Boardwalk

Cruisin' Ocean City in classic carsMore than 2,000 cars from 15 states roll into Maryland's resort town today for the 9th annual Cruisin' Ocean City classic car show. The cars are on view at the Inlet and 100th Street parking lots through Sunday. The four-day event begins at 9:30 a.m. today with a parade on the boardwalk from 27th Street to the Inlet. The cars also cruise the boardwalk tomorrow and Saturday morning. Live entertainment includes the Funsters' rock 'n' roll show, the Jesse Garron tribute to Elvis, Michael and the Little Professors, celebrity impersonator Tim Beasley and Cruisin Gold Deejays.

OCEAN CITY -- For the merchants and politicians -- and in Maryland's favorite resort town, they're often the same -- the forecast this Memorial Day Weekend couldn't be much better. The weather's great, too.Beach business is booming along the 10-mile Atlantic strand, and everyone from City Hall wags to boardwalk arcade operators is practically delirious at the prospects for back-to-back-to-back record seasons, a hat trick of prosperity that has prompted the first serious effort to rehabilitate the historic downtown district.

OCEAN CITY -- It's not exactly the endless summer, but merchants in Maryland's favorite resort say business is booming -- and they expect to draw big crowds over the Christmas and New Year's holidays.The numbers this fall offer evidence that the traditional off-season respite of shuttered boardwalk shops and deserted streets might have become a thing of the past in the 10-mile-long island town with a permanent population of fewer than 8,000.Unseasonably warm weather gets some of the credit for bringing an average of 83,000 visitors each weekend last month.

ASBURY PARK, N.J. -- In the last dozen years this long-sagging New Jersey shore city has seen an eclectic bunch of would-be rescuers, with plans ranging from the mundane to the sublime.There was the Indian tribe that wanted to open a boardwalk casino. There were the followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who bought a beachfront hotel in a plan to create transcendental meditation center.And there was the developer who proposed a series of entertainment pavilions along the boardwalk, saying the family of Michael Jackson would operate one and Jacques Cousteau's organization another.

OCEAN CITY -- For all its curb-side attractions, the Boardwalk is also a center stage. And deep into the night, the stage is set for street performers -- the "colorful" denizens of Ocean City After Hours.You have seen him, then. The guy with the lizard puppet. His name is James (Jim) Starck, and the 50-year-old man has built a fleet of marionettes. The German native has chicken-wired, masking-taped and foam-wrapped 50 puppets -- from E.T. to Yoda to Godzilla and this summer's main attraction: a roving, nameless Raptor that just wants to be loved.

I stood on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights, N.J., and all about me lights flashed and glimmered and glowed and collectively held back the night. Red and blue bulbs defined the downward curve of the "scenic railway," as my mother called the roller coaster, and from off in the dark I could hear the artillery crump of waves as they hit the sand. I was 3 years old and could taste the salt in the air. I felt the moisture of my mother's hand holding mine as we watched the cars click by with my two brothers, on the ride, laughing, their hair flying.

OCEAN CITY -- You've walked on it. You've gobbled a handful of vinegar-soaked Thrasher's french fries on it. You've held hands and hummed the first line of the old Drifters' hit on it.Oh when the sun comes up and burns the tar up on the roof. . . .L But how well do you really know the boardwalk at Ocean City?Do you know what kind of wood you're walking on? Do you know how many trash cans there are -- and how often they are emptied? Have you seen this year's T-shirt styles? Do you remember the second line of the old Drifters' hit?

OCEAN CITY -- It's Labor Day weekend at Maryland's beach resort, but merchants and city officials are already looking ahead, getting ready to launch a $3.5 million boardwalk face lift they believe will link its future with its Victorian past.For all its tacky familiarity, its T-shirt stands, pizza and french fry joints, Whack-a-Mole game barkers, trinket shops and deafening video arcades, city leaders insist that the boardwalk is Ocean City.And with some modification, some gentrification -- yes, maybe ,, even some yuppification -- they are determined to keep it as the focal point into the next century.

IN THE DAYS before a vacation, I usually get the jitters. This year I went all the way and broke out in hives. I'm told this could be caused by some fruit I ate, but I think it was nerves. Had I packed enough washcloths?The June vacation is the really big one, the one with the baggage that isn't all beach chairs and towels. This installment is number 46 -- the 46th time my father has taken a house and had his children and grandchildren leave Baltimore for a summertime stay on the Delaware shore.

OCEAN CITY - The eyes are peeled, hungry. Behind waves of wrap-around shades, tiny silver-framed John Lennon sunglasses, Ray-Bans and Jackie Os, the eyes scope the shore for an object of desire. A woman, dripping saltwater and dressed in little else, steps out of the sea, then onto the boardwalk, walking a gantlet of eyes. A man, hairless and buffed to a beefy shimmer, struts by as if expecting applause, receiving but a silent flutter of eyelashes.To see and to be seen and to switch roles at will, isn't that why so many have come so far and so often?

Bethany Beach Boardwalk Arts Festival Where: : The boardwalk from Second Street to Parkwood Street, Bethany Beach, Del. When:: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday (Rain date: Sept. 13) What: : The Bethany Beach/Fenwick Island area's largest public event features more than 100 artists working in jewelry, art glass, pottery, watercolor and oil painting, basketry, woodworking and more, spanning the length of the boardwalk. Live entertainment in three street festival areas. A silent auction of works donated by participating artists will benefit local schools.

Atlantic City's attractions are being rediscovered like delicate seashells emerging from the surf because tides are changing in the seaside resort. Thirty-one years after Atlantic City was reborn as the East Coast's answer to Las Vegas, visitors no longer have to head for the Jersey shore town to gamble. They can do it closer to home, now that Pennsylvania and other nearby states also have legalized casino gambling. Operators of family-style attractions say they sense a growing spirit of cooperation from the big guys lining the Boardwalk's Casino Row and at the Marina.

The robotic pirate mannequin mocks museum visitors from behind thick glass, which is good because he looks like a dummy you wouldn't want to mess with. "Aye there, you scurvy dog! What ye be lookin' at? Ain't ye never seen a pirate before?" says the voice-activated buccaneer featured in the Pirates Plunder, a new museum in Ocean City that's a couple of blocks from the seaside. Filled with ocean-floor artifacts, pirate history exhibits and a theater for pirate movies, Pirates Plunder is designed to be a diversion from the town's tourist magnets, a place to go when you've had your fill of the rides, the miniature golf and the famed boardwalk.

Wooden roller coasters, boardwalk arcades and doo-wop hotels make a stay at the Wildwoods in New Jersey a trip not just three hours away, but one that feels many years back in time. The Wildwoods is three contiguous beaches on the Jersey Shore: the quieter, family-oriented beaches of North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest and the city of Wildwood, with its famed two-mile boardwalk and amusement parks. While each area offers distinct activities and amenities, all three have a retro look and feel.

Where:: 4 1/2 hours southeast of Baltimore When:: Through Jan. 1 What:: More than 250 nautical- and holiday-themed light displays, including Christmas crabs, jumping dolphins, surfing Santas and a three-story Christmas tree, will shine over the boardwalk during this annual event. Visitors can drive along the boardwalk and view the sea of lights, which stretches from Second Street to 33rd Street. Don't miss the "12 Days of Christmas" section. A free CD of holiday music is provided to each car, offering the perfect accompaniment to your drive.

OCEAN CITY - The dusty harness track in Berlin, with its minor-league charm and horse-and-buggy night races, is no threat to the tourism juggernaut on the beach five miles away - and that's just how Ocean City business and political leaders want to keep it. But if Marylanders vote in November to legalize slot machine gambling, Ocean Downs is the likely site for a 2,500-machine casino, a prospect that conjures nightmares in the minds of town officials, who...

OCEAN CITY - Location, location, location. Location: 25th Street and the boardwalk. In the late 1960s, Taylor's parents, Barbara and Sidney Taylor, sat on a wooden bench and watched their seven children play in front of what is now the Crystal Beach Hotel. By the 1980s, they watched their grandchildren play there. At sundown throughout those years, Taylor's father might sit on the family bench with his Bud Light, while his mother might have her martini. "Yes, illegal drinking in public," Taylor says, chuckling.

Buy a tub of Thrasher's french fries, settle into a comfortable bench on Ocean City's boardwalk and watch. On a recent day, empty-nesters walked their designer golden-doodle; a family pedaled a canopied quadricycle; a teenage boy sweated through his T-shirt during a game of Dance Dance Revolution; bikers in mean shades and leather chaps shared a jumbo bucket of Thrasher's; and grandma and grandpa took a post-lunch power walk. Remember that when it seems as if there's nothing to do -- or that you've done it all year after year -- there are always people to watch.

OCEAN CITY -- A day after fire ravaged a popular pizza restaurant and damaged two other businesses along the oldest part of the boardwalk, owners were making plans yesterday to rebuild or repair. Fire investigators had not yet determined a cause of the nine-alarm fire Sunday afternoon at the Dough Roller restaurant. The fire also damaged a T-shirt shop and Marty's Playland arcade, a boardwalk fixture for decades. The blaze generated clouds of black smoke that could be seen for miles and drew spectators, who gathered across Sinepuxent Bay. Firefighters from two dozen companies in Maryland and Delaware brought the fire under control in about two hours.

OCEAN CITY -- Firefighters from more than 20 engine companies extinguished a blaze ata popular pizza restaurant in the oldest part of Ocean City's boardwalk yesterday, successfully containing the worst fire damage to a single building. The nine-alarm fire at the Dough Roller restaurant on the boardwalk at South Division Street initially panicked Ocean City officials, residents and holiday regulars. They worried that flames might consume nearby shops as well as the wooden boardwalk that is the symbol of summer to many Marylanders.