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Post by fuzzyscorpio on Jul 15, 2006 13:17:24 GMT -5
Ah, I thought I had an old postcard of Valentino's lying around. Didn't take too long to find... I've been prowling around these last two days catching up with all the Wildwood news you guys post and doing searches on some of my old favorite Wildwood things. Just had to thank Al for this postcard of Valentino's! How we loved that place! I also saw where Thom said he was a busboy there as a teenager. I'm sure my Mom and Dad and I must have been there some nights when you were working, Thom. Comments have been more about the decor and comparisons to Zaberers, but we thought the food there was great (and my dad is a tough-to-please first-generation Italian). Does anyone remember roughly when Valentino's closed? We continued our annual visits for many years after that, and I visit on my own nowadays--I have probably missed only about five seasons since 1954--but we never found an Italian restaurant, or any restaurant really, in the Wildwoods that we liked as well. I'm so glad to have a "visual" on it. I'm going to start building a WW scrapbook from my own photos and all the wonderful images that people here have captured or mined.
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Post by crazyaboutwildwood on Jul 15, 2006 16:56:34 GMT -5
I know this was asked before but can someone refresh my memory on where this was at?
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Post by fuzzyscorpio on Jul 15, 2006 18:38:10 GMT -5
South side of Oak, west of Atlantic, according to Thom and I'm sure that's correct since he knows the town so well. I'm terrible at the cross-street names, especially in Wildwood. We always stayed in the Crest, first at the Atlantis Lodge (which changed hands and was renamed the Internationale at some point, then became what must have been one of the first condo conversions), and at the Reges more recently. Mom and Dad didn't care much for Wildwood itself, and Dad hated driving on Atlantic and Ocean Aves, so until I started going on my own (not that long ago ) about the only Wildwood cross-street I could place was Maple Ave because that's where we usually parked to visit the boards. (I always think of the sign for the Maple Leaf Apartments. I don't remember seeing it last ye ar though. The apartments are still listed on Beachcomber and Apartments.net but there's no answer at their telephone number. Ghosts around every corner <sigh>....) During my visits the past few seasons I've spent very little time on the beach. I walk and drive around obsessively taking pictures and trying to get to know Wildwood and the upper part of the Crest better before almost all of its midcentury character disappears. It was only last year that I began to notice the appeal of parts of North Wildwood, and now I see from posts here that NW has been severely stricken with condo cancer since then. My condolences to all the aficionados of the Lurae.
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Post by FlyinGN on Jul 15, 2006 20:16:21 GMT -5
go to Alfies.. You will forget Valentinos even existed.. Ah, I thought I had an old postcard of Valentino's lying around. Didn't take too long to find... I've been prowling around these last two days catching up with all the Wildwood news you guys post and doing searches on some of my old favorite Wildwood things. Just had to thank Al for this postcard of Valentino's! How we loved that place! I also saw where Thom said he was a busboy there as a teenager. I'm sure my Mom and Dad and I must have been there some nights when you were working, Thom. Comments have been more about the decor and comparisons to Zaberers, but we thought the food there was great (and my dad is a tough-to-please first-generation Italian). Does anyone remember roughly when Valentino's closed? We continued our annual visits for many years after that, and I visit on my own nowadays--I have probably missed only about five seasons since 1954--but we never found an Italian restaurant, or any restaurant really, in the Wildwoods that we liked as well. I'm so glad to have a "visual" on it. I'm going to start building a WW scrapbook from my own photos and all the wonderful images that people here have captured or mined.
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Post by crazyaboutwildwood on Jul 15, 2006 21:58:17 GMT -5
South side of Oak, west of Atlantic, Okay, what is there now? The Bolero? Did it sit right on Atlantic?
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Post by fuzzyscorpio on Jul 16, 2006 1:55:45 GMT -5
Well, the Valentino's facade that you see on Al's postcard is on Oak Ave. My somewhat dim memory says that it was definitely on the south side of Oak, and toward midblock, not at the corner of Atlantic--there was something else before it (the Hof Brau?) In the thread where the picture was posted Thom said the Beach Terrace is where Valentino's used to be, with the Bolero opposite it on the other side of Oak. I did a little surfing on this and found something that confounds my memory, posted by the Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce: from this page: www.gwcoc.com/fifties/birthplace.htmlThey used this picture of a building that once stood on Atlantic at Oak to illustrate a narrative about Bill Haley and the Comets breaking out "Rock Around the Clock" at the Hof Brau in '54. You can see the "Hotel Hof Brau" sign, and if you copy and paste the image into a program like Photoshop, you can see more clearly that the vertical sign on the corner of the building says "Valentino's." I can't figure out the relationship between that structure and the one visible in Al's postcard, which is more familiar to me. Maybe the restaurant moved around the corner at some point.
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Post by Al Alven on Jul 16, 2006 2:35:07 GMT -5
First off, Scorpio, I've really enjoyed reading all of your posts thus far; it is obvious that you have a true passion for and are extremely knowledgable about the history of the Wildwoods. A belated welcome to the forum! I asked my dad (he's 58) about his memories of Valentino's. The postcard I have is from his personal collection, and he remembers eating at the restaurant very well. However, his memory of exactly where it was located is a bit fuzzy. For what it's worth, he also seems to remember Valentino's itself being connected to the Hof Brau, but being located more toward the middle of the south side of Oak Ave. To put it more in perspective, somewhere in the vicinity (though certainly not quite as far down) as where the Red Oak buffet restaurant (big barn-looking building) is now. At any rate, directly across from the older motel portion of the Bolero. As for the Maple Leaf Apartments, which you also mentioned, Scorpio, is this the sign you remember seeing (the one on top, of course)?:
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Post by JerseyDigger29 on Jul 16, 2006 10:38:11 GMT -5
Well, the Valentino's facade that you see on Al's postcard is on Oak Ave. My somewhat dim memory says that it was definitely on the south side of Oak, and toward midblock, not at the corner of Atlantic--there was something else before it (the Hof Brau?) In the thread where the picture was posted Thom said the Beach Terrace is where Valentino's used to be, with the Bolero opposite it on the other side of Oak. I did a little surfing on this and found something that confounds my memory, posted by the Greater Wildwood Chamber of Commerce: from this page: www.gwcoc.com/fifties/birthplace.htmlThey used this picture of a building that once stood on Atlantic at Oak to illustrate a narrative about Bill Haley and the Comets breaking out "Rock Around the Clock" at the Hof Brau in '54. You can see the "Hotel Hof Brau" sign, and if you copy and paste the image into a program like Photoshop, you can see more clearly that the vertical sign on the corner of the building says "Valentino's." I can't figure out the relationship between that structure and the one visible in Al's postcard, which is more familiar to me. Maybe the restaurant moved around the corner at some point. OK, I'll try to clear up all the confusion. Valentinos and the Hof Brau were basically different parts of the same building, which sat exactly on the corner of Oak and Atlantic Avenue. Valentinos was like Zaberers in that it had several different banquet and dining rooms. The main dining room, where I worked as a 14-year-old bus boy was on the Oak Avenue side about 50 feet or so from the corner. The Hof Brau, where Bill Haley and the Comets premiered that famous song in 1954, was on the Atlantic Avenue side of the building as it shows in the photos. Actually, I was never allowed in the Hof Brau because of my age, but I think the Hof Brau had two entrances like in the photo, one directly on the corner and the other one just south of it on Atlantic. Either way, this was all in the same building. Valentinos was really "elegant" dining. We bus boys were required to clean the tables and carry the dishes back to the kitchen on a really big serving tray "above our shoulder." with a clean white towel over our arm. For a 14-year-old like me it was really hard to lift that sucker. One of the head waiters was a Wildwood legend named Francisco "Frank" Lopez - or just plain "Cisco," who lived in Wildwood all year. When he wasn't being a Wildwood police officer, he waited tables at Valentinos in his spare time. He and all the Puerto Rican dishwaters in the kitchen used to teach us all their favorite Spanish cuss words, I still remember them to this day. Anyway, Valentinos and the Hof Brau was right on the corner. Today, it is the Beach Terrace, which is about to add another floor BTW. Just next to the Hof Brau on Atlantic Avenue was Watson's Restaurant. Talk about great food! Today, the Watson descendents own the Merion Inn in Cape May, carrying on their father's tradition. The Bolero was and still is on the NW corner of Oak and Atlantic, and the famous Riptide, where Bill Haley discovered Rock and Roll from the Treniers, was directly across from Valentinos on Oak, just west of the Bolero a few feet. Imagine the history of that one corner. The Hof Brau with Bill Haley on one corner, the Riptide with the Treniers across the street and the Bolero on the other corner featuring everybody else. Oh, the excitement of it all! ;D Thom
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Post by Al Alven on Jul 16, 2006 11:34:21 GMT -5
Great stuff as always, Thom. Thank you for the clarifications.
Now, the one thing that I'm still a bit fuzzy on is the layout/location of the "Bolero" back during the mid-century era. It's the one thing I always mean to ask about and do research on when I'm at the Boyer Museum, and always get tied up looking at something else.
Today, obviously, we have the Bolero Resort, which is comprised of the hotel section (which was added just a few years ago) right at the northwest corner of Atlantic & Oak, and the older motel portion on the north side of Oak.
My questions then are, roughly how old is the motel portion of the Bolero... and where, exactly was the famed Bolero "club" located? Was the Riptide located where the Bolero's motel portion is now, or were they side-by-side?
I assume that the Bolero Club was located at the corner of Atlantic and Oak, but I'm not certain. Was it just a "club" at the beginning, or did the Bolero always provide some sort of lodging as well?
Sorry for all the questions... just trying to piece this all together...
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Post by FlyinGN on Jul 16, 2006 19:20:47 GMT -5
The old bolaro is in the exact place the new bolaro bar is .. I used to go to the old one as a teenager and hoped not to get in fights that always seemed to happen there..
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Post by JerseyDigger29 on Jul 16, 2006 22:08:18 GMT -5
Great stuff as always, Thom. Thank you for the clarifications. Now, the one thing that I'm still a bit fuzzy on is the layout/location of the "Bolero" back during the mid-century era. It's the one thing I always mean to ask about and do research on when I'm at the Boyer Museum, and always get tied up looking at something else. Today, obviously, we have the Bolero Resort, which is comprised of the hotel section (which was added just a few years ago) right at the northwest corner of Atlantic & Oak, and the older motel portion on the north side of Oak. My questions then are, roughly how old is the motel portion of the Bolero... and where, exactly was the famed Bolero "club" located? Was the Riptide located where the Bolero's motel portion is now, or were they side-by-side? I assume that the Bolero Club was located at the corner of Atlantic and Oak, but I'm not certain. Was it just a "club" at the beginning, or did the Bolero always provide some sort of lodging as well? Sorry for all the questions... just trying to piece this all together... Al, Flynn is right, the original Bolero Club - or "Club Bolero" in some ads - was exactly at the corner of Oak and Atlantic Avenue. The old Bolero Club contained the club itself and standard two-story "L"-shaped 50's and 60's style hotel rooms with a small parking lot connected to it on Atlantic. The hotel parking lot was more of a courtyard actually because it ran up against the wall of the building next to it at Wildwood and Oak The Riptide was down from the corner on Oak about 100 feet, just where the "older" hotel section is now. There was apparently another business on Oak in between the Bolero Club and the Riptide, but basically that business and the Riptide are where the older Bolero motel section is today. Hope this helps - Thom
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Post by fuzzyscorpio on Jul 17, 2006 0:42:22 GMT -5
Thanks, Al, for the kind welcome! I am a pretty hard-core Wildwood nut, as attested by my insane collection of t-shirts, tank tops and sweatjackets all decorated with specially chosen Wildwood logos--no off-the-shelf stuff for me Yes, I believe that is the Maple Leaf Apts. sign I remember. In my mind's eye is a modest-sized wooden sign that hung perpendicular to the facade with the name in neon. Probably that's where the neon in the picture came from. Where was that picture taken? Is that some sort of warehouse for the Neon Garden? FlyinGN, we did go to Alfe's once way back in the early 90s, and were very unlucky in that one of us found a foreign object in a bowl of soup--a piece of glass, I think it was. There's probably no restaurant in the world with a perfect score on foreign objects, but it did chill any enthusiasm we might have had for return visits. Thom, thanks for helping me to reconcile those two photographs. I was going to annoy my dad with the photo puzzle but now I won't have to I'll just let him enjoy the postcard. -Kathi a/k/a fuzzyscorpio
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Post by FlyinGN on Jul 17, 2006 6:08:58 GMT -5
yikes kathi.. That would sour my love for a restaurant to but that was about 15 years ago.. Give it another try.. Its THAT good..
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Post by Al Alven on Jul 17, 2006 10:14:09 GMT -5
Al, Flynn is right, the original Bolero Club - or "Club Bolero" in some ads - was exactly at the corner of Oak and Atlantic Avenue. The old Bolero Club contained the club itself and standard two-story "L"-shaped 50's and 60's style hotel rooms with a small parking lot connected to it on Atlantic. The hotel parking lot was more of a courtyard actually because it ran up against the wall of the building next to it at Wildwood and Oak The Riptide was down from the corner on Oak about 100 feet, just where the "older" hotel section is now. There was apparently another business on Oak in between the Bolero Club and the Riptide, but basically that business and the Riptide are where the older Bolero motel section is today. Hope this helps - Thom Thanks again, Thom... this really does help put everything in perspective. Wow, you're right -- The historical significance of this area really is staggering! I will definitely have to think twice about all of this the next time I sit out on the patio of the Bolero (motel portion on Oak) and look all the way across to the Hurricane Club's bright lights at night. To think that I am standing right in the area where the Riptide once stood is actually quite amazing!
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Post by Al Alven on Jul 17, 2006 10:18:13 GMT -5
Yes, I believe that is the Maple Leaf Apts. sign I remember. In my mind's eye is a modest-sized wooden sign that hung perpendicular to the facade with the name in neon. Probably that's where the neon in the picture came from. Where was that picture taken? Is that some sort of warehouse for the Neon Garden? Actually, that pic was taken in my basement. ;D That's my two-year-old son there, checking out some of my signs. I've become something of a neon sign/anything-historically-significant-to-the-Wildwoods collector in recent years. I have much better shots of the Maple Leaf sign, both turned off and on. I'll post a few of them soon, and they will probably look a lot more recognizable to you.
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