It's coming along ....

Another beautiful summery day, another trip to Asbury Park. I'd thought it would be a little too cool to hit the beach at Sandy Hook, so I figured I could head on down to the boardwalk if the Parkway traffic wasn't onerous.

I really should have packed for the beach. By the time I got down there, it was 80 degrees, beautiful sunshine, perfect for setting a towel on the sand and digging into a good book. There was lots of foot traffic on the boardwalk and a lot of cars parked nearby; I didn't realize it, but there was a big Gay Pride celebration going on a couple of blocks inland, so lots of people were coming in for that, too. On the boardwalk, one of the pavilions is nearly fully renovated, with signs saying the stores will open in a few weeks.

There's always a surprise for me when I head down there, and this time it was the Carousel Room of the Casino. Long boarded up, its intricate windows protected, it was always surrounded by a fence far enough away to allow me to get a decent photo. The photo to the left gives you an idea of the distance I had to contend with, even on my last visit just a few weeks ago. I could have gotten physically closer, but not by much, and my view would have been obstructed by chain link fencing.

This time, the temporary fencing was close enough to the building that I could walk right up. I've always liked the Medusa-like brass face medallions above the doorways, and now was my chance to get a closer look. The whole exterior is covered in intricate pressed metal designs -- seahorses, spiderwebs on the cornices.

As I walked around from the street-side toward a body of water on the other side, I noticed that the fencing stopped. I could walk right in if I wanted to.

For a moment, I hesitated, but then a cyclist zoomed past me and wheeled right in. Hey, I said, if he can do it, so can I. Nothing was stopping either of us -- no warning signs, no closed gates, no sawhorses, no alarms.

The cyclist told me that the room had been open like that since Friday, and that the plan was that there'd eventually be a food court of some type there. No carousel, I guess. That's a shame. Looking up at the vaulted circular ceiling, I could imagine old, Edison-style incandescent lightbulbs ringing the rafters, gaily illuminating the space, the song of a calliope livening up the room.

In any case, I was surprised to find that the creepy feeing I had had -- and sometimes still have -- when entering the Casino was entirely absent when I walked into the Carousel Room. Maybe it was the openness of light and air streaming in. Or maybe it was that so much of it was new -- the ceiling, the poured-concrete floor, a plaster wall not far away. In any case, it felt hopeful rather than eerie.

Later I found that there's to be an art show there next Saturday, as part of the monthly First Night downtown. It'll be the first real life there in a long time; the last use was as a flea market. I guess one can hope.