Long after the fact, I was told by surviving family members that my mother loved the Atlantic City area, and my father hated it. Mom loved Lou’s in Ventnor. Dad preferred playing golf and tennis in Tamarac, Florida. Still, being the relatively good husband that he was, he did take our family to the Atlantic City area several times, and through the 1950s and early 1960s, we stayed for several days during the season at the Traymore and Deauville Hotels, and during a summer when money was issue, a long-defunct, God awful motel on the Black Horse Pike called the Oasis. Though the Oasis advertised that it had three swimming pools, I could only see one.
The most memorable family excursion, at least for me, was the summer of 1957, when my father bit the bullet and rented a three-bedroom home at 8205 Monmouth Avenue in Margate. I had just turned five years of age, and the prospect of spending the summer at Million Dollar Pier, Steel Pier and Steeplechase Pier was thrilling. I didn’t learn until later on that Monmouth Avenue was about a half-mile from the beach, and that the distance to Million Dollar Pier was close to five miles. No matter. I’d find a way to get there.
The plan, as I recall, was to rent the house from Memorial Day through Labor Day. My mother, brother and I would be there for the entire season, while my father — who ran a business in Philadelphia — would come down on weekends, like a lot of fathers/husbands who rented summer homes for their families did at the time. But it was rarely, if ever, just the three or four of us on Monmouth Avenue. Family members — aunts, uncles and cousins — seemingly came out of the woodwork to join us in Margate that summer, and if memory serves, guests stayed with us for a week at a time, sometimes more.
It was a fun and joyous time, and even though I didn’t get to enjoy my beloved amusement rides as often as I wanted — my nagging, I learned, would only take me so far — what made that summer so memorable and so special was that I had the opportunity to bond with my father in a manner I never really experienced again. During his weekend visits, he took me fishing off the rocks in Longport, showed me the rudiments of putting on the miniature golf course, and taught me beach protocol. He may have, as it was told to me, hated the shore, but it sure didn’t seem like that to me in the summer of 1957.
While we all went out to dinner from time to time — the old Sid Hartfield’s on the Boardwalk, which we called “Sid Heartburns,” was a favorite — but mostly we had gigantic family meals at home, helped in no small measure by a housekeeper/baby sitter my mother hired for the summer.
My introduction to the Steel Pier happened that summer on one of the season’s few rainy days. Despite my protests, I was deemed too young to travel alone, so the babysitter was in put in charge of getting me to the Pier and back that day. And what a day it was. Though I hadn’t yet developed an interest in jazz or jazz drumming, in that my tastes didn’t go much beyond Elvis at that time, I was still mesmerized by the performers I saw at the Pier that day.
In the Music Hall, the star of the show was none other than Tony Bennett, who was still playing to family audiences at the time, in that he wouldn’t record “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” until 1962. In the Marine Ballroom, two giants of jazz, trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and drummer Gene Krupa, alternated. Perhaps the seed for my eventual love of jazz and my career in jazz was planted that day. And yes, that day at the Pier, I also experienced the Diving Bell and the famed Diving Horse. Nap time came courtesy of the Pier’s movie theater, where I fell asleep during “20 Million Miles to Earth,” one of three, family-oriented films that ran continuously through the day and evening. Pier owner George Hamid booked films that would appeal to the entire family.
Boardwalk food? I think I had it all that day, and as an extra special treat, after the Pier, we made a short stop at Steeplechase Pier, adjacent to the Steel Pier. Though Steeplechase, at the time, had more adult/thrill rides than Million Dollar Pier. Steeplechase’s Tilt-O-Whirl was more than enough to satisfy my enthusiasm for amusement rides. At least for that moment. Million Dollar Pier would come later.
What made that summer so wonderful was that I had never seen my parents and my brother so happy. There would be other family trips through the years, including a pre-I95 motor trip to Miami Beach in 1960 and a couple of visits to the Catskill Mountain resorts, but none were as joyous as that summer of 1957 in Margate.
Things would change for my family around 1961. My father made the decision to move us out of our row house in Overbook to a more upscale neighborhood. My brother and mother hated the decision and our new location. Truth be told, they were never the same after that. Some years later, in an effort to recapture the happiness and togetherness of 1957, my mother lobbied strongly to purchase a condo at the Berkley in Atlantic City in 1973. A two-bedroom condo at the Berkley in that year, the year it was completed, cost around $35,000. It was a no-go. My father still disliked the shore, so, upon his retirement three years later, mother and father moved to Tamarac, Florida near Ft. Lauderdale. My mother hated it.
I sometimes drive by that house on Monmouth Avenue, and though I make it a point not to live in the past or to try to recapture anything, the memories of that summer almost 70 years ago are rich and fond, and that time did help cement my passion for the Atlantic City region. I loved it then, and I love it now. Even without Million Dollar Pier.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
