From the Ghost Tracks of Sunset Beach to the inferno that consumed 40 acres of prime downtown to the fire-and-brimstone preacher who changed the shape of the town, dig into a treasure trove of stories that celebrate the characters, landmarks and secrets of America’s Original Seaside Resort, aka Exit Zero.
Exit Zero Jazz Festival has now become such a Cape May fixture that it feels as if it has always been here, like the lighthouse, the Lobster House, and people arguing over whether the beach tags are still in the glove compartment.
In a town known for verandas, Victorian trim and folks arguing over where to get the best crab cakes, there sits one of the most important military gateways in America.
The competitors were: Rusty Nail, Ugly Mug, Lucky Bones and the Mad Batter.
Cape May likes the idea of bicycles. It likes the romance of them — the notion of families pedaling around in the salt-sprayed air, children laughing in baskets, grown men rediscovering their youth in a straw hat and a faded beach patrol T-shirt.
The Chalfonte celebrates its 150th birthday this year and if you want to tell its story correctly, you have to begin not with wicker furniture or fried chicken or the agreeable creak of old floorboards, but with Henry Sawyer.
There are some ideas that keep bobbing back to the surface no matter how many times history tries to drag them under. The ferry was one of them.
The Day A Final Act Of The War Played Out Right Here
Cape May was turned over during the course of three days and five high tides by a slow-moving grinder that would come to be known as the Great Atlantic Storm, the Five High Storm or the Ash Wednesday Storm.
A substantial Black presence shaped this place for generations, and a wave of markers, restorations, programming and public history is trying to give that legacy the space it deserves.
Some time around seven o’clock on the morning of November 9, 1878, workmen on the roof of the Stockton Hotel saw smoke coming from the Ocean House on Perry Street, across from Congress Hall.
On some days at Higbee Beach (or nights, if you’re feeling brave — it’s spooky out there), the Delaware Bay does a magic trick.
