
Summer 2024
The North End
The North End Hotel Complex completed in 1911 included a Merry-Go-Round, a bowling alley, Skee Ball, a shooting gallery, a theatre and a pool. On the North End boardwalk you could purchase souvenirs, play games of chance, have your photo taken or your likeness drawn.






From the Archives…






































History of the Late North End Buildings in Ocean Grove, NJ (Abridged)
By David H. Fox (2020)
The Pavilions
Ocean Grove’s first bathing area began near Wesley Lake in the late 1860s, when Captain William Tell Street introduced rope-supported ocean bathing and built simple bathhouses. By the 1880s, Joseph Ross operated a large bathhouse complex known as the Ross Pavilion, offering entertainment, food concessions, and souvenirs.
The Ross Pavilion was damaged multiple times by storms but rebuilt larger each time. In the early 1900s, the Ocean Grove Association sought to replace Ross’s facilities with something grander. In 1910, construction began on a massive new pavilion based on winning plans by Asbury Park architects W.C. & A.F. Cottrell. The structure stretched 142 feet over the ocean and featured elaborate architecture, electric lighting, concert space, and upscale candy, soda, and popcorn booths. It was dedicated on June 18, 1910, and called the North End Pavilion.
In later years, a restaurant (Homestead, later Melvilles) operated south of the pavilion. However, by the 2000s, the pavilion had fallen into disuse and was largely vacant. It was destroyed by a massive fire on April 13, 2019, just before Memorial Day.
The North End Hotel
Plans for a new hotel beside the pavilion began in late 1910. Completed by mid-1911, the North End Hotel was a four-story, Mediterranean Revival building with 175 guest rooms (later expanded to 282), stores on the ground floor, and modern amenities like hot/cold saltwater baths, telephones, and an enclosed bridge to the pavilion. It became a prestigious, year-round destination.
The hotel suffered multiple fires—in 1925, 1938, and 1950—but was repaired and continued operations. A fireproof addition was added in the 1930s. The hotel finally closed in 1988, after 75 years in operation, amid plans for redevelopment that never materialized. The site remains vacant.
The Cafeteria
Behind the hotel stood The Weslake, a Spanish-Moorish style cafeteria opened in 1932. It had a 600-seat capacity and striking architecture modeled on a Moorish casino. Renamed the North End Cafeteria, it operated through the 1950s. By the 1980s, it was gutted and used for storage, eventually demolished entirely.
To hear a first hand experience of The North End, listen to Helen Thorpe’s story where she recounts her lifelong connection to Ocean Grove, New Jersey, beginning with childhood summers in the 1930s spent in her family’s tent, which had been passed down since the early 1900s. She shares vivid memories of a close-knit summer community filled with children, beach days, games, and evenings on the boardwalk and working in The North End’s macaroon shop.