If you look down while walking in Spring Lake and Sea Girt, you are sometimes met with a treat. The old slate sidewalks are beautiful. Their patterns and wear carry the memories of thousands of feet walking across them to the beach, or to town for ice cream.
Sea Girt sidewalk near Crescent Park
Sidewalks were started in Turkey in ancient times. Cities of Greece and Rome copied the practice. Sidewalks then disappeared for a few hundred years. The streets of medieval cities were a filthy mixture of mud, trash, animal droppings and dust. They were no place for a lady or a gentleman to walk.
London began installing some walkways after the fire of 1666, It was the rebuilding of Paris in the mid-1800s that reignited the trend for cities to adopt sidewalks. The boulevards of Paris were lined with planted space and stone walkways separating the people from the dirty streets. Strolling became a pastime. Other cities clamored for the same, and mandated new neighborhoods to include the walkway as a fixture to separate pedestrians from vehicles.
The material was varied. Belgian block, bricks, wood planks, flagstone and gravel were often used. The first walkways and curbs in Spring Lake and Sea Girt were wooden planks, salvaged from the 1876 Centennial buildings. The path around Spring Lake was made of wood.
Every stone on a slate sidewalk holds a unique pattern.
The Pestigo Wisconsin fire of 1871 which took 1,200 lives and the Great Chicago fire that same year caused the use of wood for sidewalks to fall out of favor. The towns had wood-paved roads and wooden sidewalks which contributed to their destruction.
By the 1880s some cities required walks in front of buildings, and the booming cities of New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia took advantage of the fine slate quarries from the Catskills, across PA & down the Delaware. The area had rich sandstone deposits, easily cut into slabs. They made handsome “flagstone” sidewalks.
Brick sidewalk in Spring Lake. Note the slate curb.
Once Ocean Grove sought to lay flagstone for 25 miles of their community in 1885, it became a standard in the finer areas of the shore. Investors dove into the slate business. Henry Yard ran the Spring Lake and Sea Girt Company after 1890, and he owned Yard and Bosnell quarry in Peach Bottom, Lancaster Pennsylvania.
Spring Lake and Sea Grit’s oldest sidewalks are up to 5 inches thick. They are most frequently found in the north end of Sea Girt and between First and Third Avenues in Spring Lake, where some slate curbs still line the streets.
I had several samples of our slate sidewalks analyzed by Geri Jones, a York Pa. geologist. He indicated we have the finest blue sandstone, most likely from the Northeast PA quarries near Wind Gap. Scottish immigrants made up most of the quarrymen. They were joined by local farmers in the winters and removed millions of pounds of slate from the 1870s-1930s. Most of the choice bluestone was used for landscaping, but in Spring Lake and Sea Girt, it was used for sidewalks.
In 1889 New Jersey passed a state law giving municipalities the right to compel property owners to pave or flag abutting walkways, set the dimensions and charge the homeowner with maintenance and upkeep.
In 1924, Spring Lake passed a sidewalk ordinance requiring sidewalks. Redi-mix concrete was developed in 1913, and concrete walkways were 3-5 times cheaper than the price of slate. In Spring Lake, if using slate, the ordinance required 4-inch thick first-quality bluestone and a six-inch bed. Comparatively, Neptune City required only 1.5-inch flag sidewalks. Most builders chose the alternative concrete as the standard for the last 100 years.
As old homes are demolished, or renovated, the slab walkways often go with them. Individual blocks get broken creating hazards, and comparable slate slabs are hard to find. The 1877 Ocean House Hotel has a beautiful new concrete driveway and sidewalks, as the old slate was becoming a trip hazard.
Knockdowns often mean old slate gets torn up
But the effort may be worth it. Slate improves the character of a neighborhood, is slip-resistant and blends into the landscaping. Individual blocks can be replaced. Concrete looks worse as it ages, but slate improves with foot traffic.
Look down
Early Paris Sidewalk 1838 (Louis Daguerre public domain)