Less than a year after Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coast in 2012, wreaking $50 billion in destruction across the New York-New Jersey region, the Rutgers Climate Institute issued its State of the Climate Report 2013. Its sobering conclusion, in a nutshell: that Sandy was a warning, and that things could get much […]
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 maternal grandmother. Years later, upon […]
They’re the hardest-working canines in town.
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 Pennsylvania resident when I married […]
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 obscured it. But last year […]
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 that lean toward beach casual, […]
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 spent many summers in Cape […]
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 are promising oil deposits out […]
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 down through the air. Linda […]
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 before the Civil War, no […]