Belmar Stories: Interview with E. Donald Sterner, 1976

December 28, 2009 by emilykellis
Filed under Archived Notices, Belmar History, Belmar Memories, Featured

E. Donald Sterner. Credit: State of NJ Archives.

Ocean Beach and Belmar- A Part of Old Wall- 1892-1976

A taped conversation with E. Donald Sterner, by Alyce H. Salmon

The subject conversation was taped about 1976 and transferred to CD in 2002.
A CD is available separately. This publication contains only the print version.

FOREWORD

The interviewee, E. Donald Sterner was the former highway commissioner of the State of New Jersey. Sterner was a preeminent New Jersey Shore politician who, operating as highway commissioner, aided in the construction of the Belmar Marina, partly through filling in the waters of the Shark River that once covered what is now the north and south lanes of Route 35 in Belmar New Jersey. Route 38, now Route 138, from Route 35 to Route 34, was built about 1944 and was known as the “Sterner mile”. Indeed, the construction of Route 195 from Wall to Trenton can be substantially attributed to his initiative and early work.

Sterner recounts his early days in what was then called Ocean Beach. His references to early shore geography and history provide insight into how and when the shore was developed. The direction of railroads, the social life in Ocean Beach, along with some exploits of the Belmar Mystics and other Belmar Sports teams are included in the interview. Further views of education in the 1900s are afforded the reader and listener.

Alyce H. Salmon, the Township Historian of Wall from 1976 to 2000 conceived the project, conducted and taped the interview and edited the transcript. Mrs. Salmon, a 1954 Fulbright scholar received a Bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and an M.A. from Middlebury College. She is the author of other local history publications including other video and oral history projects.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Tags:

Even Before There Was Sidoroff’s There Was John’s Blue Lunch

June 27, 2009 by MayorKenPringle
Filed under Belmar Memories

2 Comments

Long time residents and visitors to Belmar fondly remember Sidoroff’s, the popular, but now vacant, hot dog and hamburg stand at the corner of 19th and Ocean Avenues. In its heyday, it featured some of the best hamburgers and hot dogs anywhere, not to mention ice cold Hires Root Beer served in frosted mugs. Some of my favorite memories of Sidoroff’s were those rainy days and evenings, when they would roll down canvas flaps to create a sheltered seating area under the overhang. And I remember Mrs. Sidoroff, who always wore her hair up in a bun, and was as much a fixture in front of the counter, as the old Hires Root Beer Barrel was the behind the counter. Her old-fashioned cash register didn’t actually do any math, so she would tally up the cost for each patron on a little pad, and then enter the total on the register.

In its later years, Sidoroff’s became THE place for breakfast on weekends, especially if your idea of a great breakfast included the Jersey Shore delicacy of pork roll with a fried egg on a hard roll. Of course, all of this was eaten around painted picnic tables, and washed down with terrific coffee served out of mismatched mugs.

But what few remaining Belmartians remember is that another Belmar classic occupied that spot for decades before Sidoroff’s. John Blue’s Lunch operated at that location during the 1940’s and well into the 1950’s. We’d be grateful to anyone who could provide better dates for us as to when John Blue’s Lunch first opened, and when the transition to Sidoroff’s occurred, and any other memories about this classic Belmar food stand.

Tags:

Home movie of Belmar from the Summer of ‘59 Surfaces on YouTube

May 21, 2009 by admin
Filed under Belmar Memories, Tourism News

Leave a Comment

Last fall, someone uploaded to YouTube a rare peak back into the Belmar of 1959 — a digitized home movie that is bound to bring back some memories for an entire generation of Belmar beachgoers. A little less than three-and-a-half minutes long, the movie’s scenes center largely around D’Jais and the beach at 18th Avenue. The building in the video looks a lot different than the D’Jais of today, but even back then it was called D’Jais and it was a busy bar (you can see that on a sunny afternoon there was a cop posted at the front door!) In the thumbnail of the video below, and beginning at at 1:37 into the video, the view is in the back of D’Jais looking toward Nineteenth Avenue. The sand and beach grass lot in the background is where the current D’Jais parking lot is located. If you look carefully, you can see the original Sidoroff’s in the distance (the structure that now stands at Nineteenth and Ocean was a replacement building that was built after a fire in the late 1970’s).

According to Frank Sementa, who is one of the owners of the current D’Jais, the bar got its name from the owner Dominick Joseph Desalvo, whose childhood nickname was DJ. Hence D’Jais. A post on YouTube reports that the woman seen waving in front of the bar at 0:37 is Desalvo’s wife.

At 0:58 in the video, there is a quick pan of the boardwalk that shows one of Belmar’s beach badge booths from that era. The beach scenes that begin at 1:57 haven’t changed much over the past 50 years, except of course for the bathing suits. Enjoy.