| Jon Birdseye |
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Artist's Statement This work is about abandonment and thrill of rediscovery. Asbury park was once a thriving resort town, a kind of little Atlantic City. Then it went bust. The water front stores were boarded up. The ice skating rink was left to rot. Hotels abandoned half way through construction. Walking down the waterfront today a visitor would be greeted by nothing but a failing nightclub and an old movie house turned adult theater. The arcades are now caged and the people reduced to a trickle of beachcombers. In the early 70's Asbury Park begin its decline. Many different events happened to start a chain of events that has turned this city into the ghost town that it is today. Race riots in the 70's cause many people to move out just as the Garden State Parkway was coming though, making it easier to bypass Asbury Park for Atlantic City with its new hotels and gambling. The old casino building still stands, but in major disrepair. A friend and I found our way in through a small window at the back of the building. Making our way past air ducts that have fallen from the ceiling, the first room we came upon is the old ice skating rink. It is massively overgrown, like a movie set about a post-apocalyptic world. The main stage is completely taken over with vines up both sides. Making out way to the upper levels we find views of a depressed town, a high-rise hotel never completed, others boarded up and forgotten. Further into the structure, an old arcade hall contains a few roffing skiball machines. Water has collected on the floor creating a shallow indoor pond. All around birds have made their nests and plant grow anywhere that sun can get through a hole in the ceiling. The large structure built by man is slowing being retaken by nature. |
| All images copyright June Bateman Gallery and individual artists. Reproduction by permission only. |