All Things LBI

LBI - Those three letters! Whether in an oval on a bumper, or spoken in a conversation, or spotted on a T-shirt, they’re loaded with meaning, longing, and emotion. They represent more than just a physical place. More than an identity, they’re attached to your soul. It’s a not-so-secret code, a password that unlocks Island treasures. Wherever you are in the world, if you know what those letters mean, they will transport you and connect you.
This breezy, evocative book about LBI past and present is for locals and visitors alike. Filled with nostalgia, favorite things, moments, places, and lore, it captures the essence of the real Long Beach Island.

SHELLS•LIFEGUARDS
THE FORTUNA• DRIFTWOOD•STORMS
FISHING•THE SHACK ON THE CAUSEWAY•CRABBING•
BEACH BADGES•OLD BARNEY
OFF-SEASON•4th OF JULY
CLAMMING•SHARK!•GRAND HOTELS
ICE CREAM•SUNSETS
TUCKER’S ISLAND•HOLGATE
VIKING VILLAGE •THE ACME HOTEL•SURFING•SAILING
THE CAUSEWAY•BOATS
FIREWORKS and more...

“All” is an exaggeration.

There can never be a complete “all things Long Beach Island” because it’s an idea that’s always being conceived in new ways, always being added to, always freshly discovered. (And re-discovered.) “All” is impossible. There is no limit. Infinite Things LBI would have been a more accurate title. Yet while this book may not include everything LBI, all things here truly are LBI.

So many different things to so many people, Long Beach Island is both a collective experience and a very personal one. It’s more than just a physical place. It’s a spiritual home and it’s unique to each of us.

The LBI you perceive is different from the LBI in anyone else’s mind. It’s imaginative, too: The Island is often what people want it to be regardless of the reality. Is it the “Hamptons, south,” as some would have you believe, an exclusive enclave of the 1%? Or is it the laid-back summer hang-out for generations of families who return to the same cedar-shake Cape Cod with that funky outside shower and sand in the sheets? Is it a quaint fishing community? Is it the anti-boardwalk resort? Is it a retirement community, or a youthful, music-filled, nightclub experience? Or is it all the above, but still about the simple things — fishing, sailing, surfing, lying on the beach? There are groupings — summer/off-season, tourists/residents, young, old, families; there are neighborhoods; there is the north end and the south end; bayside and oceanside.

We all possess LBI, we lay claim to it. And LBI claims us.

You summered here, you grew up here, you moved away — but you keep coming back. In body or in spirit you always return. It’s “things,” yes, but LBI is saturated with emotions and feelings. (It’s memories of a girl or a boy you met that one summer. It’s your salty, sun-drenched childhood.) It’s filled with dreams and visions and they won’t ever let go.

In the 1960s and ’70s, the Chamber of Commerce ran an unabashedly sexist beauty pageant called “Miss Magic Long Beach Island” (there was a spoof of this by The Beachcomber in the late ’70s, called “Mr. Magic LBI”), but the chamber was on to something — magic.

Magic — LBI has that quality.

The magic, holistic LBI is impossible to fully capture, but in this book we’ve tried to find common touchstones for our fragile but resilient Jersey Shore sandbar. Well, in our case, perhaps not touchstones ? more like beautiful pieces of sea glass or the perfect spiral shell.

Here are shared favorite places, moments, fun facts, and Island legends. We’ve thrown in some history. You’ll find those emotions and feelings here too. And other things that are simply timeless, like the amazing LBI sunsets and sunrises (and moonrises, and clouds, and… ).

Partly a list of favorites, part LBI Urban Dictionary, part remember-this nostalgia and history, part dreamlike thoughts and memories, we hope you find your LBI here. Because the best LBI is the one that is inclusive, not exclusive.

We’ve had to leave some things out and overlooked others. What would you add? What do you love about LBI? At the end of this book, we’ve included blank pages for your own favorites. Because we know! we know! this list is incomplete. It’s unfinished. And, most likely, yours will be too.

— From the Preface