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Past, Present and Future of the Franklin Street School
The history of the Franklin Street School, built in 1928 for the African American grade school children of Cape May.
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Feature articles that have appeared in Cape May Magazine
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Cape May: A Walking Architectural Primer
Cape May earned its National Historic Landmark status in 1976 for its singular large collection of more than 600 late 18th to 19th century frame buildings, many architecturally important. Let’s take a walk and enjoy what makes them special.
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Cape May As I Remember It: Part One
The serialized recollections of a Cape May lifer. From Washington Street where it ends at Ocean Street and the mall all the way to the other end has also changed over the years. At the corner of Ocean and Washington Street, where Victorian Towers now stands was Mecray’s Market, eventually […]
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Wheel’s Up: Getting to know Cape May’s special brand of bike magic
“They rode on in silence, gradually leaving the countryside behind them, along with the mingled smell of hay and honeysuckle, which would soon be replaced by the scent of salty air mixed with coconut oil.” It All Started with a Bicycle In this passage from It All Started With a […]
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Mary O’Hara: Jersey Girl
At the end of the 19th century, Cape May Point was a thriving little community established as a religious retreat by prominent ministers and businessmen. Here, on July 10, 1885, a baby girl was born to the Reverend and Mrs. Reese Alsop. They called their daughter Mary O’Hara, after her […]
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With love from Cape May
So, you want to get married in Cape May, do you? That’s an excellent notion. The quaint beauty and charms of America’s oldest seaside resort provide not just the perfect backdrop for a summer vacation, but also an ideal setting for tying the knot—ask me, I know. I was a […]
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A Prompt for Restoration
A year ago, Ron Goldstein, then president of Cape May’s Chamber of Commerce, knew little about Stephen Smith and the summer home he built on Lafayette Street in 1846. And whenever Goldstein passed it on his way downtown, he could barely see the building behind the shrubs and trees that […]
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Small Town, Big League
The first sign that something unusual was happening on a freezing day in late January, deep into Cape May’s off season, was that there was nowhere to park within blocks of Convention Hall. Outside, latecomers were streaming in twos and threes up the steps, and unlike many events in town […]
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Stephen Smith: Cape May’s Underground Railroad Leader
You’ve probably walked past the unimposing pale yellow house at 645 Lafayette Street many times, and perhaps you read the historical marker out front—the one saying that Stephen Smith was a businessman, philanthropist, abolitionist and founder of Cape May’s AME Church. But what you didn’t know is that Smith, who […]
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A Seismic Shift: Cape May’s Place in the Political Tug-of-War over New Jersey’s Energy Source Future
It could all happen pretty quickly. Believe it or not, by as early as summer of next year, a fleet of ships dragging arrays of super-loud seismic blasting cannons could be trolling the Atlantic Coast waters looking for oil deposits. And, if they’re successful—that is, if it looks like there […]
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All-American Recovery: The Bald Eagle
On an ordinary afternoon in March, Cape May resident Linda Portewig was standing outside with her son when she witnessed a fierce battle suddenly erupt in the sky. To her great surprise, two Bald Eagles had forcefully collided and appeared to be stuck in a deadly embrace as they spiraled […]
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The Tale of William Coachman: Kidnapped In Cape May and Sold Into Slavery
Many people have seen the movie Twelve Years a Slave, the true story of a free black man from New York, lured to Washington, D.C. by slave traders and sold into bondage in 1841. But few people know that such things happened right here in Cape May. In the years […]
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The Quinine King— And His House, the Survivor
Cape May—in its heyday as the first and most popular seaside resort—attracted all sorts of VIPs. Lured by the restorative powers of the sea and the status of socializing at the beach were United States presidents, southern plantation owners, entrepreneurs, inventors, industrialists, military heroes, architects, artists and—the Quinine King. William […]
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Family Affair
In the early part of the 20th century, when the Wildwoods weren’t so wild yet, dreamers came to the shores here with a little money, rolled up their sleeves and built the place we know today. They were men like Sebastian Ramagosa, the “King of the Boardwalk,” who ushered in […]
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In the Beginning: The Mainstay Inn
Forty-two years ago, God visited the Mainstay Inn. Well, it wasn’t actually the Supreme Being, and it wasn’t quite the Mainstay Inn, at least not the one that stands proudly on the intersection of Columbia Avenue and Stockton Place now. But back in the early 1970s, the self-appointed deity of […]
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Rescue Squad
It’s a system of loyalty and trust. Loyalty to those who visit Cape May beaches, and trust among the lifeguards themselves. No occupation seems to embody the all-American summer like that of a well-tanned, able-bodied, vigilant and attentive lifeguard. Lifeguards sit upon their chair, constantly scanning the horizon looking for […]
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Schooner American: Evolution of a Cape May Tradition
It was an innovative idea at the time. A first-of-its-kind floating cocktail lounge. Wally Laudeman and his wife Marijane, side by side, opened The Marine Bar in 1954 as a small restaurant primarily specializing in seafood and burgers. A devastating fire in 1964 changed the course of dining in Cape […]
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The View from Here
People like to go to the top of things. Don’t ask me why. And it’s no good asking them, either, because they don’t know. Nearly a century ago, a reporter from the New York Times asked George Mallory why he wanted to go to the summit of Mount Everest, and […]
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A Rare Vintage
Ed Wuerker likes classic planes so much, he bought one: a vintage TBM Avenger, built in the waning days of World War II. The single-prop torpedo bomber, one of the few that remain from a fleet of 10,000, still flies out of Cape May County Airport.
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Brew Crew
Seven or eight years ago, two young men who’d met in college at Villanova in 2001 began to fool around with beer-making. From the rooftop of an apartment building in Park Slope in Brooklyn, Ryan Krill filled his bathtub with snow, begged and borrowed some used equipment from local restaurants, […]
