New Jersey Nightly News; 106; A Closer Look: Cape May

Yeah. It is of course the very same Atlantic Ocean. Although the natives here at Cape May are very fond of saying that it may be warmer because they may have to way south of the Mason-Dixon Line and the beach seems to be pretty much the same as the rest of the Jersey Shore. That is it suffers from problems of erosion and pollution but it gave me a future really is in its past. It is not here at the beach it is there downtown. In the greatest concentration of Victorian wooden growlings in the United States. Over 600 Victorian structures survived so many that Cape May has been designated a national landmark. Their formality suggests an approach a temptation to stand stock still dead center in front and try to stare them down. Cape May was famous around the world in the early 1900s the playground of the presidents by the 1850s and most of it burned down in 1878 but they

rebuilt after the fire in the Victorian style. And they've been building and adding ever sense. People are coming into the town as businessmen recognise that there is certainly money to be made in the historic appeal of the city. Tom Carroll is now the chairman of the Cape May planning board. He discovered gave me is a Coast Guard officer and is the owner of one of the town's loveliest homes and as a city official he wants to keep the Victorian heritage intact as planners in the city were trying to encourage them to use historic structures to incorporate their business. Running to replace and rebuild like we could see the town slowly disappear through that type of procedure. One structure the community has saved is Cape May showcase the M1 Physick house in the state. It is now being restored as a community effort and as of a Korean museum it's also the home of the mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts. The physical state is in the so-called stick style of Philadelphia architect Frank furnace and features elaborate chimney

warmers inside. The interior to getting a facelift to make it appear as it did in 1978 and 79. The work is going on one or two rooms at a time and even a casual tour will reverse the impressions some of us have had. The Victorian houses are merely musty reminders of a darkly elegant era when time seemed to stand still. Bruce Minix 55 the director of television programs in Manhattan Cape May visitors and the sixth grader now a permanent resident an innkeeper a one term mayor 72 76 and proud that the national historic landmark designation came in April of his last year in office. I think a tremendous change in the attitude of the people particularly the people who had maybe not opposed the idea of preserving the town but rather.

Because of oversight in the federal government says you are special ed of the United States. And this time referring to people looking over the fence and saying that's nice. Well who could resist. Having somebody else. Like what you have or where you are or where you live. Where you like and I think it. Solidified the opinion of the resident. That this is indeed a good thing. And a profitable. I remember something that the National Trust for Historic Preservation said. And I love it. You cannot know where you are if you do not know where you have been. And that. Sums it up. You cannot know where you are. If you do not know where you have been its future is in its past. Cape May seems to be a city of slogans a home promptly and I would add one more about this. Sunset Beach and evening in June and one of the few places on the East Coast of the United

States where you can watch the sun set over the water that's a jetty on the right of the picture. Nothing on the left is the s s Atlantis or what's left of it. An experimental ship one of 12 built during World War one but proven impractical after several transatlantic trips because of weight. The SS Atlantis was made of concrete. And after nobody else wanted it. Some enterprising soul got it and towed it here and sank it. Just off this beach hoping to use it as a wharf for a Delaware Bay ferry course. It was a crazy idea and a totally improbable one today when the craziness of such a thing would be denied by the bureaucrats and hooted down by the environmentalists. But 50 years ago it wasn't so crazy. It was just an affirmation of an earlier America and the risks we were willing to take because as T.S. Eliot put it only those who will risk going too far. Can possibly find out how far one can go.