Asbury Park & Jersey City, New Jersey, with views of Manhattan!

Visited June 24 - July 1, 2022

By Janell

We stayed out in the country in northwest New Jersey, in a place called Newton. It was a hefty drive to get to Asbury Park and to Jersey City, but they were scenic drives so we didn't mind.

This carved bear was at the entrance to the Great Divide Campground. I supposed we should have gotten a clue when we saw it, but at the time we didn't even give it a second thought . . . (you'll see what I'm talking about in a minute)

It was quite a nice campground with some unique touches. Our only complaint was that most of the campground's roads were in deplorable shape, with potholes galore!

When you come to a fork in the road . . . usually it's not a literal one.

This is a view from our campsite of "our street" in the campground. We were the only residents on our whole street during the week, but on the weekend . . . look out! That area across the road, was jammed with campers, tents, kiddos, etc. It was a very lively place and looked like lots of fun for New Jersey families. I say New Jersey, because the campground was almost entirely filled with New Jersey license plates. We've never seen that before; typically there will be a range of plates from different states, some near, some far. This place is a fairly well kept secret of New Jerseyites. Makes you wonder how we got in, right?

We went outside one evening to look for fireflies. We did see fireflies, however this video is not about the fireflies. In fact, visually, it's nothing to speak of; it's the audio that I want you to share with you. 

While we were outside in the dark looking for fireflies, (and listening to the above noises), we also heard something moving about in the bushes. After a bit, we heard it again, and this time it was closer to us. At first I had thought it was a deer, but I didn't think a deer would move closer to us. Certainly they have some type of big cats in New Jersey, but wouldn't they move too stealthily to make noise in the brush? I wondered, "do they have bears in New Jersey . . .?"

The answer is YES! BIG ones! The next day was a Monday, and all of the weekend campers were gone. We were sitting at our computers at the kitchen table, when I looked out the window and saw this guy (we thought of the bear as a male, but it could've been female; for simplicity, I'll refer to it as "he") sauntering through the empty campsites across the road. I say "sauntering" because he looked as if he was in no hurry at all -- almost as if he was still groggy from an afternoon nap. 

He had come from the direction where we'd heard the noises in the bushes the night before, so there's no doubt in our minds who was responsible for those noises. He meandered down the road, stopping once to scratch himself and another time to drink rainwater from a pothole in the road, and then he headed out of sight. As he headed away from our end of the street we went outside, but he never even gave us a glance. We saw him again on another quiet weekday afternoon, and that time he was going back into the bushes.

Check out this video to see Mr. Bear in action: 

This camper was a little less alarming than Mr. Bear.

As you might know, Marty is a big Bruce Springsteen fan. As you also might know, Bruce is from New Jersey: he was born in Long Branch, grew up in Freehold, and spent a lot of time in Asbury Park. So . . . of course, we had to make a pilgrimage to Bruce's old stomping grounds.

The Stone Pony, in Asbury Park, is known for launching Bruce's career. We went inside to check it out, but as it was early afternoon, nothing much was happening.

We found many of the Asbury Park streets running perpendicular to the coastline were filled with these well-maintained, grand old houses. 

Contrasting with those grand homes, not far away is a very normal beach and boardwalk.

Bruce Springsteen made Madame Marie famous to the world outside of Asbury Park in a line of his song "4th of July, Asbury Park", aka "Sandy": 

"Did you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie for tellin' fortunes better than they do?"

According to Bruce:

"Back in the day, when I was a fixture on the Asbury Park boardwalk, I'd often stop and talk to Madame Marie as she sat on her folding chair outside the Temple of Knowledge. I'd sit across from her on the metal guardrail bordering the beach, and watched as she led the daytrippers into the small back room where she would unlock a few of the mysteries of their future. She always told me mine looked pretty good -- she was right."

Madame Marie (Marie Castello) was a regular fixture along the boardwalk until her death in 2008 at the age of 93, and Bruce always stopped to say hello when he was in town (or so the story goes).

We bicycled about 18 miles on the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway on the New Jersey side of the river. The whole walkway is 18.5 miles in length, but we did about nine miles of it before turning around and heading back to where we'd parked the car. The walkway offered fantastic views of Manhattan across the river, as well as views of New Jersey, like the one above. This was where we started our ride, in Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

The start of the day had a hazy atmosphere, but things cleared up as the day progressed.

Often Marty will snap a photo of the trail map sign before we begin a ride or hike, and it's usually nothing more than the map, simply for navigation purposes. However, I liked this one because it shows Marty "on the job". 

The back side of Lady Liberty, with New York City in the distance.

Back in the days when immigrants came to our country through Ellis Island, many would've ferried from the island to this railroad terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey. This terminal was completed in 1889 and served for 80 years as the Central Railroad Company's main passenger terminal on the New Jersey waterfront. During its peak period of operation in 1929, more than 65,000 people a day passed through the terminal, riding on more than 350 trains, that required over 850 train movements each day. The terminal ceased operating in 1967, and the terminal complex is now part of Liberty State Park.

Just a short catnap before she goes back on duty.

This is the Empty Sky Memorial, New Jersey's official September 11 memorial. Engraved on the interior walls of the passageway are the names of the 749 New Jersey residents who lost their lives that day. 

Look at this luxury apartment building in the Newport area of Jersey City. Opened in 2018, it's called "Ellipse". Can you tell that those are the balconies that make up that squiggly vertical line on the narrow side of the ellipse? These balconies face the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline, and there is an identical squiggle of balconies on the opposite side of the ellipse that face Jersey City. 

This massive sculpture caught our attention in the distance as we were pedaling, so we made sure to seek it out for a closer look. It's called "Water's Soul" and was created by Jaume Plensa in his Barcelona studio. It was shipped in 23 - 40' long containers to the Hudson River Waterfront Walkway in Jersey City, NJ and assembled there in 2021. The assembled piece stands about 80' tall and is made of polyester resin, fiberglass and marble dust.

If you're interested in learning more about its construction, check out the link below. From this link there's also a pretty cool 3-minute video that shows the workers putting it together, sometimes in "fast motion", as well as some beautiful river/city scenes.

Water's Soul construction

This is the Hoboken Terminal in the NJ Transit Rail System. There were a handful of people coming and going through here, but it wasn't rush hour. I imagine that would be a lot busier.

The Hoboken Terminal (officially, Lackawanna Terminal -- its original name in 1907) has a very grand, old-fashioned waiting area. However, before this particular design, four previous railroad terminals stood on this site. Since the relatively recent return of ferry service to the area (2011), this terminal is once again a combined railroad-ferry terminal, as well as a bus and light-rail depot. 

Did you know that Frank Sinatra hails from New Jersey?

He was born Dec. 12, 1915 in an upstairs tenement in Hoboken.

New York, New York, by Frank Sinatra

New York City looks a lot different now than in Frank's days. New buildings are continually sprouting up amidst the jungle. In the above photo check out the triangular platform jutting out of the right side of the tallest building. At 100 floors up, "Edge" at 30 Hudson Yards (built in 2020), is the highest outdoor skydeck in the western hemisphere, and a section of that platform has a glass floor so one can look straight down. We'll be heading to NYC before too long, but this is probably not on our "must see" list. The reviews report long lines despite timed entry tickets, and it's pricey -- no surprise there.

We pedaled as far as Hoboken, and this is what we found: Pier 13 was a party waiting to happen! We locked up our bikes and walked out to the end to enjoy a beer. It was 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, and there were just a handful of patrons; when we left an hour later, things were picking up.

No more hazy skies now! Nothing but blue skies from now on . . .