Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Episode 23 / 21 June 2017 / 68 min / full

A Nasty Pair Of Murders

"We are going to Ocean Grove, New Jersey this week; a beach town on the shore, right in the central part of the state, in Monmouth county and technically inside Neptune township." about 0:04:28

The case: Murder of Cheryl Alston (April 2, 1983); Murder of Carol Penneston (April 26, 1983). Read the case file.

The figures, as told in 2017

Population

3,134

Median age

51.8

Median household income

$58,000

Median home value

$451,200

Two-bedroom rent

about $1,210

Cost of living

153

Religious

57.4%

Property crime

▲ significantly higher

Violent crime

▲ even higher above average than property crime

History, in brief

• Founded in 1869 by Reverend W. B. Osborne, a Reverend Stokes and a group of Methodist ministers who held a camp by the seashore and established a permanent Christian camp meeting community called Ocean Grove. about 0:07:41
• About 20 tents were put up that first summer; the next year they were parcelling out plots, grading the land, selling lots and planning a town. about 0:07:58
• In the 1870s they began building wooden shelters and tabernacles, and visitors came from New York in large numbers. about 0:08:45
• In 1877 alone, 710,000 railroad tickets were sold for the Ocean Grove Asbury Park train station. about 0:08:58
• By the late 1890s they had outgrown their church facilities and built the Great Auditorium, completed in 1894 and still standing. about 0:09:47
• The Great Auditorium was designed to hold 10,000 people and was later reduced to about 6,000 with theatre-style seating. about 0:10:04
• After the First World War church attendance fell away, and the town became known as a time capsule of early 20th-century architecture; the average home is 75 years old. about 0:12:15
• Ocean Grove had its own municipal authority until 1981, when it was absorbed into Neptune Township. about 0:12:24
• Under its own authority it was illegal to have cars on the streets on Sundays, and the beaches were closed on Sundays. about 0:12:38
• The Sunday beach closure was a trick to make visitors stay for a week rather than a weekend. about 0:13:38
• From the 1960s to the 1980s the town declined with the rest of the Jersey shore and was nicknamed Ocean Grave. about 0:14:29
• In the 1990s people moving out of New York City pushed up property values and the town was restored, with hotels and cafés reopening. about 0:14:40

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