Ocean Grove

Until the 1970s, this Victorian shore town's blue law was so strict that all vehicles were banned from the streets on Sundays. The residents parked their cars outside the town limits for the day. According to local legend, a police car and an ambulance collided head-on one Sunday about 30 years ago. They were the only vehicles on Ocean Grove's streets that day. "Now that made national news," Buster Stoll said yesterday. Stoll, a teacher who was born and raised in Ocean Grove, makes his living in the summer as the Monmouth County town's beach manager.

Since 1894, Ocean Grove, N. J.,'s football-field-size Great Auditorium has welcomed the likes of President Ulysses S. Grant, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Enrico Caruso, Helen Keller, Jascha Heifitz, and Lowell Thomas. In the shadow of the Great Auditorium tomorrow, you will find almost 400 dealers of antiques and collectibles dealers setting out their wares for the 25th annual Giant Spring Flea Market. On the Saturday after Memorial Day, and the Saturday after Labor Day, the seaside community's Area Chamber of Commerce sponsors the rain or shine antiques and collectibles event along Ocean Pathway, a large grassy area running from the Great Auditorium to the ocean.

For all their resemblance to majestic architectural edifices, pipe organs don't always reach their 100th birthdays with poise or pipes intact. The Great Auditorium Organ here - an icon of post-Victorian culture in a Methodist-dominated village where time is held at bay - nearly didn't have a centennial worth celebrating this summer. But you wouldn't guess that from the way 300 to 400 people defer beachgoing until after July's noon Saturday recitals. The July 31 centennial concert isn't yet another organ workout, but a serious classical program featuring Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Orchestra.

Situated cheek-to-jowl with Asbury Park on the north Jersey shore, Ocean Grove is a little piece of 1950 Iowa in the middle of Bruce Springsteen country. The only Boss is the Lord and the Lord don't like neon. Now in its 117th summer season, this is a well-scrubbed, United Methodist church of a town with 7,000 permanent residents, no bars, no liquor stores, no gas stations, and no convenience stores. No access to the beach before 12:30 p.m. on Sundays. The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association bookstore sells a plastic baby bootie bank inscribed: "Two Little Feet To Walk In His Ways," a collapsible cup with a picture of Jesus and the legend: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink," a child's ruler that reads "Lord, make me to know . . . the measure of my days," a penlight that reads, "The Lord is my light," and a bluebird water whistle that reads, "Sing unto the Lord.

The irreverent old nickname for this sleepy Victorian-era camp-meeting site - Ocean Grave - was anything but true Saturday. Lines of people snaked around the Great Auditorium for Destination: Opera, a weekend festival that could change the complexion of this area of the Jersey Shore. Inside the vast, buzzing auditorium, a TV light-and-camera crew that spends cold-weather months at the Metropolitan Opera was preparing to shoot a high-def video of the Verdi Requiem performed by the resurrected New Jersey State Opera, an organization that's been battling uphill for so long that one board member looked at the near-full main floor and inquired, "These are paid admissions?"

Yes, that's hot sand, not cool marble, underfoot. And that scent rising from the boardwalk is creosote, not incense. The architecture is Victorian gingerbread, not Gothic stone, and those luminous pinks and reds and purples are petunias, not stained glass. But to thousands of "Grovers" who call it home, and to the thousands more who descend here each summer, this little seaside community is as close to being a church as a town can be. "It sort of envelops you," said Lyle Ann Walker, 48, who moved here three years ago from Harrisburg, Pa., after 35 years of summer visits.

A surfer emerges - and casts a shadow. He may not be a groundhog, but it was still news. The locals in Ocean Grove, where this happy event was recorded yesterday, were beaming because the sun had finally broken through. Today, though, expect more clouds, with rain.

While in Asbury Park, visit Ocean Grove, the town just south of Asbury. Founded in 1869 as a Methodist retreat, its legendary blue laws continued into the 20th century. Until just 20 years ago, it was illegal to drive a car, cut grass, hang laundry or play sports in Ocean Grove on Sunday. With the relaxation of these laws, Ocean Grove has blossomed into a prim, pleasant Victorian resort community, with a colorful Main Street reminiscent of Cape May's Washington Mall. Alcohol is still banned, and Sundays are still blessedly peaceful.

Myrtle C. Applegate Davis, 85, a former Haddonfield resident and a teacher of business education for 35 years, died Thursday at the Wiley Home in Marlton. Mrs. Davis was born in Ocean Grove. She received her bachelor's degree in 1924 and her master's degree in 1933, both in business education, from Temple University in Philadelphia. She taught business education to high school students in public schools in Mount Holly and Metuchen for six years, and in the Philadelphia school system for 29 years.

Auction lovers headed to Maine for an August vacation (a popular destination for many Philadelphians) may want to look in on Northeast Auctions' series of sales in nearby New Hampshire, particularly the company's Weekend Americana sale on Aug. 5 and 6 at the Armory at the Center of New Hampshire. Although the sale site, just outside Manchester, N.H., is several hundred miles to the northeast of here, the sale, particularly the Aug. 6 session, will feature a large number of items with Pennsylvania connections.

CAPE MAY - The City Council again rejected plans Tuesday to ban smoking on public beaches, but members agreed to appoint a committee to review the proposal, which could be reconsidered for the 2013 summer season. The council had rejected a broader measure last November. It would have banned smoking on all public beaches, in city parks, and on the oceanfront Promenade. But that proposal came under strong attack from the business community amid concerns it would hurt tourism and infringe on beachgoers' personal liberties.

CAPE MAY - The City Council has rejected - for now, at least - a proposed ban on smoking on all of its beaches, and in public parks and its oceanfront walkway. The council deadlocked, 2-2, Monday night. The fifth member was absent. Opponents of the ban told the council they worried about infringing on people's personal liberties and about driving business away from the tourist spot. Alan Kantz of Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy (GASP) said he hoped the council would reconsider the measure soon.

HARVEY CEDARS, N.J. - Some people who once lived on gently sloping beaches now live on the edges of cliffs. The storm surge from Hurricane Irene left 15- to 18-foot drop-offs on some New Jersey beaches, particularly on Long Beach Island. But state environmental officials said the erosion was not so bad that the beaches couldn't be used by Labor Day weekend. The state Department of Environmental Protection said that the state's 127-mile coastline came through the hurricane in good shape and that past storms had inflicted far worse damage.

The irreverent old nickname for this sleepy Victorian-era camp-meeting site - Ocean Grave - was anything but true Saturday. Lines of people snaked around the Great Auditorium for Destination: Opera, a weekend festival that could change the complexion of this area of the Jersey Shore. Inside the vast, buzzing auditorium, a TV light-and-camera crew that spends cold-weather months at the Metropolitan Opera was preparing to shoot a high-def video of the Verdi Requiem performed by the resurrected New Jersey State Opera, an organization that's been battling uphill for so long that one board member looked at the near-full main floor and inquired, "These are paid admissions?"

For all their resemblance to majestic architectural edifices, pipe organs don't always reach their 100th birthdays with poise or pipes intact. The Great Auditorium Organ here - an icon of post-Victorian culture in a Methodist-dominated village where time is held at bay - nearly didn't have a centennial worth celebrating this summer. But you wouldn't guess that from the way 300 to 400 people defer beachgoing until after July's noon Saturday recitals. The July 31 centennial concert isn't yet another organ workout, but a serious classical program featuring Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Orchestra.

Even after you arrive in this quaint seaside town, it is still more about the journey than the destination. The spiritual journey, that is. Despite development pressures elsewhere along the Jersey Shore, the premise on which this place was founded 135 summers ago - religious renewal and contemplation - is as pervasive today as it was then. A 6,000-seat wood-and-iron structure called the Great Auditorium, where fiery Sunday sermons are delivered and angelic choir recitals are held, still looms as the largest building in this Monmouth County town.

Since 1894, Ocean Grove, N. J.,'s football-field-size Great Auditorium has welcomed the likes of President Ulysses S. Grant, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Enrico Caruso, Helen Keller, Jascha Heifitz, and Lowell Thomas. In the shadow of the Great Auditorium tomorrow, you will find almost 400 dealers of antiques and collectibles dealers setting out their wares for the 25th annual Giant Spring Flea Market. On the Saturday after Memorial Day, and the Saturday after Labor Day, the seaside community's Area Chamber of Commerce sponsors the rain or shine antiques and collectibles event along Ocean Pathway, a large grassy area running from the Great Auditorium to the ocean.

Auction lovers headed to Maine for an August vacation (a popular destination for many Philadelphians) may want to look in on Northeast Auctions' series of sales in nearby New Hampshire, particularly the company's Weekend Americana sale on Aug. 5 and 6 at the Armory at the Center of New Hampshire. Although the sale site, just outside Manchester, N.H., is several hundred miles to the northeast of here, the sale, particularly the Aug. 6 session, will feature a large number of items with Pennsylvania connections.

It has been almost 20 years since Ocean Grove made news when its blue laws forbidding business, swimming and even automobile traffic on Sundays were ruled unconstitutional. Those laws reflected Ocean Grove's religious origins. Founded in 1869 by the Rev. William Osborn of Malaga, it began as a Methodist camp meeting, famed for its open-air auditorium and surrounding tents. Elements of those origins persist today. The auditorium, rebuilt in 1894, still is in operation; the tent tradition lingers in the form of the small single-story bungalows that surround it, and a dominant force in the community is the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association.

Yes, that's hot sand, not cool marble, underfoot. And that scent rising from the boardwalk is creosote, not incense. The architecture is Victorian gingerbread, not Gothic stone, and those luminous pinks and reds and purples are petunias, not stained glass. But to thousands of "Grovers" who call it home, and to the thousands more who descend here each summer, this little seaside community is as close to being a church as a town can be. "It sort of envelops you," said Lyle Ann Walker, 48, who moved here three years ago from Harrisburg, Pa., after 35 years of summer visits.