Back in Business on the Jersey Shore
Back in November, not long after Superstorm Sandy had decimated the Jersey Shore, Washington and Lee alumna Victoria Taylor, of the Class of 2011, wrote this on FoxNews.com: “The Jersey Shore I know and love will bounce back.” (Here’s our blog on that story.)
On Tuesday, Victoria was back in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., where her family owns Jenkinson’s Boardwalk. She was there to watch President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie proclaim that the Jersey Shore is back, indeed.
After watching Tuesday’s rather soggy festivities up close, Victoria wrote a first-person account for the New York Daily News, where she now works as a reporter.
Victoria’s account of the visit was extremely personal. She recounts the seven-day work weeks that her family put in all winter in order to get Jenkinson’s — and much of the family’s other Jersey Shore amusement park, Casino Pier in Seaside Heights — up and running.
Here, in part, is the way Victoria described the experience:
Lackluster weather made for a dreary beginning to Memorial Day weekend, but by Sunday and Monday it felt more like May than March in Point Pleasant. The nice weather attracted the crowds, and they helped breathe life back into the boardwalk. Customers lined up for funnel cake and won giant bananas. The carousel jingle played, and children begged their parents for cotton candy. It almost felt as if nothing had changed.
But on Tuesday, I watched Christie sink the pigskin in the “Touchdown Fever” game and win the Chicago Bears stuffed animal for the President of the United States on the boardwalk where I grew up. Obama shook my hand as he walked down the line, and I was reminded of how much has transpired over the last seven months. The boards are newer, and some of the arcades have been redone. But the resilient spirit of the Jersey Shore is still the same, and it is definitely open for business.
