Vice President Richard Nixon beat Reverend Billy Graham at golf in Spring Lake. He was running for re-election with Eisenhower. Nixon’s message was that his party, the Eisenhower Republicans, were the party of the future, the party of the nuclear age, of prosperity, and of the youth. The party of FDR, Truman, and Adlai Stephenson’s Democrat party was a lookback to depression and war.
Sea Girt and the nation had some restlessness. The Real Estate owners and Borough Council agreed to get things in order.
The town was nearly built out, and developers began to sell a significant number of homes west of 8th Avenue in Wall Township. Developers called the homes “Sea Girters”, although they were unlike the early-century bungalows to the east. Many were mid-century ranches. They promoted the Sea Girt mailing address. Homeowners were upset with the ‘intrusion’. Elvin Lake floated a resolution instructing the post office to force addresses outside the borough to read “Sea Girt RFD” (Rural Farm Delivery).
A Sea Girt address in Wall township was valuable
To compound matters, 250 residents of Wall Township sent a petition to the Council with a request to be included in the residents’ season button program for access to the beach. The Boro pushed back claiming the town lacked the parking or facilities to accommodate so many additional participants. The affordability of cars was crowding the shore with visitors.
Then the discussion moved to sharing buttons. You needed to live or rent in Sea Girt in order to purchase a $6 season pass. Council debated getting certified signatures so that they could check button numbers off a list. People were accused of lending badges to non-relatives and friends to avoid expensive $1.25 weekend passes. ‘Out of towners’ were borrowing season passes.
There was another problem; underage kids drinking on the beach. With the Stockton and the Tremont selling liquor, it was easy for adults to pass off alcohol to their younger friends. While alcohol was legal for adults to enjoy at the beach, groups under the drinking age of 21 were accused of throwing “wild parties” the previous summer. The council moved to make youth possession of alcohol illegal. “Juvenile delinquent” became a popular term to describe the growing number of problem teens.
The babies of the ‘40s were becoming teenagers. James Dean had a hit movie, Rebel Without a Cause. Bill Haley and his Comets, who had rocked Asbury in 1955, went on to have the #1 hit for eight straight weeks.
Parents, teachers, and pastors bristled at the music. Then in 1956, the hip-swinging, long-haired, handsome southern boy, Elvis Presley sent girls crazy. The Wisconsin Catholic Church wrote to the FBI, “Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States., The actions and motions were such as to rouse the sexual passions of teenaged youth. ... After the show, more than 1,000 teenagers tried to gang into Presley's room at the auditorium. ... Indications of the harm Presley did just in La Crosse were the two high school girls ... whose abdomen and thigh had Presley's autograph.”
Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock Library of Congress photo
He had two number-one albums, and his appearance on Milton Berle’s show, grinding his hips to “Hound Dog”, convinced kids he was cool and parents he was not. Presley then cut a deal for the top variety program, the Ed Sullivan Show. Three appearances for $50,000. Rock and Roll was king.
Elvis stirred up passions
Frankie Lymon and his quintet played at the Asbury Park Convention Hall in June. Their hit “Why do Fools Fall in Love?” was a top single, and the rock and roll show attracted both law-abiding and adoring fans as well as a few bad apples. Lymon, a 13-year-old middle schooler from Harlem was one of the first black teen stars with crossover appeal. The group, like Haley, was considered “safe” because they wore suits or sweaters on stage, and the young boys had a wholesome image.
An integrated crowd of 3,000 packed the Convention Hall, with many of the young West Enders getting their first glimpse at a superstar who looked like them. The standees pressed close to the stage as the warmup act finished.
Unfortunately, just as the group began their second song, after 11 pm in the hot hall, the crush to the stage resulted in a fight. A man was stabbed. When he calmly went to the orange-aide counter for napkins to stem the bleeding, the workers panicked.
Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers publicity shot
The show was stopped and the lights came up and 3,000 frustrated and angry kids, spilled out onto the boardwalk and the fighting continued. “The Rock and Roll Riot” was going to be news across the country, and was used as a prime example of why the music was so destructive.
Fourteen-year-old Tim Hauser helped Lymon find another route to the dressing room and sat with the group in awe as they practiced acapella while the hall was cleared. Hauser knew then and there what he wanted to do with his life. He took friends from St. Rose in Belmar and started a doo-wop group, and eventually won 10 Grammy’s as the founding member of Manhattan Transfer.
Outside the venue, twenty-five were injured. It would be six years before the city council would approve an R&B or rock and roll group. When rock did return, in the mid-60s many of the groups they invited appealed mainly to white kids; The Beach Boys in 1965, RollingStones in ‘66, the Who in ‘67, and Led Zepplin in ‘69.
Asbury Park was music city