- [Steve] "Here's the Story."

A year ago we were asked to film in Asbury Park at the old Casino Arcade.

Most people know this structure as a once ornate pass-through between the towns of Asbury Park and Ocean Grove.

- Little windows.

- [Steve] The founder and curator of the Wooden Walls Project Asbury Park art impresario, Jenn Hampton, asked us to come and film some of her artists who were using the interior space to create some of the art that the town has become so well known for.

[playful piano music] Since 2015, the Wooden Walls mural project has been bringing art to Asbury Park to enrich the sociocultural and socioeconomic landscape in a thoughtful way.

- I think what made me stay in Asbury.

and I always say the Wooden Walls is my love letter is because I fell in love with that window and this color and this tone and this hue.

But all of that stuff subconsciously plays into your, I love Asbury Park, I'm not sure why.

[playful piano music] I look at these pictures of Asbury, it was so beautiful.

There were colors of aqua and red and orange and at some point color became low brow and gray became highbrow.

And with that development and those development styles you don't see color anymore.

So, I think that- - That's so true.

- I think innately I'm trying to put color back on the boardwalk all the time.

Like, if you took the art away there'd be no fun.

- But that's why it's important.

It makes the town more of a destination.

Who wants to go and see a bunch of boarded up buildings?

What followed for us was an interesting conversation with a group of artists that had come to Asbury Park to absorb the atmosphere and reflect the magical qualities of both their own art and the undeniable mystical qualities of this city by the sea.

But what we also found incredibly engaging and interesting was the space that they were working in.

This is not your typical artist residency space.

This is a place that once, and for many years, represented amusement, distraction, adventure, a world away from the lives we all live.

And we were not alone in thinking that.

While we we were filming the artists we met and spoke with all talked about how this town, but specifically this space drew them in and inspired their work.

But before we get into all of that, [videotape squeals] a little bit of history.

- So, this is the casino.

We always called it the casino.

I think the real name was the Casino Arena.

Now, when I was a kid, I think, there used to be a big pavilion out there kind of matching Convention Hall up there.

But I think there was a fire, my sisters used to tell me, in '66 there was a big fire.

They used to have like ice skating in there in the '60s.

And so that part of it, there used to be a big building out there, that part of it was always closed down from when I was a kid.

But over here was an arcade and they had rides, and a fun house and a carousel.

This was the end of the boardwalk.

This was the terminus of Asbury Park.

And the next town down was Ocean Grove which was the polar opposite of Asbury Park.

Ocean Grove, we called it Ocean Grave, it was very...

It was a Methodist camp meeting town and just boom, you were in another world.

It was very cool.

It's changing now, I think.

But that's the way it was.

- Well, originally it was nothing but scrub land.

And then in 1869 after the Civil War the Methodist Church came down here and started a camp meeting revival here, a tent.

So, people would come down, pitch their tents.

There'd be sermons on the beach, all that.

And Bradley was attracted to that, James A. Bradley, the founder of Asbury Park.

And he wanted to sort of be a part of it, so, he bought 500 acres to the north which was undeveloped, totally undeveloped, and that is what became Asbury Park.

And his intention was Asbury Park to be an extension, both religiously, morally, socially of Ocean Grove.

At least that was the plan.

[chuckles] - [Steve] I wonder what he would think of it today?

- Oh, he would not be happy.

- It was, as I say, a city built to amuse that was also supposed to be taken seriously.

The building we're in now is, for me emblematic of Asbury Park, which is to say of a city that's always been a sort of living contradiction.

On the one hand, it's serious and it was a Methodist city and on the other hand it was for amusement.

That's where the money came from.

- So, in the early part of the 20th century, around 1927, it was decided that Asbury Park needed to compete with places like Atlantic City and New York City to bring conventions here and to bring, you know, large events here.

So, they wanted to build new structures that would do this.

And interestingly enough, in 1927 the old arcade down there where Convention Hall is, caught on fire and burned down.

And then, later that same year, surprise surprise, the casino wooden building caught on fire and burned down.

So, now they had two perfectly clear lots to build their new structures.

And so in 1928, '29, '30, that's when this was put up.

It's a Beaux-Arts style.

It's concrete and limestone, I believe.

This one had a entertainment center, just like Convention Hall, a stage, a large seating area that went around.

And then it had a large amusements area and a carousel that was added in 1932, I think.

And that's what you see here today.

[soft piano music] - I'm particularly interested in the carousel building because both Stephen Crane and Bruce Springsteen, inhabitants of Asbury Park, not born here, but lived here a bunch of their time, used all of this honky-tonk stuff as central imagery.

And the idea was, Crane especially was good on this one where he said, you know, what you did was you went around and around in a circle hoping to get a brass ring that would get you a free ride, or whatever the prize was.

Bruce talks about being caught on the Tilt-a-Whirl and mentions the carousel in "Growin' Up" I think.

But it's the same image, which is kinda, "Are we having fun yet?"

You know, we're going around and round, the things are going up and down.

Is this what we want?

Is this the American dream here?

So, for me, the building's important that way.

- There is endless potential in here and history that kinda collide.

And I think from the way artists' brains work, they think, "Oh, there's so much you can do with this."

It's just interesting seeing the different people that walk through because everybody has the same.

No matter what, I mean, I think you had it, I think everybody that walks in here that's a creative has the same experience.

Like, no one's seeing like the bird feathers or you know, all the other things that are in abandoned buildings.

You just see the potential of like, look at how beautiful the light is and like, look at you could paint on this wall and it's giant, or look at this like, I know this sounds like super nerdy, but there are paint chips here that are the most beautiful colors that, you know, that this was like, it was meant to evoke feelings because it's coral, it's bright coral, it's bright red, it's aqua, it's all these beautiful colors that we don't see out in our world anymore because everybody uses gray, 'cause it's more cost efficient to use gray.

And people are forgetting what color does to us as on an emotional level.

We went from this town of like, ultimate beautiful architecture in the '20s, '30s, '40s, to the colors of the '50s and '60s, to the devastation of the flight in the '80s or '90s, and it was graffiti everywhere, which is still beautiful.

I feel like part of the Wooden Walls, beyond being my love letter to this town that inspires me, it's like, I wanna add color.

That's what people remember.

People aren't gonna walk away from this experience and say, "Oh, I'm so glad I saw that glass condo building."

You know what I mean?

- Where Asbury is now in 2023 is it's, this side of Asbury, the ocean side of of Asbury, is about selling real estate.

And that's all it's about.

It's about condominiums, townhouses, and it seems to me almost all the decisions that are made from the boardwalk and this side of town is about how do we sell Asbury Park?

And the main way they've sold it is through its history, selling its history.

Whether it's promoting Bruce Springsteen, whether it's talking about the carousel building, the fun houses, it's a romantic vision that is being used to make a profit.

I don't think that's very healthy for Asbury Park for a bunch of reasons.

And one of them is that I think you displace people who live here for people who can afford to live here.

And the people who can afford to buy the condos and stuff tend to be of one class and one race, so that the mix that is part of Asbury Park's history tends to disappear.

It becomes, it was always a party town, but it becomes a kind of one-dimensional party town, I think, in some ways.

So, in terms of this building, I think it's the same with all the buildings around here, is how do you honor the past without selling it to profit on the future?

[soft piano music] [soft piano music continues] - So, basically everything happens for a reason, and this summer they were doing construction on the Sunset Pavilion, which is usually the site of a lot of our public art pieces.

We were unable to work on the Sunset Pavilion, any of the artists I had scheduled, because of some construction issues.

And because of that, these were the only spaces that had walls big enough to house the height of the the walls that will eventually go on Sunset Pavilion.

So, local artists, Pork Chop and Brad would build walls for the artists and they would come in here and they would paint on the wall that will eventually get installed on Sunset Pavilion.

So, what had happened was an unplanned, artist's residence space for the artists that had been scheduled to come into town, that couldn't work.

- I am Michaela, I'm an Italian woman artist.

I grew up in Italy, always dreaming of New York.

- My name is Keir Tomen and I'm a muralist from South Africa, based in New York.

This is my best friend and frequent collaborator Elena.

- My name's Elena Lawrence and I'm also an artist, painting and murals, and I'm still based in South Africa.

[soft guitar music] - Coming back here every year its so nostalgic for me too.

It's like, where I live it's just completely different.

And then coming back here, I feel like a kid again.

- We made an intentional choice not to design the wall before arriving here.

Our work is very much site-specific and tries to incorporate the environment and the architecture and like, a lot of it is stemming from a really deep sense of emotion.

And from there we'll figure out a message that can kind of overlap with what we're going through and what resonates with the space itself.

- This place is fantastic.

I really like the energy of Asbury Park and it felt like, so close to New York and so different, and by the sea.

- I wanna say I'm an artist, but I feel like I'm also a dreamer, you know, I'm always, my head's always in some other place.

- Has it always been?

- Oh yes.

My mom could probably tell you tons of stuff, [chuckles] but I've always been into fantasy and reading stories about other worlds and things like that.

The unknown.

- [Steve] How important is that dreamer quality to the work you're doing?

- Very important.

It's basically what inspires all my art.

Everything I do is based off of fantasy or stories or history, whether it's real or not.

It's just kind of, I don't know, it's fun to get lost in a different universe sometimes.

[soft piano music] I definitely made a point to keep some part, some aspect of the history or just the architecture.

Anything that people forget, you know, or don't notice, I wanna bring to their attention, you know, and remind people why they love this place.

It stands out, it's different, it's unique, it's awesome.

When I first walked in here, I was blown away because I just never realized it even existed.

You walk through the walkway back there and then you see the carousel house and then we walked in here and I was like, "Oh my God."

Because I had never been in here before, you know.

I know people have in the past when it was open, but oh, yeah, the first thing I had to do was explore.

[chuckles] Look at every nook and cranny.

And even with all the storage and the old artifacts falling off, the building's still just, it has good energy.

You can tell it was a fun house.

It still has that light energy in here.

- [Steve] Do you find it easy to work in here?

- Oh yeah, I love working in here.

The light is great.

The space is great.

It's just, I don't know what it is.

It's just very easy to work in here.

Even the background noise of the people and the wind, it's just calming.

Yeah.

- I felt a lot of oof, lightness, inspired, potential.

All sorts of positive reaction as soon as I walked inside here.

And I felt that something was going to happen without knowing exactly what.

But I felt I belong here.

A part of me belong here, so, I want to take advantage of this.

- [Steve] Was it easy to create in this space or easier?

- Easier than what I was afraid of.

Yeah, actually, yes.

- [Steve] Does the space and its history and its decay add anything to your work?

- I think so.

Like every space, at least for me, every space it's, I cannot detach myself from the space that I am working or just being, as I cannot detach myself from the people's energy that I'm surround of.

So, definitely, yes.

- [Steve] If this was your space, what would you imagine you would create in this space?

- Oh, man, everything.

- Oh, yeah, everything.

- Like, everything.

This would be the most amazing studio space ever.

- Yeah, yeah, I think it's really good for people to be in places where there's so much space above them and like kind of you can see a lot more possible than when you're confined into smaller spaces.

I think that just the architecture of it is maybe one of the main reasons.

It's things aren't made to be beautiful, they're made for efficiency.

And if beauty lies in that it's not out of like, the soul of the architect, it's out of like, what we can like, streamline.

And I think having things that resemble a time in which form and function overlaps can lead to a more egalitarian and progressive society.

And I think it could just lead to a lot more positive thoughts and ideas or [indistinct].

And spaces like this can definitely contribute.

Nothing like this exists.

Like, if this was like a fully operational residency, I think people all over the world would be interested in applying.

[soft guitar music] - Historical preservation means a lotta different things to a lotta people.

I think that my idea is probably an idealized version of what someone else does.

I think if this were my building I would leave the walls exactly the way they were and make them safe.

I would coat them so they stayed this way.

You know, the lighting here is perfect.

Why is it perfect?

I would go through it.

Like, how do you keep the elements that give it this feeling?

You know, when you go into churches and you feel like you should be quiet.

- Yes.

- That's what it feels like in here to me.

At one point this summer, because a lot of artists needed places to work there was like, eight of us here and everybody was in their corner doing their thing and there was this reverent silence of, you know, that happens when people are really concentrating and happy, and content, and it was a really wonderful thing.

'Cause you know, the idea of these artists coming together to have a shared space to put their energies to ultimately will give back to the world.

So, you close up for them to work and then you open up to celebrate.

You know?

And then they take that inspiration and it hopefully will travel on the boardwalk and then into the rest of the city, which is always the challenge.

- [Steve] And the hearts and minds and memories of people.

- Yeah, because Asbury Park, everybody lives in the past here, everybody.

Like, everything they talk about is like, "Oh, we have this great musical history."

We have this great, you know, this happened, and this happened.

And you're just like, "Wow!

Okay."

Which is great.

But that means we're in the least productive time in Asbury Park.

'Cause no one's walking away right now and being like, "Oh, man, that was the greatest."

- [Steve] Except for me.

- Come here in an abandoned building.

[chuckles] - I think these are ruins.

You know, I think this is a, if you were in Rome, you would recognize these right away.

You know, this is from an earlier civilization.

And it's about an earlier Asbury Park.

You know, lots of cities preserve their ruins.

It's just Asbury Park is so kind of strange that its ruins are about having fun mostly, so, it's eerie to see them when no one's having fun in them anymore.

- The space has magic.

I mean, I think a lot of the spaces in Asbury have magic.

I think there's like, I don't mean magic in the witchy way, I just mean that like, there is an elevated energy in a lot of these buildings based on probably all the energies of happiness that people put into it.

So, after years and years, hundreds of years of people laughing and grabbing a gold ring and being totally exhilarated by being on a carousel, like, how can we have the arts engage people in that way?

I don't know how you sell that to somebody who has a bottom line because that means that you have to say experience is more important than money.

[Jenn laughs] - Well, it's a fantasy Asbury Park.

You know, it's a concocted idea and was from the beginning.

Asbury as Stephen Crane said, "Makes nothing."

It never made anything.

It was a service industry before they'd coined the term.

So, the architecture, the buildings, like the one we're in right now are part of that fantasy.

They're part of this invented thing to attract people and have them come spend their money here.

- [Steve] Places like Asbury Park seem to always have a push and pull between art and commerce, desire and development.

Each believing they know what is best.

Do you think they can ever live together happily ever after?

- No.

No, I think they're always in conflict.

That's sort of the nature of the beast.

It doesn't mean they can't reach a compromise or figure out a peace treaty for a while, but you know, until profit is curbed in some way the people who wanna profit are gonna push and push and push and the artists are gonna have to push back.

And artist is a, frankly, I'm less interested in the artists than I am in the folks on the west side of Asbury and the people who are just trying to live here, than the people who are trying to make art.

And that's a conflict that's always been part of Asbury's history and that the west side has always lost.

That is to say, there was a, you know, what I'm reminded of is that one of the proposals for Asbury, as it kept trying to reimagine itself, ended up with a town hall meeting where a African-American gentleman stood up and said, "Boardwalk, boardwalk, boardwalk."

'Cause it's all anybody ever talks about.

And it isn't all of Asbury.

So, you know, I think the conflict, as you see it here in this building, is between art and commerce.

But the larger conflict is between commerce and people trying to live a decent life.

- There are so many arts organizations that have no home.

You know how sad that is to me?

There's people that are in a million-dollar condo or a $6-million condo 12 times out of the year, but a theater company that has 26 members that doesn't have a place to perform, it's gross, it's gross.

That's that not, it's not, and I fault our city, I fault the developers.

You wanna call yourself an artistic community, you better #*#*#*#* put your money where your mouth is.

Whether that's an art tax or requirements on the benefit of developers.

Like, you gotta do something.

- [Steve] And so the beat goes on.

The push and pull.

The desire to preserve the past and present beauty, or the development to make future profit.

And are they mutually exclusive?

In cases like this, a handful of cliches usually fill in the blanks.

Time will tell.

History will record.

Nothing lasts forever.

At least we'll always have the memories.

It is important to remember though that the original seed was supply and demand.

Just like today, those that created these things in the past were as realistic and materialistic as is necessary to create something that distracts and amuses the masses.

Always was, always will be.

It just so happens that they did it so well then that today it's seen more as an art form than a commercial one.

It's beautiful to us now because of how beautiful it was expected to be back then.

Okay, they don't build them like the used to, that's true.

Perhaps because people today will flutter to the glow of either a brilliant, beautiful flame or even a cold fluorescent bulb.

So, if the artists of today want to use and claim the space, ultimately it might not lie with how beautiful and provocative the things are that they create.

And it might not lie with the developers either, the James Bradleys of today.

Instead, just like always, it will be up to the desires of the moths, the sideshow seekers.

It will be what the masses say they want or what they'll settle for.

- This is a quote from Stephen Crane about Asbury Park.

"The electric lights on the beach made a broad band of tremoring light, extending parallel to the sea and upon the wide walk there slowly paraded a great crowd, intermingling, intertwining, sometimes colliding.

Despite all the censors attempts to stop it, the crowd pushes the lovers closer and closer until they make contact.

It's then that the paper lanterns out on Wesley Lake, Crane again, flashing, pleading, and careening, sang to them.

Sang a chorus of red and violet and green and gold.

A song of mystic bands of the future.

Call that chorus what you will, the American dream, or just an enormous hunger.

It was the great possibility that Crane felt rising out of Asbury Park.

If it sounds like something Springsteen would write one day, both men were after all looking at the same city and beneath Asbury's honky-tonk promise of getting away, of having fun, Crane saw a real dream of freedom.

Once the crowd pushes them together and they touch, Crane's lovers realize they have to get out from under.

They jump into a horse and buggy and start driving.

At the climax of the story when Stimson sees he's not gonna be able to catch them."

Stimson was the owner of the carousel here.

"The owner is struck by the power of their young blood.

The power to fly strongly into the future and feel and hope again.

But Crane's story doesn't end there.

As a student of Jacob Rice, Crane knew there was no escaping the system.

The elementary sanity would try to control you wherever you went.

So at the end of the story, as the lovers raced down the highway, the dusty beach road vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of intolerable length, as if that flashing, fleeting, careening song was somehow always in the future, as if being born to run was both a blessing and a curse, as if Asbury Park were forever."

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] ♪ But we are exactly what you see ♪ ♪ Bruised and scraped are we ♪ ♪ But still we find our way ♪