Asbury Park On The Record: The Basics.
New to the Asbury Park waterfront? Start anywhere. Each section stands on its own and explains the basics from the beginning.
The historic buildings
A handful of large historic buildings anchor the Asbury Park boardwalk, and understanding the waterfront starts with knowing what they are.
Convention Hall and the Paramount Theatre were built in the late 1920s and designed by the architecture firm Warren and Wetmore, the same firm that designed Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The two buildings are joined by a covered arcade that crosses over the boardwalk between them, and they were built to work together as one venue: films and shows in the Paramount Theatre, and larger conventions, trade shows, and events in the Hall.
At the southern end of the boardwalk sits the Casino complex, also designed by Warren and Wetmore and built around the same time as Convention Hall, but for a different purpose. Where Convention Hall was built for formal events, the Casino was built for amusement. It held three main sections: a carousel house, a covered boardwalk arcade lined with shops, and an arena that hosted rides and shows. Next to the Casino stands the Steam Plant, a building that once generated the electricity and heat for the waterfront. Between the Casino complex and Convention Hall runs a line of smaller boardwalk pavilions, built at intervals along the beach to house shops, games, and seasonal amusements.
These historic buildings are not the whole waterfront. Since 2002, new apartment and condominium buildings have gone up around them, built under the same master plan by a number of different housing developers. The historic buildings and the new housing sit on the same stretch of coast and are governed by the same plan, which is why they are best understood as one connected story rather than two separate ones.