It was a gray and dreary day as The Diner Hunter and I set out for an impromptu road trip to the Garden State. Although many folks associate New Jersey with refineries, turnpikes and the likes of someone named Snooki, we chose to view a different version of the Jersey shore, although our journey did ultimately lead us to Seaside Heights, to see the roller coaster and surrounding damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy. Once off the highway, New Jersey is home to a huge diversity of small towns, scrub pine forests and cranberry bogs. Along the way we saw our usual roadside collection of abandoned buildings, darkened neon and diners. Jersey is the repository of hundreds of diners of every shape and style and we barely made a dent in the list.
After breakfast, Wildwood was one of our first stops. A piece of beachfront history suspended in time, every manner of so called “DooWop” motel and retro signage exists here, and their amusement park’s roller coaster rose out of the morning mist like a vision from a bygone era, a hole in the old space/time continuum.
If you love vintage style neon, this is THE place to be-
More retro neon in Wildwood – I need a shower, now!
The Caribbean ( design art from the Library of Congress)
This part of New Jersey is also home to re-purposed Muffler Men & all manner of strange creatures from the Land of the Giants- must be all those chemical mutations
The most beloved giant of all is Lucy, The Elephant who has made her home in Margate, New Jersey since 1881.
American Roadside architecture at its zaniest- Even the municipal offices are cool
neondreamscapes
An On-Line Gallery of the Images and Musings of Photographer Michael G. Stewart
neondreamscapes 