Traditionally, the Allenhurst Beach Club bids adieu to summer with an emerald spectacle.
The ocean is dyed lime green on Labor Day weekend, colored with an eco-friendly chemical mix that gives the sea a neon glow.
Youngsters splash around in water that looks borderline radioactive. Some bottle up the salty green potion and bring it home for good luck.
The custom of coloring the ocean as a summer coda dates to 1943, when a club member put green dye in the water to celebrate his daughter’s first birthday.
What began as a whim has evolved into an institution that draws hundreds of swimmers and spectators. Organizers, Jack Lehmann and Gail Matarazzo are set to pour two vats of green pigment into the sea today.
The event is always bittersweet, said Lehmann, as folks prep to shutter their cabanas, shelve the sunblock and retire their bathing suits for the season.
This year, folks in Allenhurst are say they’re feeling end-of-summer ennui coupled with the beach replenishment blues.
The club’s swimming cove, where the green dye goes into the water annually, will be gone next summer after the Army Corps of Engineers completes its work.
Truckloads of sediment are going to transform an idyllic half moon of placid water into a dry sprawl of sand, according to Lehmann. The Army Corps also plans to fill in a historic lagoon nearby, Lehmann said.
Commemorative T-shirts are being printed up with the slogan, “Old memories never dye.” To say farewell to the lagoon, folks are gathering a final group portrait today.
“The lagoon was built in 1917 or 1918 to keep children safe after the famous Matawan shark attacks,” said Lehmann, manager of the club. “The beach club made a lagoon lined with huge rocks to keep bathers safe from sharks. Every kid that’s ever graced this beach club has played in that lagoon. You’re literally talking almost a hundred years of history that’s going to vanish when the Army Corps fills it in.”
Army Corps spokesman Chris Gardner acknowledged that some swimming areas are going to be eliminated but building a barrier of sand is integral to protecting the coastline. Flooding from Hurricane Sandy destroyed the restaurant at the Allenhurst Beach Club and damaged cabanas.
“The upcoming Corps of Engineers coastal storm risk management project being implemented, in partnership with the state of New Jersey, will involve the placement of sand to construct a wide, flat, elevated beach berm that may extend past the (cove and lagoon),” said Gardner, via email. “The work will help reduce coastal storm risks to the area from waves, inundation and erosion, and while it may impact the recreational area, a secondary benefit of the coastal storm risk management work will be the creation of a new, wide beach for recreation.”
Lehmann said he and Matarazzo intend to continue dyeing the ocean on Labor Day weekend but say the event will be decidedly less dazzling without the cove. An L-shaped jetty prevents the dye from washing out to sea.
“The cove holds the color really nice,” said Lehmann. “Next year, we’ll be pouring the dye into the open ocean whereas now we have this friendly, intimate cove that keeps the dye in and protects the kids from the waves. We’ll dye the ocean but we’re going to be vulnerable to whatever the tides are. The tide could take the green out in five or ten minutes. It’s not going to be as spectacular.”
The replenishment project, which spans from Loch Arbour to Elberon, stirred up controversy because steep new beaches could create dangers for bathers, surfers and anglers. In response to an outcry from the community, the Army Corps scaled back its plan. Three jetties originally targeted for removal will be preserved.
Matarazzo said she understands the need to step up storm protection but she is concerned about the loss of the swimming holes for kids. The cove and the lagoon were havens away from the churning waves, Matarazzo said.
“The whole landscape of the coast is going to be different,” said Matarazzo. “The ocean is a very volatile thing and you don’t know what it’s going to look like year to year but the mainstays have been the lagoon and the cove area. It’s going to be weird after they replenish. I don’t know what to expect.”
Matarazzo’s late grandfather, Robert Fountain started the ocean-dyeing tradition. He owned an Asbury Park boardwalk amusement park called Bubble Land. In order to hide the motors that powered a boat ride, he put psychedelic green colorant in the water.
Fountain often found himself with a surplus of dye at the end of the season and one year, the stars aligned. He was celebrating his daughter Susan’s first birthday at the beach club on Labor Day in 1943 when he got an idea. There was a container of leftover green dye in his car and he decided to surprise his daughter by changing the color of the ocean, Matarazzo said.
“It was just a lark but everybody liked it so much that he did it again and again year after year,” said Matarazzo. “People think it’s an Irish thing but my grandfather wasn’t even Irish. It’s funny because so many people don’t know why it’s done but they’ll walk all the way from Asbury Park and Loch Arbour just to watch. Kids bottle up the water because they think they’re bottling up good luck.”
Matarazzo said they’ve never skipped a year, even pouring dye on wet, windy days with only handful of diehards in the water.
They use 10 pounds of a Coast Guard-approved colorant called Uranine that simulates oil spills and enables boaters to signal distress. Lehmann notifies the Environmental Protection Agency annually ahead of the event.
“We tell the EPA in advance because they get calls on the day of the event,” said Lehmann. “People are driving their boats by or planes are flying over. They call the EPA to say, ‘There’s something going on. There’s green water in Allenhurst, New Jersey.’”
The sea will be dyed on Labor Day weekend in Allenhurst for decades to come, Lehmann predicted. They got a big crowd last year even though portions of the club were closed for Sandy repairs. Their slogan was “Greener than the storm.”
The tradition endures because it has become a part of the town’s identity.
“If you talk about the dyeing of the ocean, everybody knows that it’s Allenhurst, New Jersey,” said Lehmann.
Next summer, the color may be murky without the cove but the spirit of whimsy that drives the event will be undiluted, Lehmann said.
“People start screaming and getting excited and the minute you put one drop of that stuff in, everybody flies into the ocean,” said Lehmann. “The little kids are the ones who really love it and they’re like, ‘Why don’t you do pink? Why don’t you do blue?’ I tell them we have a vote every year and green comes up every year. The little kids who love it now, one day they’ll have children of their own and 20 or 30 years from now, their kids will be jumping in, too.”
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