From 55th Street to Second Street and back again, I spent forty years living in Ocean City, New Jersey. These are the homes, people, and memories that shaped my life on the island, from 1984 until October 2024.
Copy
As a kid, I wanted to become a magician and perform on a real stage at least once. After summers working in an Ocean City Boardwalk magic shop, kids’ shows, restaurant magic, and some very different tricks in bars, I finally got that stage at First Night.
I moved to Ocean City when I was twelve and left forty years later. Somewhere between 1984 and 2024 were house parties, friends, family, the Boardwalk, the Chatterbox, disappearing old houses and an island that slowly became a different kind of hometown.
It was almost Thanksgiving, and Brian was playing right guard for the Ocean City Hawks pee-wee football team. He was in sixth grade, about 12 years old, when we noticed he had developed a limp and was complaining about pain. At first, my wife and I figured it was probably football. Kids get banged up,…
I remember when pieces of the Sindia shipwreck were still visible from the Ocean City beach. More than a century after the ship ran aground, its remains are now buried beneath the sand—but the stories, legends and memories surrounding it remain.
Ocean City isn’t only a summer town. One snowy winter, we grabbed the kids’ bodyboards and headed for the boardwalk—not to ride waves, but to turn a snow-covered boardwalk ramp into our neighborhood sledding hill.
I was standing in the alley behind Voltaco’s when I watched a stranger drive away in Joe’s truck, staring directly at me. Seconds later, Joe came running out and told me a man had put a shotgun in his face. One ordinary closing night in Ocean City had suddenly become a story I’d never forget.