🌊 Wind energy bites the dust | Down the Shore

Things down the Shore may seem everlasting — a land that time forgot — but in reality, something is always disappearing. Houses are here one day, demolished the next. Beloved amusement piers, poof. The beach, eroding. A historic church in Atlantic City gets demolished, its sandstone facade shipped off to D.C. to save the Smithsonian Castle.

This week, the years long uber-controversial effort to create wind turbine farms off the Jersey Coast, ocean-anchored fields of renewable energy that would power hundreds of thousands of homes, met its most-likely final collapse. Gone with the wind. Atlantic Shores, the last company in New Jersey pursuing a wind project opposed by the Trump administration filed a request with the state’s Bureau of Public Utilities to essentially kill the project, citing economic and political challenges.

At one time, it seemed inevitable these turbines would be built, with heavy support from Gov. Murphy. Most locals I knew seemed OK with a horizon that had some potentially carbon-reducing windmills out in the distance. But a coalition of opponents, some funded by the fossil fuel industry, fought them hard, blaming wind energy, without evidence, for a spate of whale deaths.

People protested in the streets of Ocean City and piled into acrimonious city council meetings! Others at the Shore began to worry their views would be ruined, the pristine beauty of the ocean horizon they gaze at (when not looking at their phones) marred. Despite pleas that wind was an essential piece of staving off climate change, some environmental groups, like Clean Ocean Action, rejected the turbines as industrializing the ocean.

Without the support of the federal government, needed permits, supply issues, and an all-out “war on wind” by the Trump administration, progress on these projects, which were bringing jobs to towns like Paulsboro, has, for now, stopped turning.

Also dead in the water this week: the political career of once-powerful N.J. Senate President Steve Sweeney, the South Jersey power broker who finished at the back of the pack in the Democratic primary for New Jersey governor in a race won by Navy helicopter pilot and Montclair mom U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill. Here’s my story, featuring a cameo appearance from George Norcross, on Sweeney’s swan song.

📮 What do you think about the collapse of the wind energy projects? Should they be revived? Let me know by replying to this email, and I’ll include your most interesting responses.

Keep those Shore stories and memories coming! Send them to me here.

And keep scrolling to the end of the newsletter to read Barbara Cummings’ amazing recounting of all the Shore jobs she held in the 1960s.

🌞 Feeling beachy out there.

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

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💟 Stolen purple Telecaster guitar belonging to the 1970s band Heart was recovered by Atlantic City police. Read Ximena Conde’s amazing write up.

🍟 Scientists are studying how seagulls eat your food.

🏈 Legendary NFL quarterback and man-with-a-joke Milt Plum, 90, is back home in Ocean City for the summer, swimming laps, making people laugh, and working out at the Ocean City Aquatics and Fitness Center.

🍸 Bethenny Frankel visited the Healthy Hippo in Ventnor and here’s everything the Bravo TV reality star and Skinny Girl founder ordered.

💸 Philly people are scaling back vacations, Erin McCarthy reports, which could work in favor of the Jersey Shore (or not).

🦀 Grassy Sound Fishing Pier in North Wildwood reopens Friday after three years.

🏖️ Federal budget cuts may affect staffing at this beloved Jersey Shore beach.

🎹 RIP to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, who performed a bunch of times in Atlantic City.

💃 Fear and Loathing in Atlantic City at the always-inventive Angeloni’s Club Madrid with a no-cover f post-punk, R&B, new wave, 80s pop DJ set this Friday, the 13.

🍸 Let’s Be Frank is touring local bars and stores with its espresso martini in a can. (And keep scrolling for founder Frank Conrad’s local knowledge.)

🦅 Swoop and the gang will be at Morey’s Piers on Friday for the Eagles Autism Foundation.

🕺 Beach concerts kick off in Somers Point this week.

🏃🏻‍♀️ The Ventnor Run Club is back on Thursdays at 8 a.m. at Suffolk Avenue.

🚗 Find parking with Ocean City’s new parking app.

🇭🇹 Eat at Goute Créole in Atlantic City, where Craig LaBan and A.C. food influencer Omar tha Great both report they had a Haitian feast.

🌅 Don’t be so loud (neighbors are complaining) at the new Margate hotspot, Sunrise Tequila Bar and Rooftop Lounge.

🤫 Attend a silent book club June 14 at the wonderful Beneficial Bakery.

This Shore bar was once voted the bar most missed at the Jersey Shore. It was replaced in 2005 by townhouses, had a low-ceilinged bar with beer labels stuck to it, and sponsored Bike-a-Thon, which was basically a pub crawl. Which bar was it? Email me here with the answer.

Or click on this story to find out.

And kudos to reader Lawrence back with the answer to last week’s quiz on disappearing Atlantic City sports teams:

A. Atlantic City Blackjacks — arena football

B. Boardwalk Bullies — hockey

C. Atlantic City Waves — not a professional team

D. Atlantic City Surf — minor league baseball

E. Atlantic City Seagulls — basketball

Frank Conrad of Cape May was always known for the espresso martinis he’d whip up in batches and bring to parties. He used Cuban beans he’d sourced in Key West and a recipe he perfected in Cape May. The demand was so great he started a company, Frank’s Way, reverse engineered the recipe and is manufacturing “Let’s Be Frank,” three servings of espresso martinis per can, all gluten free, made with just five ingredients: espresso, Himalayan sea salt, cane sugar, agave fiber, and the grain neutral spirit alcohol base. He’s also got a limoncello variety. Check out the list of tastings and places to buy here.

A true Cape May local who lives in the southernmost house in the state of New Jersey, Conrad gave us his best Jersey Shore recommendations.

Favorite beach: The Gurney Street beach where we live, the most pictured street in Cape May.

Favorite summer breakfast: I would have to say George’s on Beach Avenue, the Greek eggs Benedict.

Perfect beach day: 70 and sunny with a slight breeze.

Perfect night at the Shore? Ebbitt Room for a cocktail, Primal for a steak dinner. Howard Street ramble at the Chalfonte on Thursday nights, when all the local musicians come and play.

Best Shore sandwich: Chicken cheesesteak at C-View, the dive bar in Cape May.

When summer approaches, I feel: Overwhelmed. I live in Cape May year-round. When it’s the fall, when it’s the spring, it’s nice, but everyone descends on Cape May. Liz and I go away for five weeks every summer.

Still, it wouldn’t be the Jersey Shore without: The people. It wouldn’t be the Jersey Shore if people didn’t show up.

Best thing for kids: The beach, number one.

Surfing or fishing? Neither. Barfly.

Sunrise or sunset? Sunrise.

Shore pet peeves? Drivers. When you drive down Route 9 and they can’t find their campground and it’s stop, go, stop, go.

The Shore could be improved if we all just: respected each other more. And everybody drank a Let’s Be Frank espresso martini.

Barbara Cummings sent us this memory of her Jersey Shore jobs.

It started at age 13 as a bus girl in a popular restaurant that swayed with the tide on pilings over the ocean on North Wildwood, 22nd Street. That was when you could smoke in restaurants and people used their leftover baked potato as an extinguisher. I graduated to waitressing at 14 where Barney was the cook and we were under the Garden State Parkway bridge into Cape May. 15 found me as a pokeno caller and prize ticket awarder on Wildwood boardwalk. The next two years found me on Sweet Briar Road, in Wildwood, as assistant preparation shift and cook. Prepared tons of cabbage to make coleslaw, peeled hundreds of shrimp, breaded 50 flounder fillets — and then the doors opened and I was sous chef between a husband and wife team. Weekends were from 7 o’clock in the morning till 11 o’clock at night. I gained finances to continue my Catholic education. Rules just not that strict in the 1960s. Glad that changed!!!!!!

Send us your Shore memory here.

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