08/26/2026
Did you know Beach Haven once had a 22-BLOCK oceanfront boardwalk?
It’s hard to picture today, but for decades Beach Haven had its own beautiful boardwalk running along the Atlantic and it was a huge part of what made the town one of the Jersey Shore’s great seaside resorts.
The story goes back to 1896, when an early wooden walkway was built near the grand Engleside and Baldwin Hotels. The original idea was pretty practical: keep hotel guests from tracking half the beach into the lobbies!
But it didn’t take long for the boardwalk to become much more than that.
It was expanded in 1898, and around 1916–1917, Beach Haven built the version most people remember from the old photographs, a roughly 20-foot-wide, 22-block-long boardwalk stretching more than a mile along the oceanfront.
And unlike Atlantic City, this wasn’t really an amusement boardwalk. Beach Haven’s boardwalk was a promenade. People dressed up, took evening walks, met friends and enjoyed the ocean breeze. It was literally the place to “see and be seen.”
There were lamps along the walk, a municipal fishing pier, bathhouses, pavilions and eventually a handful of shops and businesses. Imagine walking along the Beach Haven oceanfront at night with the hotels behind you, the Atlantic beside you and the boardwalk lamps lighting the way.
But Mother Nature kept taking pieces of it.
In 1928, a powerful autumn storm washed away the southernmost seven blocks of the boardwalk. Instead of rebuilding the entire section, Beach Haven shortened the boardwalk, with the southern end then stopping around Belvoir Avenue.
The remaining boardwalk survived for another 16 years.
Then came the devastating Great Atlantic Hurricane of September 1944.
The storm absolutely hammered Long Beach Island. In Beach Haven, it destroyed the remaining boardwalk, fishing pier and nearly every structure sitting on the boards.
This time, the boardwalk was never rebuilt. All the wood was sold to Atlantic City.
So the next time you’re walking down one of Beach Haven’s quiet ocean streets toward the beach, imagine stepping onto a wooden promenade stretching block after block along the Atlantic.
For nearly half a century, that was Beach Haven. ❤️