instead of being a river of water between two nations of land, it’s a narrow channel of road between the ocean and the bay. It is the gateway to vacation. From Rio Grande Ave, one can access the four major roads that run the length of the island of Wildwood: the Atlantic, Pacific, Ocean, and Seaview Avenues.
It’s a familiar trip. I’ve made it almost every year that I can remember, and I apparently made it for a number of years that I can’t remember. There are photos as evidence that I was there, in the case of the years I can’t remember personally. In fact, given that I was born in September, right after the summer vacation season, I can safely say that I was there before I was even born. After so many trips, I can almost recite the path. I know it by the sights, which remain largely the same, and by the smell of the brackish water, which Rio Grande passes beside and over as it bridges land and island.
One of the first landmarks that will be visible is the Boathouse restaurant, which will appear on the right of someone coming over the bridge into Wildwood. Behind it, slightly, is the dock where the Silver Bullet speedboat picks up the passengers for the high-speed tour it offers. Just across the street is Urie’s, a restaurant whose continued popularity and, in fact, existence are a source of wonder for me every time I see it. Cconsidering the unfortunate dining experiences we’ve had there, I wonder how it can be anyone’s favorite.
Our favorite restaurant was probably Johnson’s Family Restaurant. That was our first choice when we were children. Or that was our parent’s choice for us, but whichever, we were happy with it. We were always there for the early bird specials. I remember the kids menu, where names like “The Cowboy” or “The Giraffe” would be a turkey dinner, or spaghetti and meatballs, or whatever. I remember the fish tank in the center, with the live lobsters. We never ordered lobster. I don’t actually remember anyone ever ordering lobster, actually. Perhaps this wasn’t the kind of restaurant where lobster eaters went. The tank may have been there for entertaining the children who came to dine. It was a staple of our summer vacation until the year we went out to eat there and found it closed, after a kitchen fire. It never reopened. Now the building houses an Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, a shore chain which, while good, is hardly the same. They do still have the Johnson’s sign though, hanging inside. It is a nice link for people like us who remember the former restaurant.
Driving down Rio Grande Ave this year, we noticed that something had changed. The Harley-Davidson dealership, in a distinctive doo-wop style building had closed and reopened as Wildwood Cycles. The dealership had been there for 35 years, longer than I had been around to see it. Pictures of it were features in a book on Wildwood that was published earlier this year. And while it may be the same family that owns it, it is just another item on the list of things that is different.
Every year for the last few years, I’ve been on the lookout for things that are different. Last year, we drove out to find the miniature golf and ice cream shop combination that we had been going to for at least ten years. We drove around, and then around again, thinking perhaps we had missed it or forgotten the address. We hadn’t; there was a drugstore where it had been. We drove back to the motel. There wasn’t anything else we felt like doing.
The motel we’ve stayed at for the last few years is the Imperial 500. This is a more recent development in our vacationing history. For many years, we stayed at a motel called the Nomad. I remember the sign had something round that was either a compass or a ship’s wheel. I accepted the name without question for years, until one day it struck me that it probably meant something. I remember thinking how appropriate a name it was when I learned the definition. The motel itself was nice. It had a pool with a waterslide, and a laundry/gaming room where I used to spend time and quarters when I was a child. It once had a little diner facing the shore, but that was closed up years ago. I remember it being open, and getting egg and cheese sandwiches, and chocolate milk, and my father getting coffee.
We would have been staying there still, except that the motel was sold to developers several years ago. We didn’t know at first. My mother tried calling every year to make reservations, and couldn’t get through to the motel. She thought it was a temporary phone problem, and tried again several days later, then again, until she began to get worried that she would not be able to get a reservation for the time we wanted. She called Wildwood’s chamber of commerce, who informed her that the motel was closed. By the time we got down there in August of that year, the building had been completely demolished. By the next time I was there, the condominiums were already up.
There have always been condominiums in Wildwood. They dominated the very southern tip of the crest, past the area where we used to stay. They were very exclusive, many of them gated. It was something my parents dreamed of, having a permanent place down the shore. They, like many people in the surrounding states – and Quebec – settled for weeklong vacations in the motels that lined the shore of Wildwood Crest.
This longstanding demographic is changing. Over the last few years, many of the so-called Doo-Wop motels of Wildwood have been sold off to developers, and now condominiums start farther north than they did when I was a child. This is why the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the entire area on its list of “America’s Most Endangered Places” back in 2006. Their concern illuminated the issue, but has not stopped the sale of land and the transformation of motel properties into condominium developments.
Once there was an area of Wildwood where the streets were blocked off. The sidewalks were decoratively tiled, and a number of small shops and restaurants opened. We used to go there when I was a child. There was a shop my sisters and I looked forward to, where they sold beach and ocean toys and other knickknacks. There was a barbecue restaurant there, Cassidy’s, one of few on the island. At first, every storefront was full. Then perhaps, one or two might be empty. Now there are only a few stores or restaurants there. If people want to walk around small shops, they go into Cape May and hobnob with the bed-and-breakfast crowd.
Even the Boardwalk, the most popular group of attractions in Wildwood, has not emerged unscathed. There was once a pier on the boardwalk that had small shops, but now it is gone. Our favorite candy shop, Douglass, is still there, but the Atlantic Bookstore that was a popular stop is not. Each year, it seems like more and more goes away. The condo owners require fewer restaurants, and less entertainment; consequently, they feed less money into the local economy, and businesses close. As developments take over more of the island, the change in demographics will undoubtedly force many more of our favorites to close down.
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