Sea Isle City Real Estate |
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Sea Isle City Real Estate Update Posted: 28 Mar 2008 11:14 AM CDT Three more homes have gone under contract, making it a total of 70 homes that have gone under contract or sold since Jan.1st, the homes that have closed since the last post are:
-7608 Landis Ave., asking price $719,000, sold price $700,000 |
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Drawing of Finback WhaleNORTH CAPE MAY — For the past three weeks, customers and marine employees of the Cape May Lewes Ferry were frequently treated to a more than just an 80-minute voyage across Delaware Bay.
When the weather was fair and the seas were calm, customers and employees aboard the ferry have been able to readily locate water spouts of the finback whales and the torpedo-like dives into the water of the Northern Gannets as they prey on bait fish, primarily Atlantic herring.
Feeding on bait fish near the shipping lanes of the lower Delaware Bay, both finback whales and Northern Gannets are providing a first-hand glimpse of nature’s excitement, according to a release.
Both the whales and Northern Gannets have been sighted on a frequent basis during regular crossings of the Cape May – Lewes Ferry.
Finback whales are the second-largest whale species in the world – the only whale larger than a finback whale is a blue whale. The fin whale may grow to up to 70 feet and weigh approximately 60 tons.
An endangered species, the fin whale is the world’s fastest whale, traveling at speeds up to 35 mph. Scientists identify fin whales by the shape of their dorsal fin (the fin on their back), scars they have on their body, and their chevron marking, a v-shaped marking that is usually on the fin whale’s right side, just behind its head. The Finback is a filter-feeder, feeding on small schooling fish, squid and crustaceans.
A large black and white bird, the Northern Gannet has long pointed wings and long bills. With a wingspan of nearly two meters (about six feet), it is the largest seabird in the North Atlantic. The Northern Gannet hunts fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater.
Experts state that while both the finback whales and the Northern Gannets are enjoying the supply of baitfish in the Delaware Bay, as this supply of fish moves into deeper waters as they tend to do when water temperatures rise, so to will the whales and birds that feed on them.
This spring has provided an extraordinary circumstance to view those marine creatures.
Plenty of green being worn down here this past weekend and today. The Pour House seemed to be the place to wear green today for the Irish and the “Irish for a Day” lads and lassie’s young and old. Slainte!
O’Donnell’s Pour House, 3907 Landis Ave., Sea Isle City, 609-263-5600. Menu: lamb stew, Guinness marinated hanger steak, Colcannon mashed potatoes, special Irish chef selection nightly. March 17: St. Patrick’s Day Celebration doors open at 10 a.m. with Irish coffee, special Irish Menu all day. Live Irish music from 2 p.m. Irish Dancers and Bag Pipers.
New properties that have gone under contract or sold are:
6518 Central, asking price $599,000, sold price $585,000
-147 44th Street, asking price $649,000, sold price $600,000
-237 58th Street-asking price $629,000, sold price $612,500
-143 58th Street- asking price $699,000, sold price $680,000
-5612 Central- asking price $725,000, sold price $697,000
-7609 Central-asking price $750,000, sold price $750,000
-210 52nd Street-asking price $849,000, sold price $740,000
Sea Isle City Real Estate |
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March & April Events in Sea Isle City Posted: 10 Mar 2008 07:53 PM CDT Easter Program-Wednesday, March 12th (Raindate 3/19) 4pm Dealy Field, for children ages up to 11 years old.
St. Patrick’s Day Parade-Saturday, March 15th at 3:30pm-Landis Ave. from 93rd Street to 63rd Street Easter Weekend Skate Jam-SaturdayMarch 22nd, 2pm-5pm at the Skate Park at Dealy Field 10th Annual Ocean Drive Marathon-Sunday, March 30th at 9am-Cape May to Sea Isle City, call 609-523-0880 Chamber of Commerce Art Auction-Friday, April 18th, more information to come! Call 609-263-9090 Environmental Commission Beach Clean Up-Saturday, April 26th, 10 am to 12pm, for more information please call 609-263-600. |
Front and left, Sea Isle City suffered during the 1962 storm, as did all of the shore communities in the county. Houses were upended; streets were washed away. Photos courtesy of Edward W. Moore.COURT HOUSE — Ele Feeney, born and raised in Sea Isle City, recalls most vividly during the 1962 nor’easter of March 6, 7 and 8, watching televisions floating down the street.
A second grader at St. Joseph’s School, she also didn’t understand why the family TV inside the house at 46th Street and Landis Avenue wasn’t working.
“We (my siblings and I) kept getting in trouble because we couldn’t understand why there was no TV,” she said. “I could see it, it was right there,” she said, laughing as she recalled how her young mind worked.
It was beyond her second grade understanding that TV pictures don’t live in the box, they are sent through signals, which require unbroken antennas and working electricity.
“We had no clue what was going on.”
She was also too young to realize at the time the devastation that was occurring to her town and others along the coastline of New Jersey during The Great Storm of 1962, the one that would last three days, bring in five worsening high tides and cause millions in property loss, stacking boardwalks on rooftops, flipping and burying cars and buildings, devastating the coastal shoreline, and causing out-of-control fires and even loss of life.
The lost lives included a disabled man in North Wildwood, who, unable to escape the rising floodwaters, but having reportedly refused to evacuate earlier, chose instead to end his life with a gun.
The winds continued to howl and the rain beat down relentlessly; Feeney and her family would gather together as the nor’easter grew stronger and the waters rose – there were five high tides over the period of three days — at her aunt’s house nearby, everyone scrambling over a concrete wall that stood between the two homes, to get there.
“The water was coming up,” she said. “We lived in a house with three floors; there were three apartments. Two elderly ladies lived on the first floor. They came up to our place.”
Her aunt and uncle owned a boatyard, and had a knack for predicting better than the weather forecasters when a storm was going to be bad.
“They had filled containers of water,” she said. “They had told my father the day before we’re going to have a bad storm; they always seemed to know.”
“I remember my sister and I looking out the door before we left our apartment. The lifeguard beach house – you could see that. Then we looked out again and all of a sudden it wasn’t there anymore.”
At her aunt’s house, she and her cousin were getting antsy. She said she remembers tipping over a rocking chair, which got her in big trouble with her aunt.
“Me and my cousin David were getting yelled at. We were getting into mischief. There were six or seven kids and five or six adults — no TV — no toys,” she recalled.
Eventually they all would reach safety through a helicopter airlift off the island over to Ocean View. Her mother was airlifted separately to the local hospital, as she was about to give birth.
The family house at 46th Street and Landis Avenue would survive what has been described as one of the worst storms of the century, but many did not.
Newspaper accounts on March 8 of the storm, which lasted from Tuesday, March 6, to Thursday, March 8, 1962, relayed the devastation vividly and thoroughly, although it would take time to tally the complete toll the storm took on Cape May County.
“A howling northeaster, bringing March in like the proverbial lion, brought with it damage, destruction and disaster unparalleled in the history of the county,” wrote Lou Rodia and Anthony Zurawski for the Cape May County Gazette. “Houses were swept off their foundation; fires burned virtually unchecked when fire engines and firemen were kept from the scene because engines could not travel in the inundated areas.”
Wildwood was especially hard hit with fire. It suffered up to five blazes burning at one time consuming buildings unable to be quelled due to flooding and impassable streets. Nesbitt’s Department Store burned to the ground, and damage was extensive to the Colonial House bar along with several other stores and offices. A house at 3220 Lake Road was completely destroyed.
In North Wildwood, several fires were reported and “at least two houses burned to the ground,” according to news accounts.
Tuesday night, according to reports, “brought snow, sleet and hail, driven by gale-force winds …causing dangerous driving conditions.”
Water mains broke and residents were forced to boil water to avoid contamination and sickness; the ocean side of Convention Hall in Cape May was destroyed and washed away; about three-fourths of the boardwalk was gone.
Streets were only passable by boat.
Avalon and Stone Harbor residents were evacuated by bus Wednesday, according to news accounts.
The storm affected not only county residents, but also communities up and down the east coast.
“Thousands of homes were wrecked or damaged from Virginia to New England,” including Manhattan and Long Island, which sustained heavy flooding, according to the New York Times, with thousands of persons evacuated and hundreds stranded or left without electricity, gas or drinking water. Rescuers used trucks, cars, boats, amphibious vehicles and helicopters to reach those stranded.
Feeney’s family shuffled between family’s homes in Woodbine, then Vineland, then finally to her grandmother’s house in North Jersey, where she promptly broke out with the chicken pox.
“I gave it to my 11 cousins,” she said.
Hundreds took shelter in temporary quarters on the mainland; the American Red Cross sent 1,500 beds and mattresses and 3,000 blankets to the county.
Coastal New Jersey was deemed, in the end, the hardest hit, sustaining millions in damage. Reports estimated 4,000 homes were lost throughout the state.
For a young girl whose concerns revolved around school days and television, playing on the beach and playing with her cousins, living through one of the worst storms of the century was not frightening.
“It was an adventure; I still don’t feel scared.”
She says she laughs to this day at those who come to the shore to gawk at nor’easters, driving their cars through salt water, ruining their engines.
Meanwhile, she lives in Woodbine now, safe and sound on high ground.
Prices along the coast, she said, have gotten too high.
Contact Avedissian at (609) 886-8600 Ext 27 or at: savedissian@cmcherald.com
In a letter to taxpayers dated Feb. 19, SICTA President Tom Henry concluded that the city’s personnel salary structure and benefit programs are excessively costly to the detriment of its capital improvements and infrastructure needs.
“As the budgets were prepared in recent years, SICTA presented many suggestions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of city government,” Henry wrote. “Sadly, these recommendations were ignored.”
In January, the group again offered some guiding principles for Mayor Leonard Desiderio and city council to use in developing the 2008 city budget, including:
• Increase spending for capital improvements and infrastructure needs.
• Reduce 2008 Tax Rate by a minimum of 33 percent, given the large increase in reassessed values.
• Lower this year’s operating budget significantly below the 2007 budget, other than for the above capital spending and infrastructure projects.
Despite these suggestions, Henry wrote that the mayor proposed a budget in January that called for a 17.5 percent increase in the amount to be raised by taxes, from $10.5 million last year to $12.3 million this year.
The town’s tax rate would decrease this year from 29.1 cents in 2007 to 25.8 cents this year. That decrease, however, is related to the recent revaluation, which saw Sea Isle’s rateables climb from $3.6 billion to $4.8 billion, a 32.6 percent increase.
Homeowners, therefore, would pay $33 less per $100,000 of assessed value this year, but their homes would be valued a third higher on average.
SICTA provided the Herald with a list of 28 items that came up at committee meetings and council workshops, which could potentially have saved taxpayers nearly $3 million if implemented.
Some of the items included: reduced health benefits for city employees, eliminate benefits for part-time employees, increasing co-pays from 50 cents to $5, implement a 4 percent room tax, reduce engineering costs with an internal office, eliminating tot-time program, and increasing city fees.
“The healthcare suggestions came directly from the city’s own benefits advisor,” he said.
Henry said none of the suggestions for the proposed budget were taken by the mayor, but two council members were working for cutbacks.
“(Council President Mike) McHale is trying to make some cuts right away and (Councilman John) Divney wants to do a salary study, which would reduce spending down the road,” Henry told the Herald. “It would make sense for the city to adopt both approaches.”
Concluding his letter, Henry urged taxpayers to attend council meetings and contact council members to demand significant budget cuts.
Council was scheduled to hold a public budget work session March 10, but has since cancelled the hearing.
The budget will be introduced at the regular scheduled council meeting on March 11 at 7 p.m. in the Public Safety Building on JFK Boulevard.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com
We are currently at 50 homes that have sold or have gone under contract since January 1st. The market is really stepping up as we approach warmer weather and more people are thinking Beach Time!
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