SUMMER 2006 HISTORIC Preservation In this Issue: BULLETIN Neon and Angles and: Motels of the Wildwoods....1 • Department of Environmental Protection • • Natural & Historic Resources • Historic Preservation Office • Roadside Cabins...... 6

Minding the Shore...... 8

Doo Wop Motels Endangered...... 11 Neon and Angles: Motels of the Wildwoods he evokes many images: sand and surf, sun and fun, family and friends among them. For many, the Shore brings to mind the grand painted ladies of Victorian . However, just north of TCape May lies the neighboring communities of North Page 6 Wildwood, Wildwood and Wildwood Crest that draw praise for their own unique exuberant architecture.

The Wildwoods’ wide sandy beach and the amusement-packed boardwalk are well known, but the striking, flamboyant, mid-20th century motels attract visitors to the Wildwoods every year. The architecture of the motels, called Googie on the West Coast, MiMo in north beach Miami or, more generically, Populuxe, is not known to exist outside the Wildwoods in an equivalent density.

This expressive architectural style common in the ’50s and ’60s incorporated modern, sweeping angles, angular wall and roof styles, vibrant colors, starbursts and even Page 8 boomerang shapes and merits its own special attention in addition to the standard Jersey Shore fun. Indeed, the Wildwoods are a wildly popular summer spot, not only with local Shore visitors from the Mid-Atlantic, but also with vacationers from Quebec, Canada and beyond.

The Wildwoods began developing as a resort in the last decade of the 19th century with steady growth to the early 20th century. The boom began in the 1950s, due partially to the construction and completion of the and the enthusiastic, tail-finned motorists it delivered. With Jon S. Corzine Governor State of New Jersey

Lisa P. Jackson, Commissioner Department of Environmental Protection

Asymmetry found in the Ocean View Motel, Wildwood Crest Mission The Department of Environmental Protection, Historic Preservation Office summer tourists driving to The form of each of the is committed to enhancing the quality the Wildwoods, the newly motels was relatively simple. of life for the residents of New Jersey constructed motels needed to Constructed of poured, through preservation and appreciation of our collective past. meet their needs as motorists. reinforced concrete, the While the automobile played motels were two or more Our mission is to assist the residents of an important role in the form stories and generally L- or U- New Jersey in identifying, preserving, and function of the motels, shaped. The L plan was a protecting and sustaining our historic and archaeological resources through the post-World War II solid line of rooms; the implementation of the state's historic optimism, confidence and shorter leg could be a lobby, preservation program. economic prosperity raised sundeck with parking sweeping the nation in the underneath or even more We provide assistance through our annual conference, consultation with ’50s also held large influence guestrooms. In keeping with professionals, training workshops, in the design and themes. the motorist trend and to co-sponsorship of history and historic minimize noise and maximize preservation related activities, the Historic Preservation Bulletin and other Take a drive down ocean views, the motels were free publications. Surf, Ocean and Atlantic only one room deep with an avenues and one will notice a open-air, common walkway striking similarity among the for guestroom access. Also Historic Preservation Office motels. The architecture, essential to the form of the P.O. Box 404, Trenton, locally named Doo-Wop in motels were the flat roofs that New Jersey 08625-0404 honor of the musical genre of extended well beyond the TEL: (609) 292-2023 the period, implemented FAX: (609) 984-0578 important design www.nj.gov/dep/hpo principles. Common elements include: assymetry, L- or U- This publication has been financed in part with federal shaped form, the funds from the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, and administered by the New Jersey incorporation of a Department of Environmental Protection, Historic Preservation Office. The contents and opinions do not theme, overhangs, pools, necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of the Interior. This program receives federal and parking. For tourists financial assistance for the identification and protection of historic properties. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of arriving in the large cars 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the of the era, parking was U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or handicap in its essential, and all the federally assisted programs. If you believe that you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or motels provided facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, perimeter parking, with National Park Service, 1849 C. Street NW (NC200), some spots sheltered Angled walls of the Ebb Tide Motel, Wildwood Washington, D.C. 20240 Crest. The first motel built on the island. Now under raised sundecks. demolished. Photo courtesy of HABS

2 walls. These wide, roof angles were overhangs offered protection then topped to the guests on the open with an corridors but also provided a overhanging design element specific to the roof and popular culture of the time. contrasted with The same wide overhangs the flat were also often found on the elevation of the lobbies of the buildings. Most two-story office. were flat, but, depending All this upon the theme of the motel, combined to the overhangs could be flared give the motel a or accordion style. feeling of movement. Asymmetry and strong angles were also essential to Asymmetry was the lines of a motel in the also often found Wildwoods. This was seen in the lobbies. most dramatically in the now The lobby of demolished Ebb Tide. One of the Ocean View, the first motels built in 1952, with its long the Ebb Tide had a sloping sloping roofs, Stylized entrance of the Attaché Motel, Wildwood Crest. facade, with the first floor had one side leaning away from the dramatically parking lot while the second longer than the other. Large side-by-side cabanas. and third floors leaned diamond-paned windows toward the motorists. These augmented the asymmetrical While a building’s form effect. This lobby and wide overhangs were roof served a dual important, themes were purpose by also established to capture the providing some attention of the tourist. Each covered parking. motel had an essential The angles were designated theme, which often incorporated created an ambience for the in the theme of motel and lured potential some motels. The guests as they drove around Casa Bahama, looking for accommodations. taking on a Common themes reflected in Caribbean theme, the architecture include exotic had the basic L- locations as found at the shaped form that Tangiers, the Pyramid and the incorporated many Caribbean motels; luxury at peaked rooflines the Imperial 500 and the along the open Diamond Crest; space corridors. These exploration at the Astronaut; peaks rose from the historic interpretations at the sidewalk at the first Carriage Stop and the floor and Crusader; and the oceanic at culminated in a the Blue Marlin, Gulf Stream The cabana-like appearance of the former Casa Bahama steep peak above and Sea Gull. The themes creates a Caribbean flare. Also note the palm trees on the second story were reflective of the era: the doors. Now demolished. roof mimicking expanded contact with new

3 and exotic locations through travel and the movies, the newly established space Best Practices program. WOrkshop The theme of each motel was echoed throughout the building. Large neon signs were mounted on roofs, Purpose: attached to the side of a Hone your expertise, expedite your projects, building or mounted near the curb, each competing with its better serve your clients, and earn a certificate of neighbor in bright neon. Often achievement by attending this training provided the name of the motel was by the New Jersey Historic Preservation Office painted on a wall surface along with an image representing the theme. The Who Should Attend: Gondolier, for example, had Historic Preservation Consultants who prepare an entire wall surface painted surveys, nominations, and historic property with an image of a gondolier

October 27, 2006 documentation. Basic knowledge cultural in Venice, and the Olympic resource practices required. features a man throwing a discus. The expression of the theme could also be carried Topics: out in the building materials. HPO Survey Form System Historic Resource The three-story Brittany Analysis Impact Assessment Information featured false half-timbering, Management And more… giving it a Tudor appearance. The Singapore had multiple- hipped roofs, which give the impression of a pagoda. The Location: Carriage Stop was faced in Rutgers EcoComplex Environmental Research red brick with white columns, and Extension Center reminding people of colonial 1200 Florence-Columbus Road roots. Bordentown, NJ 08505-4200 Just as parking was critical to the motoring tourists, so were pools. Even with the beach just a few Price: $75.00 steps away, few motels were without pools. The pools were often just as dramatic as the themes themselves, and all For more information, contact: were meant to help attract and, most importantly, keep Genny Guzman at (609) 984-0543 or the tourist. The Chateau Bleu [email protected] pool was heart-shaped, while www.state.nj.us/dep/hpo the pool of the exuberant Caribbean was crescent- shaped. Other motels featured

Save the Date! Save kidney-shaped, standard oval

4 railings. Solid beaches and exciting doors were boardwalks, but none except often painted the Wildwoods can boast colors to match about its exuberant, mid-20th the themes. century architecture.  Room numbers were Sara André is a Historic emphasized Preservation Specialist with the with a decal Historic Preservation Office that represented the theme of the motel. The Pink The Lollipop Motel in North Wildwood has many essential New Jersey elements: U-shape, second floor sun deck with parking Champagne underneath, bright colors, large sign, swimming pool and motel features a Women’s perimeter parking. champagne glass filled with Heritage Trail pink The Cost of the publication is or rectangular pools. Pool champagne on each guest $10.00 which includes shipping decks were invariably dotted room door. Many motels also and handling. with non-native, fabricated featured louvered doors, palm trees, again lending to which, when the inner door the fanciful themes found was left open, allowed for air throughout the Wildwoods. circulation, an attractive yet While architecture and functional feature to these theme were essential to the buildings. Wildwoods’ motels, they were not complete without a few Located side-by-side final details. Large, plate- for blocks and blocks, the glass windows in lobbies and motels create a fascinating guestrooms, railings and scene, unparalleled on the colors were added to Jersey Shore. The dramatic complete the image. Railings lobbies, flashy signs and Please make check payable to: often complemented a theme exuberant themes of the Treasurer, State of New Jersey or lent additional appeal to motels remain a tangible, and mail to: the motel. The railing types priceless link to the popular NJ Historic Preservation Office were as varied as the themes culture of post-World War II Attn: Genny Guzman themselves: outward and America, allowing one to take 501 E. State Street inward curving, asymmetrical a step back in time to the ’50s P.O. Box 404 and even geometric designs and ’60s. The Jersey Shore Trenton, NJ 08625-0404 were incorporated into the features miles of fine sandy

Little details, such as a railing embellished with the motel’s name, all help to attract attention and create an atmosphere. Wildwood Crest.

5 ...tourist cabins became the most popular form of overnight accommodation. Enterprising campground owners began to build tiny cabins... Roadside Cabins

opularized during tiny cabins, charging a altogether. the Great higher fee for their use than Depression, camping, and cabins caught The earliest cabins roadside cabins on quickly. Cabin camping provided only the most P illustrate an was informal compared to basic amenities – sanitary important step in the hotels, but provided facilities were usually development of the motel. adequate comforts for many located in a separate Once common along New travelers. Eventually, many building. In rural areas, Jersey roads leading to the owners of cabin camps cabins could be widely shore, roadside cabins are a eliminated tent camping spaced for privacy and rapidly disappearing resource type that illustrates an episode in America’s infatuation with road travel and inexpensive accom- modataion.

Campgrounds first became popular during the 1920s, when car travel enabled families to take advantage of inexpensive getaways. As camp popularity declined in the late 1920s, however, tourist cabins became the most popular form of overnight accommodation. Cannon Court Enterprising campground Atlantic County, Egg Harbor Township owners began to build

6 aesthetic effect, but in more construction; a 1-story, side camps became isolated densely-built areas, high gabled head house; a from the tourist flow and property values garage; and an irregularly unable to survive necessitated a tighter shaped bath house. The financially. A number of arrangement of cabins, Country Motel, also in early motels and roadside eventually turning into the Galloway Township, dates cabins remain along New to c. 1930. The Jersey’s state highways, complex, still in use, but most are post-World is comprised of four, War II buildings. The one room, wood earliest roadside cabins, framed cabins and a dating to the 1920s and 1-story residence. A 1930s, have largely become set of abandoned, an obsolete architectural unnamed roadside form and are rapidly cabins were also disappearing.  identified in Galloway Township,

by Christine Miller, an Architectural Conservator and Architectural Historian with the Cultural Resource Consulting L- or U-shaped “cabin Group. court,” “motor court,” and finally, “motel.” Cabins added more amenities through the 1930s: bathrooms, comfortable beds, soap, and linens. By the 1940s, there was little to distinguish a “cabin” from a hotel room except consisting of six, one for convenience, privacy, room, wood framed and affordability. cottages and a 2-story wood framed head In the past year, house. Cannon Court, in CRCG identified four sets Egg Harbor Township, is of historic roadside cabins still in use, and features in Atlantic County. The eleven cabins with abandoned L’il Abner varying forms and one complex in Galloway head house. Township dates to c. 1930, and includes fourteen, one- As improved story, front gabled, one highways bypassed room cabins, some wood older routes and smaller Abbott’s Modern Cabins. framed and others of log towns, many cabins and Atlantic County, Hamilton Township

7 Minding the Shore 1916. But by 1969 the building that had once made passing sailors cry “Elephant!” was a dilapidated building nearing extinction, ironically due to the same real estate development forces she had been built to promote. Thanks to the efforts and long struggle Lucy, the Margate Elephant fully restored. of the Margate Civic Association, Lucy was saved and restored, along with a While the Jersey Shore One of the best known great part of Jersey Shore might be better known for the characters in this coastal history. Today this National summer rituals that have landscape is Lucy, the Margate Historic Landmark stands as captivated us for many Elephant. She was built for generations, the fact is that the real estate company of the sands along this 127 mile- James V. Lafferty, as both an long coastline hold more than advertisement and office, just sun, surf, and slot to help spur machines. Along this coast, or development at the W“the Shore” as locals call it, shore. The 58-foot lies a collection of cultural tall elephant resources as varied as the building has visitors that stroll its drawn crowds boardwalks and beaches. of amazed From a four-legged historic spectators landmark in Margate City, to ever since its one of the world’s largest opening (to interior spaces at the Atlantic the tunes of a City Convention Hall, to the brass band) in Victorian architecture of 1881. Even Ocean Grove and Cape May— President the Jersey Shore is a cultural Wilson came landscape like no other. to visit her in Lucy in her seriously deteriorated condition c. 1970.

8 the oldest functioning example construct of the Shore. Award given by the National of zoomorphic architecture in Orchestras, bowling, Trust for Historic Preservation. the United States and serves as basketball, ice-skating, a historic site and museum of boxing and concerts are But the New Jersey its own history. some of the events that Shore is not just lights, have taken place in “The splendor, and enormity. Another coastal World’s Greatest Further north on the Jersey treasure is the Atlantic City Playground.” But the Convention Hall, registered as Hall’s signature a National Historic Landmark event from 1946 in 1987. “Boardwalk Hall,” as to 2004 had it is commonly called, was been the built between 1926 and 1929. Miss At the time of its construction it contained the largest room with an unobstructed view in the history of architecture (Charleton, James H. National Historic Landmark/National Register Nomination: Atlantic Convention Hall, 02/27/87). Today the Great Hall is still one of the world’s largest interior spaces. In addition, the structure houses what it is Beach front view of the Atlantic City Convention Hall, 1982 arguably the largest organ in the world, containing 33,000 pipes in eight chambers. But America pageant. In 1998, coast lies a Methodist Camp the importance of this building after many years of use and Meeting town built to promote goes beyond its architecture bad renovations, Convention mental and physical health and engineering prowess. For Hall began a series of efforts to and known as Ocean Grove. over 75 years Atlantic City’s reconstruct its majestic ceiling The town was founded on the Convention Hall has played and restore some of the Methodist religious host to numerous events that building’s historic features philosophy of the 19th century. have helped to map the social that had been deteriorating. It incorporated town-planning When all of the practices like setbacks and Rendering of the Convention Hall’s main auditorium, work was urban vistas that are normally c.1928. completed and associated with the 20th the Hall reopened century. Now a State and in October 2001 it National Historic District, was received with Ocean Grove is the oldest, much acclaim by largest, and most successful the architectural, camp meeting town still engineering and functioning in the United preservation States. In addition, it contains communities, the largest aggregate of earning a total of Victorian and early 20th nine awards century structures in America. including a 2003 In fact, because so much of the National original fabric of its structures Preservation and grounds still survives, the

9 Johnson, it has elaborate fret summer to take part in some work on its upper and lower of the great things that the front porches), the Seven Jersey Shore has to offer. Visit Sisters houses (seven identical “the Shore” and learn about its Italian Renaissance-style cottages in a row), and the Chalfonte Hotel (a long L- shaped building with first and second story verandas and a Convention Hall’s Main auditorium large cupola on the roof) are after its 2001 reopening. examples of Cape May’s stellar architecture. town of Ocean Grove is It does not take long to virtually an open-air museum realize that many generations worthy of recognition among have contributed to a the Shore’s most prized historical richness along the cultural resources. Jersey coast that spans the entire spectrum of cultural Down at the other end resources. These sites and of the Shore, on the places are just waiting to be southernmost tip of New discovered or rediscovered. Jersey, lies the Cape May While summer is certainly not Historic District. Designated the only time of the year when as a National Historic the Shore exhibits its wonder, Landmark in 1976, this district it is one of the best. The Pink House’s elaborate street front is known as “America’s Oldest historic fabric of the Jersey facade. Seashore Resort.” Notable coast finds its liveliest figures such as Abraham expression under the hot sun, Lincoln, James Buchanan, and amid the childhood-like numerous and diverse historic Ulysses S. Grant visited Cape jubilation of visitors young sites, and in the process, you May in their time. Today and old. But our places of will be helping to keep this thousands of people continue history are only as strong as important part of our history to do so each year, lured by a the number of people that visit alive.  unique Victorian atmosphere them. So take a few days this created by a collection of buildings that rivals that Sergio De Orbeta was of Ocean Grove. A stroll a ProgramAssociate through Cape May’s with the Historic streets explains its Preservation Office. longstanding popularity—and a walk is the best way view its wonders. The streets contain a seemingly endless array of late 19th century buildings and provide visitors with an almost surreal escape in time. Sites like the Pink Row of Victorian cottages at Ocean Grove. Photograph courtesy House (built by Eldridge of HAPBS

10 DooWop Motels Endangered

ational Trust for nearly 100 motels have been Edison’s Invention Factory in Historic Preservation recently demolished often to West Orange (1993) and the lists the Doo Wop facilitate construction of market- Hackensack Water Works in N Motels as one of rate condominiums. Oradell (2002). America’s 11 most endangered historic properties New Jersey sites previously For additional information about Each year since 1988 the National included in the Trust’s 11 Most the 11 Most Endangered list go to Trust for Historic Preservation Endangered List include: Thomas http://nthp.org/11Most/ issues its list of 11 sites most endangered by “neglect, insufficient funds, inappropriate development, or insensitive public policy.” This year the Doo Wop Motels were listed due to development pressures resulting in rapid increases in demolition. According to the National Trust

Demolition in progress at the Palm Beach.

Rio Motel, prior to demolition.

Site of Rio Motel after demolition. Vacant lot with new condos. 11 NEW JERSEY’S HISTORIC SITES NEED YOUR HELP.

For far too long, a lack of reliable state funding has forced New Jersey’s treasured parks, historic sites and wildlife areas to go without regular maintenance or capital improvements. Today, those much-needed repairs and improvements will cost as much as $250 million.

You can help.

On Nov. 7, New Jersey voters will be asked to approve a constitutional amendment that would provide a dedicated source of funding for maintenance and capital improvement at the state’s parks, historic sites and wildlife areas.

Without requiring any new taxes, the proposal would allow revenues from the existing Corporate Business Tax Fund to be used for repairs and restorations. A yes vote would guarantee a stable source of state funding every year for maintenance and capital improvements. It’s up to you On November 7, New Jersey voters will decide. ✔ ❑ November 7