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The
Wildwoods are a series of connected towns down on the southern tip
of the New Jersey shoreline.
Guidebooks warned us that Wildwood was the trashy cousin of Cape May, a truly hideous, over-flounced olde worlde Victorian resort, described by all as "charming." We'd choose trash over Victoriana any day of the week, so off we went. The Wildwoods are where the Jetsons would come on holiday if they were real people. In Wildwood there are few places where your eyeline is not invaded by boomerang shapes, Tiki craziness, zig-zags, insane neon signage, plastic palm trees and crazy-shaped swimming pools, and colour colour everywhere. As we drove into town it was impossible to choose where to stay, the facades drew us in, all were incredible examples of prime populuxe Doo Woppery. Should we go for the pink concrete overhangs of The Eden Roc? Or the eye-popping neon of The Pink Champagne? The Starlux looked cute, although it was a neo-Doo Wop building. How about The Lollipop, The Friendship 7 or The Bel Air, which was named after the original owner's car. I liked The Jolly Roger, a motel emblazoned with a giant pirate figure. The Aztec and The Gondolier had great motifs too. Whilst The Kona Kai and The Tahiti drew us closer, we eventually settled for The Caribbean. The Caribbean Motel is a U-shaped building that overlooks an inverted U-shaped pool. Its windows zig-zag in and out, as though they are looking to the future. It has a space age ramp curling around one end of it, overlooking a shuffleboard grid. At night a canopy of coloured lights come out to twinkle in the darkness. It's painted in shades of green. Every room has a giant picture window that looks out onto the architectural madness. A night at The Caribbean in high season is not cheap, nor is it as flashy inside as it is outside. It was hard not to feel a little bit duped as we walked through the door and took in the shabbiness of the room. We paid good money for this? No wonder these places are going out of business. There were some saving graces: the gorgeous original pink and green bathroom, with added weird boxy bakelite coffeemaker attached to the wall. And then there was the music knob. The staff at The Caribbean pipe an oldies radio station out by the pool all day. If you want to hear a hit from yesteryear close up, all you have to do is turn the music knob up to ten and you've got a party in your room. Who needs new-fangled iPods, or even CDs? The music knob takes care of business for sure. We stayed in Wildwood for a couple of days. We were at the end of our holiday and needed somewhere to rest. We spent the time lying by the pool, hiring very cute cruiser bikes and riding around the town, and swooning over the architecture. On our last night there was a storm. We sat on our balcony watching the rain come down and the streets flood. Over a foot of rain fell, or so it said in the news. By the morning it had all drained away. Life is so much bigger in America. Cape May benefits from some preservation order kind of thing, whereas The Wildwoods do not. Cape May has Victorian architecture, places of real historic value, sisters to other Victorain resorts around the country. The Wildwoods only have the highest concentration of original 1950s Doo Wop architecture to be found anywhere in the world. Whilst another bed and breakfast pops up in Cape May, real beauties like the Satellite, the Carousel Motel and the Wildwood Diner are about to be demolished. Just so you know. Meanwhile, the Doo Wop Preservation League is trying to save these fantastic buildings. They organise architectural tours after dark, pointing out "electric persuasion" signs, and neon that is so lovely it makes you want to weep. You should find out more about their work, maybe support them if you can. Perhaps you'd like to take a trip to The Wildwoods yourself because it looks as though its Doo Wop history might not last forever. Doo Wop Preservation League |
 
  
 
  
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