Garry's Corner, The tribute page to Garry W. Tallent

The Shore Ride.

at the crossroads

          Muslims have The Mecca, Elvis' fans have Graceland and we have The Shore. What follows is a narration of my journey to the promised land. Me and my wife hired a car in NYC and ...
  …Crossed the tunnel to the Jersey side. 
(click on the pics to get a larger image, it will open in another browser to let you keep reading the text.)


          We left NY and although I had never been to Jersey before I felt like I was comin’ home reading all those signs with the names of places I have heard and read about a million times.  

…Here in Freehold.
          I turned right into South St. and parked our car in a parking down the street. We got out of the car and there it was: Saint Rose of Lima. Not far away we had  left behind the 68 South St. Bruce’s 3rd home in Freehold where he spent so many hours playing that goddamned guitar. It was such a good weather that we decided to walk down the street and just a few blocks farder, South St. was crossed by Institute St. and in the corner was the 39 ½ Institute St., Bruce’s 2nd house featured in the BITUSA lyrics sheet. I couldn’t help it, I leaned against the sycamore tree and an instant grin came to my face.
          We went back to our car and rode around for a while before heading East. Asbury Park was waiting for us.

Freehold Township

1/2 Institute Street

68 South Street

Saint Rose Of Lima School

The Stone Pony

…Greetings from Asbury Park.
          We drove straight ahead towards the sea and all of a sudden we were parked by the Stone Pony (913 Ocean Avenue). It was our first view of the “historic” Asbury Park. The Pony was reopened in Memorial Day Weekend and it seems that Asbury Park is going to recapture a little of the glory of the good ols days (I hope so).

…and The Circuit’s jammed… Well. In fact, not so jammed, but we saw an old Cadillac and it was enough for us.

…Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard. 
          In the eastern end of Lake Avenue (a.k.a. The Boulevard) we found The Palace Amusements. Although these aren’t the happiest days for the Palace, Tillie’s smile looked happier than ever for me.

…And the boys from the Casino dance with their shirts open…
          And close to The Palace, at the end of the boardwalk The Casino is waiting for those boys to come back and dance …like latin lovers on the shore.

… and the cops finally busted Madam Marie for telling fortunes better than they do. Madam Marie has moved, but the booth stays there (and it should stay forever).

…These boardwalk life for me isn’t through. The Boardwalk, the Place for everybody who lives in a seaside town (that’s me). If you were born by the sea you know how much you miss it if you stay away more than a couple of weeks.

          At the north end of the boardwalk you can find The Convention Hall and Paramount Theater where Bruce and the E Street Band has rehearsed and played many times. A really beautiful building that should be the standard for  every building around the boardwalk.  

Tillie (The Palace)

The Casino

The Casino

The Boardwalk (Convention Hall and Paramount Theater

The Boardwalk (The Casino)

Madam Marie booth

The Convention Hall
… Neptune City’s our next stop. Although Asbury Park must be the only town around the shore that looks like it was abandoned after the third World War we felt some kind of magic floating in the air and I’m sure the good days will be back soon to Asbury Park, but we couldn’t wait and back to the road we drove to Neptune City, Garry’s hometown. We visited Neptune High where Garry himself, Southside Johnny, Viny Lopez and our friend and collaborator  Bill King (years later) graduated. A beautiful place to live.  

Neptune City

Neptune City High School

1105 E Street, Belmar

 … The E Street Shuffle. Belmar, such a beautiful bay. And the place where the E Street Band (what a coincidence ;^)!!!) begun to rehearse under such name in the house located at 1105 E Street, close to Tenth Avenue, that used to belong to David Sancious' Mother.  
          If you live in Belmar and know Vicky Granger tell her that Patricia and Fran (from Santander) remember her and we want to talk to her again. She can e-mail me.
          A guy offered to go fishing in his boat, but this was an express tour and it was time to go back to NYC, but not before visiting Long Branch and walking along the beach one last time…

We’ll be back soon my beautiful Jersey.


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