I’ve known Seaside Heights, NJ (affectionately, S(l)easide) since I was too little to walk. I liked the rides, and the candy, but it was an uneasy place for a child. Games where one could win cartons of cigarettes and Playboy-themed prizes were right next to the child’s games I played, like the frog pop. Fights spilled out of stale-stalling bars. I saw slogans on t-shirts that I did not understand, but somehow I understood that they were obscene. I found it very frightening. Nevertheless, Seaside remained a constant of my early years. It was the site of family day trips to the boardwalk, childhood pizza parties, my first job (a lifeguard at the local waterslide park), and my 21st birthday. It's been a winter running route for the past 23 years, which offers me an intimacy with Seaside that only someone who sees it foot by foot, season by season, can appreciate. During those months, when the only sound from the boardwalk is the cold wooden planks creaking underneath my feet, I feel like I know a different Seaside - quiet and shuttered, but still beautiful in the soft winter light. But I like it in the summertime, too, even though it no longer belongs to me. I feel energized by the crowds and the dance music. I take pride in seeing how much the town is enjoyed, how much diversity it draws in from the surrounding areas.  

During the 1950-60s, Seaside was a popular albeit honky-tonk destination, attracting acts like Chubby Checker, Dion, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Franki Valli. But since my youth in the 80s, it has steadily deteriorated. Compared to similar NJ boardwalk towns like Ocean City and nearby Point Pleasant, it’s considered a seedy, less desirable resort. Superstorm Sandy, which hit Seaside especially hard in 2012, further steepened its decline. Both of its amusement piers suffered extensive damage - one pier is unlikely to ever be rebuilt, the other is much smaller than before the storm. The houses and commercial buildings, shabbily constructed vestiges of more prosperous decades, look decrepit and faded in spite of thick coats of paint. There are no hotels rated over two stars; the neon signs, if they work at all, say things like  'Color TVs!' instead of ‘Free Wifi.’ 

From 2018-2023, I lived 5 blocks away. Seaside became my neighborhood. During quarantine, I referred to photographing Seaside’s side streets as ‘doing my walk-abouts.’ But even well after local walks were the only way for me to escape from my apartment, I’d sometimes hit the streets to wander with my camera, poking about to see if something might inspire me. I never had a pre-set idea of the kind of pictures I wanted to make, but I did know what interested me about the town - the summertime crowds, (even if their presence was only implied by closed game booths and shut-off water slides), the kitschy architecture, the dichotomy between a vibrant beach resort and very economically depressed populace (it’s consistently one of the poorest towns in the state. Because Ocean county has no dedicated facility for the unhoused, a significant portion of that population live in Seaside’s motels). 

The town has changed in many ways since I first knew it. After MTV’s Jersey Shore TV show aired the seamier aspects of Seaside’s nightlife, the town council wanted to give the town a more family-friendly makeover. The rowdy night clubs were forced - through strict code enforcement and bureaucratic hassles - to close, and now stand empty, looming darkly over the main boulevard. An entire ride pier is gone, dealt a double blow by Sandy and a fire. Some of the run-down motels are being demolished, to be replaced with high-end condos. While I’m not exactly sad to see the most decrepit buildings go, the new replacements lack the faded 1950’s-era charm that gives the town its unique character. And, as local business owners point out, fewer motels mean fewer places for visitors to stay. Working-class crowds - crammed into cheap rooms - have traditionally made up Seaside’s economic lifeline, and that continues to be the case today. There is a chance that Seaside may not survive its transition. At least, not in its current form.

Some of the buildings in this series are already gone, knocked down just months after I photographed them. And as I’m writing this, I too am planning to leave Seaside. Like the grungy motels, I am a casualty of the town’s impending gentrification. Part of what’s driven me to document the town is the knowledge that the life I lived there - and the town I knew since childhood - is rapidly changing. Still, many of the original landmarks stubbornly persist. The boardwalk still feels sleazy, grimy, and comfortably familiar. I hope some vestige of S(l)easide will always remain.