High Tide

The CapeMay.com blog

Category: This is Cape May

Remembering Alice Steer Wilson

When Alice Steer Wilson died on July 22 of this year, the city of Cape May lost one of its most vibrant, visual champions. But because she was loved by so many, because her well-known watercolors of the city have enjoyed such popularity, and because she shared her energy and knowledge freely with family, friends, and students– her presence here remains strong.

Antiques to Warm the Heart

Browsing through an antique store is like opening a time capsule — a journey back through the decades. A pair of well-worn women’s shoes from the late 1800s sit perched on a Glen Campbell record. A child’s perambulator snuggles next to a family photo album. And Shari Lewis’ Lamb Chop puppet finds good company with the boxed Elvis Presley doll, a Charlie Weaver mechanical toy and a life-sized Marilyn Monroe cut-out.

Spirited Cape May: Do You Believe?

Having grown up in many areas of the country, and almost always living in houses at least a hundred years-old, I’ve had a fair share of “ghostly” experiences. Many, of course, can be written off as coincidence, and some as simple quirks. But there are a few that I, a mostly practical and skeptical person, cannot deny.

Spirited Cape May: More Than Meets the Eye

It’s been said Cape May is full of ghosts. Books have been written on the subject and there are even “ghost tours” to be taken. And, surely, one look at the town with its collection of 19th-century buildings could lead one to suspect there must be a few lingering souls lost in time, trying to make their way home.

Renovating a Relic

It’s been a long time coming. There were Department of Interior rules and regulations to follow, million-dollar funding to secure, lawsuits to brave, mountains of paperwork to wade through and endless rolls of red tape to unwind. Now, long overdue according to some and beyond belief to others, rehabilitation of Congress Hall has begun.

The Road Not Taken: An Excerpt from “The Summer City by the Sea”

A contemporary description of the 1878 pre-fire Cape May skyline, observed from the deck of a passing sailboat, spoke of the “flashing lines of festival lights connecting the continuous row of monstrous four-floored buildings, seeming to touch each other…”

These lights were anchored on each end by railroad properties, the Sea Breeze Excursion House on the western end of the city and the great Stockton on the east. Although both of these hotels survived the inferno, the “continuous row of monstrous buildings” between them was now reduced to ashes.