Authors Walter Greason and Daniel Wolff will take center stage to discuss A Changing Asbury Park in Context at 7 p.m Dec. 3 at The Asbury Hotel, 10 Fifth Ave in Asbury Park.
This critical conversation between two leading thinkers will shine a light on the ever-changing nature of this small, complex, and diverse city by the sea. The conversation will place some of the dramatic changes and nuances in Asbury Park over the last few decades in the larger context of race and class and ask the questions: who is telling the story of a changing Asbury, and to what effect? The event also features a reading by the authors, Q&A, and book signing.
Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase titles in Greason’s collection, as well as the newly released second edition of Daniel Wolff’s “Fourth of July, Asbury Park: A History of the Promised Land. Wolff’s second edition is also available online through the Asbury Book Cooperative here.
The event will feature a cash bar and is sponsored by The Asbury Book Cooperative, The Asbury Park African American Music Project, The Asbury Park Historical Society, Asbury Park Museum, Asbury Park Arts Council, and The Asbury Park Music Foundation, all local nonprofit organizations with a shared mission to advance and support the city’s art & cultural history.
Wolff’s book, “Fourth of July, Asbury Park,” tells the tale of the city’s first 150 years, through the development of its lavish amusement parks and bandstands, as well as the decay of its working-class neighborhoods and spread of its racially segregated neighborhoods. Featuring exclusive interviews with Springsteen and other prominent Asbury Park residents, he uncovers the history of how this Jersey shore resort town came to epitomize both the promises of the American dream and the tragic consequences when those promises are broken.
Wolff is a Grammy-nominated non-fiction author and poet who has written a half-dozen books on American history and culture from an award-winning biography of Sam Cooke to a best-selling dual biography of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. He also collaborated with photographer Eric Meola on Born to Run: The Unseen Photos. He lives in Nyack, New York.
Greason is among the most prominent historians, educators, and urbanists in the United States. He has spent the past 30 years speaking to audiences in dozens of states, on over 100 college and high school campuses, at dozens of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the nation and beyond. His work is available every day via Twitter, @worldprofessor.
He is the author of six books, including his two latest, “Industrial Segregation” and “Cities Imagined: The African Diaspora in Media and History (both Kendall-Hunt Publishers).”
The Asbury Book Cooperative is Asbury Park’s local, independent, cooperatively run bookstore and community space.
The Asbury Park African American Music Project (AP-AMP) Inc. celebrates the stories of Springwood Avenue in Asbury Park.
The AP Museum works to showcase the rich and diverse history, of the notable personalities and contributors, iconic structures and events, as well as the multi-cultural influences of the progressive resort and urban community of Greater Asbury Park.
The AP Historical Society works to advance the understanding, appreciation, preservation, and restoration of items associated with the history of the city of Asbury Park, related to the founding and continuing evolution of Asbury Park.
The Asbury Park Music Foundation provides life-changing music programs to under-resourced youth giving them confidence, discipline, and relationship-building skills that improve their future success and economic mobility, preserving Asbury Park’s rich musical legacy, bringing the community together for free, live music, and supporting musicians with opportunities to perform in our city by the sea.
The Asbury Park Arts Council (APAC) works to support, advocate and promote arts-centric initiatives, businesses and development. Our primary goal is to ensure the arts are considered in municipal policymaking via the creation and implementation of an Arts and Culture plan within the Asbury Park Master Plan. APAC was formed to be a bridge between the local arts community and the City of Asbury Park, fostering the understanding that arts are the economic engine of the city.
