Where the Shore's Gilded Age Still Holds: The Asbury Park Casino

Where the Shore's Gilded Age Still Holds: The Asbury Park Casino, a Beaux-Arts Landmark in the Crosshairs of Preservation

Walk the Asbury Park Boardwalk and the building at 700 Ocean Avenue announces itself before the ocean does: a sweeping green-roofed, Beaux-Arts colonnade with monumental arches that has framed the Jersey Shore skyline for nearly a century. It is one of the most recognizable structures in Monmouth County, and right now its future is being decided in City Hall, at a state funding office, and in the courtrooms of preservation law. For the families of Rumson, Fair Haven, Little Silver, Colts Neck, Holmdel, and Middletown who think about what their estates leave behind, the Casino is more than a landmark. It is a live lesson in how a single irreplaceable asset can be preserved, or lost, depending on the structures — and the people — willing to stand behind it.

A Building Designed by the Architects of Grand Central Terminal

• The Asbury Park Casino was constructed between 1928 and 1930, replacing an earlier wooden-frame building that burned in January 1928. It was designed by Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore, the New York firm behind New York's Grand Central Terminal — the same practice that also shaped Asbury Park's Convention Hall. Its Beaux-Arts grandeur, green roofline, and monumental arches made it synonymous with the Shore's cultural identity; the building appears in art, photography, film, and in Bruce Springsteen's own references to the town (Preservation New Jersey).
• In its earliest decades the Casino housed an arcade of stores and restaurants, a carousel, and indoor amusements. By the 1980s an improperly installed roof and years of storms closed the skating-rink portion; the building was largely vacant by 2001, and most of the structure was taken down in 2006, leaving the iconic arches, the breezeway, and the adjacent Carousel House and steam plant standing on the boardwalk.
• The Casino has been on Preservation New Jersey's "10 Most Endangered Historic Places" list since 1996 and was relisted for 2026 — a measure of how long the community has watched this landmark test the boundary between what can be saved and what is lost.

The 2026 Moment: Demolition Proposal, Public Response, and a Course Correction

• In late January 2026, the building's owner and developer, Madison Marquette, applied for a demolition permit for the Casino's breezeway after it was marked an "unsafe structure." The application drew packed City Council meetings, public outcry, and a petition signed by more than 10,000 residents, and it led directly to the founding of a volunteer advocacy group, Save Our Structures Asbury Park (SOS-AP), in February 2026 (PNJ, "Thirty Years Later").
• The City of Asbury Park formally opposed the permit and required an independent report from a certified structural engineer weighing repair and stabilization against demolition. Facing that opposition — and letters from Senator Vin Gopal and state Assemblywomen Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul — Madison Marquette reversed course on February 6, 2026, and committed that the breezeway would be "repaired and preserved." Roof repairs were completed in March, and the outdoor path along the building's east side reopened, reconnecting Asbury Park and Ocean Grove.
• On August 19, 2026, the City Council created a Casino Property Advisory Committee to recommend how the Casino, Carousel House, steam plant, and breezeway should be maintained, restored, and improved. Separately, the City released an independent legal review by former Supreme Court Justice Lee Solomon evaluating whether the City could reclaim the property and undertake its own restoration — a path his addendum found to be severely limited by the 2006 Dispute Resolution Agreement (City of Asbury Park).

Why It Matters Locally

For Monmouth families, the Casino is a study in stewardship rather than sentiment. It is a concrete, waterfront asset whose preservation hinges on real capital, real legal agreements, and real public pressure working together — the same forces that determine whether a historic shore estate, a family's charitable legacy, or a community landmark endures across generations. The lesson is transferable: preservation is never just about the object. It is about who organizes behind it, what funding structure can carry it (here, a reported $130 million restoration proposal leaning on state and federal tax credits), and whether the institution — or the absence of one — gives the community standing to act before a decision is made. Notably, Asbury Park has no Historic Preservation Commission with the power to review demolition and construction proposals in advance, which is a gap the SOS-AP group is asking to close. For a family planning how it wants to be remembered, that gap is exactly the kind of institutional weakness where focused, well-documented support changes the outcome.

How to Get Involved

• Follow and support SOS-AP (Save Our Structures Asbury Park). The volunteer group — founded by Dave Henry, Celia Morrissette, Kris Ohleth, and Kristin O'Meara — is independent of any other Casino or boardwalk fundraising effort and is advocating for historic-resource treatment, adaptive reuse, clear restoration milestones, and a city-wide Historic Preservation Commission. Reach them through the group's active community presence on the Asbury Park boardwalk and City Council meetings (search "SOS-AP Asbury Park" for the current contact list).
• Contact the City of Asbury Park's Casino Property Advisory Committee. Created in August 2026 to recommend how the property should be maintained and restored. For records, meeting notices, and to voice input, contact the City of Asbury Park at 732-628-3465 or visit cityofasburypark.com.
• Engage with Preservation New Jersey. PNJ relisted the Casino for its 2026 "10 Most Endangered" list and is urging legal avenues to protect and adaptively reuse the building. Membership and state-level preservation advocacy can be joined at preservationnj.org.
• Support the state funding pathway. Restoration of the Casino, Convention Hall, and the Paramount Theater depends in part on state and federal tax credits pursued through the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. Asbury Park's Council passed a resolution in February 2026 urging the EDA to endorse the developer's applications — a vote Monmouth residents can weigh in on through their state and local representatives.
• Add your name to the active community petitions. Multiple public petitions — including one to save and restore the Casino breezeway and one calling for the City to retake possession of the historic boardwalk properties — are live on Change.org and continue to gather signatures.

How Love of Humanity Supports This Work

Love of Humanity is a Monmouth County 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works alongside institutions like the Asbury Park Casino preservation effort, SOS-AP, and Preservation New Jersey as a peer partner. Where these groups lead the legal, structural, and funding work, we focus on the quiet infrastructure that keeps a preservation movement visible and funded: editorial documentation of the effort, connecting donor-adjacent families with the institutions doing the preservation work, and helping families channel legacy giving toward a cause that outlasts any single headline. We do not direct these groups' strategy; we support their reach. If you would like to learn how a family gift or a co-branded family-education effort might support historic preservation along the Shore, we would be glad to talk.