Pier Village Sidebar

I transfered to Monmouth after graduating with an Associates Degree from Ocean County College. I've never lived in a dorm. When I began going to Monmouth I found myself in Pier Village. The place is like nothing I've ever seen. Its big, beautiful and surrounded by poverty.

From what I've seen of the place, my best guess is that the buildings were hastily put together and opened before they should have been. My first year here saw countless false alarms with the fire alarm system, the complete repaving of the entire complex and surrounding roads, the construction of about a dozen businesses downstairs and more nail pops than i thought possible. From what I hear, this beats living in a dorm by a long shot and I gotta say I wish I could take this mattress home with me.

Everyday I go downstairs and see the happy shoppers buzzing around going...I don't know where. There really isn't that much to do here. A couple of specialty shops and lots of food. The pizza's great but I'm not about to pay $90 for a Bruce Springstein t-shirt at Nirvana (which by the way is completely sacreligious to a homegrown Jersey boy). The whole point is that Pier Village is gilded and not all its cracked up to be.



Where I have to walk by one of the Mexicans cleaning the building daily, I'm filled with an overpowering guilty that only increases as I drive through the beat up streets of Long Branch. I can't help but think of Kubla Khan.

I live in a Shore town myself, in Toms River (which hugs the Barnegat Bay). I have to agree with my source that I would not want a Pier Village there. The last thing we need there is more tourist money. And as far as Long Branch goes, I seriously doubt Pier Village is going to improve the quality of life of the townspeople. The people with barred windows by the train tracks. Is Pier Village going to lower their taxes and improve their schools? Not if this becomes a resort town. Look at any resort town, you get the nice resorts where all the money comes in and stays and then there's the section where the people might as well be serfs.

Town councils lose sight of the real picture. They want what's best for their town and that is to have a place in there that everyone thinks fondly of. And of course they want their name to be associated with it so they can move on to bigger and better positions. Pier Village does not help the people in the town. Does it create jobs? Yes, for middle class people who live in Ocean and other surrounding towns. The fact remains that some people lost their homes so this place could go up and the poor stayed poor.