OCEAN GROVE 
Ocean Grove is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in
Neptune Township ,
Monmouth County , New Jersey. The town is particularly noted for its abundant Victorian architecture and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ocean Grove was founded as the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association in 1869 by a group of Methodist clergymen, led by William B. Osborn and Ellwood H. Stokes, as a summer camp meeting site on the
New Jersey seashore. It remains the longest-active camp meeting site in the
United States .
Location/Transportation
Ocean Grove is located on the
Atlantic Ocean Jersey Shore , between
Asbury Park to the north and Bradley Beach to the south.
Frequent rail passenger service to
New York City is provided by New Jersey Transit from nearby
Asbury Park station. The nearest airport having scheduled commercial airline service is
Newark Liberty International Airport , 45 miles north, although
Monmouth Executive Airport for general aviation airplanes is just 6 miles distant.
Interstate 195 provides highway access to Ocean Grove from the New Jersey Turnpike,
Philadelphia , and points west. The nearby Garden State Parkway connects Ocean Grove with points north and south, such as
New York City and
Atlantic City.
History
Drawing from the major population centers of
New York City and
Philadelphia , Ocean Grove became a popular destination during the growth of the camp meeting movement in post-Civil War
America . Tents and an open-air wooden shelter, or "tabernacle", were erected in the 1870s, for the trainloads of visitors arriving by the
New York and Long Branch Railroad after 1875. In 1877 alone, 710,000 railroad tickets were sold for the Ocean Grove-Asbury Park train station.
A well was dug in the summer of 1870 near the site of the first tabernacle to provide fresh water (the "Beersheba" well, named from a well in Israel mentioned in scripture, is still in existence). A second, larger tabernacle was built in the 1880s and permanent structures began to be constructed. Streets were paved and some were given Biblical names, such as "Pilgrim Pathway" and "Mt. Tabor Way".
As Ocean Grove drew more and more visitors, the second tabernacle was also outgrown, and construction of the present Great Auditorium was completed in 1894. Originally designed to accommodate crowds of as many as 10,000 people, the subsequent installation of theater-style cushioned seating in many sections reduced seating capacity to about 6,000. Regardless, it remains Ocean Grove's most prominent structure and the centerpiece of its summer programs.
Until Ocean Grove's municipal authority was folded into Neptune Township in 1981, it boasted a set of unique laws, including one that made it illegal on Sundays to have cars on the streets of Ocean Grove. This had a significant effect on the development of a close-knit community. People looking to get away for the weekend typically avoided the Grove (the beach was closed on Sunday, too). That meant the visitors were likely to be coming for a week-long visit or more. Most came to attend programs sponsored by the Camp Meeting.
President Ulysses S. Grant visited Ocean Grove during his time in office and made his last public appearance in this town. Other Presidents to speak on the grounds include James Garfield, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Richard Nixon. During the decades of the 1920s-1950s, Ocean Grove's population swelled during the summers with thousands of visitors each week. Heavyweight boxing champions James J. Corbett and Max Baer and department store magnate F.W. Woolworth were among the celebrities of the day who vacationed in Ocean Grove.
Today
Beginning in the 1990s and continuing to the present, Ocean Grove has experienced a dramatic increase in property values. As part of Ocean Grove's resurgence in recent years, a number of sidewalk cafés and shops along Main Avenue – the main business thoroughfare – now cater to visitors and seasonal residents. Plans were announced in 2006 for a major new hotel and condominium development on property which has been vacant since the 1970s, when the old "North End Hotel" – once Ocean Grove's largest – was damaged by fire and subsequently demolished in 1980.
Asbury Park, the neighboring town to the north, is also experiencing property value increases, architectural renovations, and an influx of quaint shops and chic restaurants lining the main streets of Asbury Park and emerging on the famed boardwalk.
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association
Since its founding, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association's mission is to provide opportunities for spiritual birth, growth, and renewal in a Christian seaside setting. Its 2007 mission statement is: "...rooted in its Methodist heritage, to provide opportunities for spiritual birth, growth and renewal through worship, education, cultural and recreational programs for persons of all ages in a Christian seaside setting."
The Camp Meeting offers traditional and contemporary worship programs throughout the summer, for people of all ages. Sunday worship services are held at and in the Great Auditorium. These services have featured such celebrated preachers as Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Robert H. Schuller, Billy Sunday, Ralph W. Sockman, David H. C. Read, Tony Campolo, James A. Forbes, D. James Kennedy, Charles Stanley, William Jennings Bryan, Booker T. Washington, and British evangelist Rodney "Gipsy" Smith.
The Grove also offers a contemporary worship service, "Pavilion Praise," in the beach's Boardwalk Pavilion each Sunday morning at . The Bible Hour (scripture study, often led by the preacher at the previous Sunday's Auditorium worship service) is held each weekday morning at 9 in the Bishop-Janes Tabernacle adjacent to the Auditorium.
Youth programs include music and dramatics at the
Youth Temple , along with the weekday "Breakfast Club" for teens and "Riptide" for younger children.
Supported by bridge-like iron trusses laid on stone foundations, the Great Auditorium remains mostly unchanged from its original design, right down to a lighting system that placed then-novel incandescent lights in rows adorning the varnished wood-panelled ceiling. Also novel is a large American flag (c. 1916) covered with lightbulbs which flash in an undulating manner when illuminated.
Another reflection of the building's camp meeting roots are the 114 tents surrounding the Auditorium. These seasonal residences, occupied from May to September, have adjacent cabins provided with electricity and plumbing and are so much in demand that those seeking to lease one for a summer may have to wait 10 years.
Known for its excellent acoustics, the Auditorium is the site of numerous concerts, in addition to Sunday services. Among these concerts are the acclaimed Summer Stars chamber music programs, which bring some of the finest classical musicians from
Philadelphia and
New York to Ocean Grove each Thursday night in July and early August.
The Auditorium also houses a magnificent pipe organ, one of the 25 largest in the world. Installed by the innovative organ builder Robert Hope-Jones in 1908, the instrument's components have been rebuilt several times since then. Resident Organist Gordon Turk has overseen extensive expansion of the instrument's resources since taking up his post in 1974, so that the organ now contains five manuals, 165 ranks, and over 10,000 pipes. He and guest concert organists play free recitals on most Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons in July and August.
Saturday nights are set aside for popular entertainment, including recent appearances by Johnny Mathis, Ronan Tynan, Linda Eder, comedian Bill Cosby, and Christian rock stars like Michael W. Smith, Nichole Nordeman, Hillsong United and Sonic Flood.
Famed hymn writer Fanny Crosby was a frequent visitor in the 19th century. Tenor Enrico Caruso, singers Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé, and Ray Charles, band leader John Philip Sousa, and organist Virgil Fox, who gave his last solo concert in the building in 1980, are among the legendary musicians who have performed there.
Annually, since 1980, a memorial service for fallen New Jersey Law Enforcement Officials has been held in the Great Auditorium. Every law enforcer killed in the line of duty in the history of New Jersey is honored, with the most recently fallen individuals especially recognized. The service includes a full Honor Guard, bagpipe procession, and singing by state high school choirs ( Princeton High School and the West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South choirs have performed in the past). Police, soldiers, National Guardsmen, executive-level officials, and typically the governor attend.
Neptune Township website
Ocean Grove Historical Society
Source: Wikipedia.com