A 2.3 Inch Argument
The Sea Girt Real Estate Owners Group Inc. was still not happy with the new ownership of the Stockton hotel. Frank Palmieri renovated the hotel’s public spaces. The Morven Room was the new main dining room, overlooking the ocean, and featured Bill Decker's Orchestra and a new organ played by Charles Sherill. He planned on upgrading all of the rooms, which had become quite shabby since the death of Mrs. Stubbs.
The worst-kept secret in town was that Frank planned to raze the building and build a new all-year-round facility. He also upset beachgoers and neighbors by erecting a 150-foot fence of pier pilings along Neptune Place to the ocean to separate the public bathers to the south of his hotel. There was an older fence there in the 1930s. Someone measured the fence and found it to be 5 inches on the borough property. The Real Estate Owners Group demanded that Palmieri move the fence.
Group spokesman V. Peter Iorio came to the borough council meeting with an agenda.
After discussing some minor issues, like cats and dogs, garbage disposal, and noise, Iorio laced into Mayor Doyle about the fence. He claimed it was illegal and installed without building permits. Why didn’t the mayor or police stop him?
The mayor explained that Palmieri had approached him, and while Doyle informed the building inspector, the fence went up without Palmieri asking Buildings for a permit, but that could be rectified.
Palmieri explained the purpose of the fence was to prevent blowing sand from going onto his neighbor’s property, and that he was not going to move his fence, five inches, suggesting it was silly.
Residents shouted about ‘principle’, and after some back and forth, the Asbury Palk Press reported that Iorio called Palmieri a “comedian”, and Palmieri countered that they were a “small crew” with a political agenda. Then, the meeting broke into a shouting match.
When the mayor restored order, Iorio made it clear that if the problem was not corrected by the council, the people would fix it at the next election. Mayor Doyle noted that he believed the true issue behind the fence was political.
He moved the meeting along. Residents complained about teens playing loud music at the lighthouse after closing and couples dancing in the dark. Councilwoman Norma L. Howard must have been smiling. She had sponsored dance lessons at the lighthouse for the teens in 1957.
There is no record of the dances she taught, but the Carolina Shag was a hugely popular beach dance originating in Myrtle Beach. This was one year before Gidget hit the screens, and the surfing and dancing culture would ride a wave deep into the 60s. There were surfer girls in Sea Girt. Diane Raver was one of them. Lifeguards were often the most proficient. Along the shore, lifeguards had used rescue surfboards since the 1930s. Duke Kahanamoku, an Olympian swimmer, taught NJ lifesavers the efficiency of launching on a board over the time it took to launch a surf boat. The heavy longboards would allow up to 16 people to get a handhold on the board. Lighter models with hand grips came along in the 1950s.
The hula hoop was also invented in 1958, and it was a hit song of the summer. No doubt the kids at the beach had a few.
Brielle held a hula-hoop contest for local kids, and the winner kept his hoop on his hips for 5,900 revolutions.
“From LA to New York, from Georgia to Duluth
Everyone is playing with the hula hoop
Red ones and green ones, yellow, white, and blue
Young and old, rich or poor, are spinning them, too
Hula hoop, hula hoop, everyone is playin with the hula hoop
Look at them spin, trying to win
Anyone can play from three to a hundred and ten
hoop-hoop hoop-hoop
hoop-hoop hoop-hoop
Mrs. Amend who lived next door to the lighthouse at 3 Beacon called the kids “little tramps”. Mr. Cicicolo of Washington Blvd noted, “Sea Girt is slipping, it may soon become another Seaside Heights”. This was met with boos.
Several measurements were taken by the building inspector and the fence subject was raised again in the early fall. The fence, made of wood pilings was 2.3 inches over the property line in just one section (The Stockton’s deed included the beachfront since the 1870s). Palmieri noted the property stake was under the waves, but he would move the offending section. The issue lingered into December.
In October, a fire of unknown origin in one of the first-floor bedrooms opened a 30-foot hole in the side of the hotel. Over 100 firefighters responded to the blaze at 1:40 in the morning, and Sea Girt’s firemen along with Spring Lake and Manasquan’s companies saved the structure, but smoke caused over $50,000 in damage.