Down the Shore

Why we go "Down The Shore"

She was from California - just north of Los Angeles. She had the

blond hair, the true blue eyes, the long legs, the tan. She got everything from her mother, she said, except the tan. That, she told me, she got from "the beach."

"Which reminds me", she said as the 747 banked to land at Newark Airport, "how come you guys go "down-the-shore??????"
My parents grew up in Jersey - Newark, Jersey City, Irvington, Bayonne. By the time she was 12 years old, my mother told me, Bayonne Bay was already off limits to swimmers. There was no beach in Newark.

We grew up in Englewood, in Fairlawn, in Caldwell, in South Orange. From North Jersey we might have gone to Jones Beach in New York or Coney Island, but we didn't. Where could we go, really? There are no beaches in Northern New Jersey or in most of Central Jersey. Looking at a map, if you wanted to get to a beach you had to go "down" the state - and, looking at a map, toward the "shoreline." Since most of the Jersey population was clumped in North Jersey (and statistically still is), it is the perception of these individuals that influence the slang of all Jerseyans. "Down the shore" it is.

So, where is "down the shore"? What is "the shore"? Answer: all the towns with beaches (public or private) that extend from Raritan Bay all the way to Cape May. But, let's say you grew up in Sea Girt, a town just south of Sandy Hook. What did it mean to say: "Hey, let's go down the shore?"

Answer: If you grew up in Sea Girt, you were already "down the shore" Where are you going to go? Where did you go when the ocean called: you went to the beach! Of course. You picked up your bucket and sand toys, a pinky ball and the multicolored webbed beach chair with wooden arm rests then, probably barefoot, hobbled a few blocks to the beach. You had to go to the beach, best beloved, because you were already down the shore.

Actually to most of us, down the shore probably ment the northern coast from Keyport through Atlantic Highlands, Long Branch, Asbury, Ocean Grove, Bradley Beach (where I first learned to play poker on the beach and where the song "Under the Boardwalk" took on real meaning) Through Belmar, Spring Lake to Pt Pleasant And down towards Toms River. Bruce Springstein was from this area, The Long Branch area and played in local clubs nearby. He probably went "to the beach" in fact and never went "down the shore" at all until he was spending alot of time in the "City" thats NYC of course but by then even locals called the Monmouth area Down the Shore, and "Down the Shore everythings alright..."

Further south Is Long Beach Island or LBI as it is called, and Atlantic City and eventually Cape May. While we take the Garden State Parkway south to the "Shore", Philadelphians and South Jerseyoids take the Atlantic City Express Way East and tend to be more specific, perhaps by nature. They go to Wildwood or A/C or Cape May or Delaware or who cares where they go. We go to LBI also.

Things haven't changed that much in all these years, people sometimes have a house "at the beach", so I suppose we've become more familiar. Alot more of us have a boat and striper fishing is for some as big as Flukein' and Bluefishin' But the boardwalks are well maintained and the action all summer is still down the shore...
Written by Bill Frankel and Warren Cooper - All rights reserved.

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