Inside the issue: The Rebirth of the Franklin Street School. Visiting WCFA, Cape May’s radio station. Ministering Kindness: Get to know Father Cesar Serrano, a spiritual leader for the Latino community. James Bond & the Cape May Geographic Society. Atlantic Cape Community College: a vital local resource. And more!
Nestled on a side street east of Broadway sits 112 Yorke Avenue, a three-story Victorian charmer built when West Cape May was mostly farmland, and peopled with service workers and Mayflower descendants. There may be less farmland and fewer Mayflower descendants these days, but the home remains a preserved piece […]
Did you know that lawn is the largest crop in America? It is estimated that turf grass covers approximately 1.6% of the surface area of the entire country—more than 62,500 square miles. That is an area larger than Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Connecticut combined! What’s disturbing is that we spend […]
With the presidential election in the not-too-distant future, it behooves me to mention one of our greatest presidents—Abraham Lincoln. His leadership during the Civil War and issuing the Emancipation Proclamation giving enslaved people in the United States their freedom, as well as preserving the Union was monumental. Decades ago, I […]
Once upon a time, wife and husband Kelly Lavorgna and Andrew Bares had careers on Wall Street. As the current owners of Evan James Interiors, a design team that’s appeared on HGTV’s Flea Market Flip, those finance days—of which they spent nearly a collective five decades—are long behind them. These […]
Washington Street Mall has long been home to some of the most eclectic, swoon-worthy boutiques in the area. From specialty stores like The Cheese Shop and Bath Time to beloved gift shops and whimsical candy stores, to jewelry, to shoes, to clothing, Washington Street Mall is a dream shopping destination […]
Atlantic Cape Community College’s local campus is an unsung resource for people looking to get started and get ahead, in life and work
For an easy-breezy resort stay, it’s hard to beat the Sandpiper Beach Club, at Beach Avenue and Grant Street in Cape May. The condominium hotel is home to 51 individually owned residences that double as hotel suites. As a result, guests can expect all the comforts of home—not just beautifully […]
In summer and fall it’s not uncommon to come to work and find a large mesh cage set up in the middle of the building, with one or more specimens of some special creature crawling around inside. Most of the time these are moths, and sometimes they’re something entirely different, […]
For more than a century, members of the Reed family worked a modest farm in rural Atlantic County. In the mid-2010s, the last generation of farmers passed on, and the next generation declined to follow in their footsteps. The 80-acre tract in Egg Harbor Township might have been sold for […]
Chances are that one Cape May group you may not know about is the Cape May Geographic Society, a group that had an intense interest in the natural history of Cape May and in sharing history with year-round and summer residents.
The movement of sand down the shoreline, known as longshore drift, creates an ever-changing landscape at Stone Harbor Point and the North Wildwood inlet. Every year both these places get closer; perhaps they will meet one day! While the steady southward movement of sand is obvious, one big storm could […]
Correspondence via postcards sent to Sandy and Orville Miller from different members of their family, including her brother Bob and sister-in-law Marta, were kept safe by Sandy in her comprehensive collection of historic Cape May postcards. Coincidentally, the first three cards came annually in the month of August, all featured […]
Father Cesar Serrano is a spiritual leader for the local Latino population
The ever-growing craft beer industry is the result of many happy incidents, coincidences, and luck. One of those incidents was the signing of HR 1337 in 1977 by then-President Jimmy Carter which legalized homebrewing in the United States. I mention this not to start a history lesson but to note […]
The Bees Knees, a new bee-themed bar at the Marquis de Lafayette, takes inspiration from a 1920s speakeasy, but it doesn’t make itself hard to find. A neon sign in the entrance proudly pronounces it as Cape May’s “worst” kept secret. The cocktail menu includes Prohibition-era nods such as Giggle […]
Turn on, tune in, and catch the waves from anywhere in the world
Over the nearly 10 years that I’ve been reviewing restaurants for this magazine, there have been some absolutely exquisite meals and equally exquisite service and ambiance. I’m happy to report that my recent visit to Andrea Trattoria Italiana on Bank Street was another such experience. While we stood outside with […]
America loves barbecue even if most people really aren’t sure what barbecue really means. The terms grilling, barbecue, and cookout are used interchangeably when they really mean very different things. A cookout is a meal or event where the cooking is done outside. Grilling is food cooked on a grill […]
Music, like literature, explores many themes—usually boiling down to love, life, and loss. In this column we discuss the locals that play the music; however, this duo epitomizes potentially the most widely sung-about theme there is. Lelah and Jay Eppenbach’s love story began in the city of romance when Lelah […]
Rachel Shubin is on that l-o-n-g list of people who used to vacation but now lives in Cape May. Raised in Fairfax, Virginia, she spent annual summer vacations here as a child, and knew she wanted to move here after college. “I was always sad when we left Cape May, […]
“The painting shows a young boy talking to a giant wolf, symbolizing an escape from reality. This magical scene represents a journey into a fantasy world where the boy finds freedom and adventure, leaving behind the constraints of everyday life.” Prodigious Lycanthropy Oil on canvas20” x 24”