Let's Write about Maryland's affection for Ocean City
Ocean City is just a tiny dot on the map of Maryland's Eastern Shore; but Marylander's support generations of nostalgic memories "Down the Ocean".
Memories reflected in "Down the Ocean" by my high school friend, a prolific author and poet, Michael Wright. We grew up in the shadow of a culture where going to Ocean City, was more or less a right of passage during of our teen age years.
Check out this link to take a virtual tour of the Ocean City Life Saving Museum at this link here.
Plus, an interesting history article published in the Baltimore Sun by Josh Davis. Ocean City demolition unearths piece of Senior Week history. Remnants of a 1930s, garage tied to early Senior Week history found on Fifth Street. |
| Ocean City Museum, Maryland |
Now, another demolition project has revealed a different chapter of the resort’s history. Workers tearing down the former Fifth Street Post Office last week discovered remnants of the Safe Garage, a 1930s-era building, linked to the early days of Senior Week — the long-standing tradition that draws thousands of graduating high school students to Ocean City each year.
“That lot has an interesting history before the post office building opened there in 1962,” Katz said. “As the late George Hurley was fond of saying, ‘Gordon, there is a story under every lot in Ocean City.’”
The lot, at Philadelphia Avenue and Fifth Street, was vacant until 1928, Katz said. E. Preston Disharoon, a lumber dealer in Berlin, bought the three contiguous lots that make up the property and built a 65-car parking garage.
Disharoon sold the garage in 1930, to husband and wife Samuel and Dellie Ayres, who renamed it the “Safe Garage,” a mechanic shop with rooms to rent and parking. Katz said it was advertised in a local chamber of commerce booklet in 1937, as “Safe Garage and Rooms. Fireproof Storage Garage. Nice cool rooms.”
“That lot has an interesting history before the post office building opened there in 1962,” Katz said. “As the late George Hurley was fond of saying, ‘Gordon, there is a story under every lot in Ocean City.’”
The lot, at Philadelphia Avenue and Fifth Street, was vacant until 1928, Katz said. E. Preston Disharoon, a lumber dealer in Berlin, bought the three contiguous lots that make up the property and built a 65-car parking garage.
Disharoon sold the garage in 1930, to husband and wife Samuel and Dellie Ayres, who renamed it the “Safe Garage,” a mechanic shop with rooms to rent and parking. Katz said it was advertised in a local chamber of commerce booklet in 1937, as “Safe Garage and Rooms. Fireproof Storage Garage. Nice cool rooms.”
An advertisement published in The Baltimore Sun in May 1947, promoted the “Safe Garage” as a lodging spot for young men visiting the beach resort.
“Boys, we have lots of improvements that consist of new floors, newly painted walls, hot showers and Englander Innerspring mattresses with rates the same,” the ad stated.
The concrete slab of the old building was still intact beneath the former post office, Adkins said.
He reached out to local historian Gordon Katz, of the Ocean City Life-Saving Museum, who shared the story with The Sun.
Collins Ayres, the couple’s son, took over management in 1940 and bought the building a year later. An ad in The Sun on June 30, 1945, read “STOP at safe garage. Storage. Simonizing, washing & greasing, also rooms for rent.”
According to Katz, the 1947, ad in The Baltimore Sun is notable because it mentions, “We will cater to fraternities this season,” likely a reference to an early version of Senior Week.
“The first such documented event in Ocean City took place in June 1946, when college students and ex-servicemen descended on the town in an impromptu pilgrimage that is now repeated (and expanded to include high school seniors) annually,” Katz said. “The Safe Garage offered 15 rooms to house the ‘boys’ for their romp in Ocean City.”
The building was sold to Frank Baker in 1948, and renamed Columbus Garage, though the same services continued, Katz said. During the 1950s, Baker offered the property to the town for $55,000 as a possible location for a new convention center. The town passed.
Baker had several run-ins with local police in 1957, Katz said. In early June, he was denied a permit to convert the garage into a service station but did the alterations anyway until a Circuit Court halted the project with an injunction.
“That the site had been the location of Ocean City’s first electric power plant, built in 1892, which had been converted to an oil-fired engine in 1923,” Katz said. “The power plant burned down in 1925, taking with it the Atlantic Hotel, the neighboring Seaside Hotel, much of the south side of Wicomico Street, and the pier.”
Future owners “simply covered the old tanks when erecting their new structures,” until Public Works discovered it in 2024.
In another example, Katz said the north side of Worcester Street between Baltimore and Philadelphia avenues once housed a thriving Black community in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
“You would never know it today,” Katz said. “You can pick almost any site in Ocean City, especially in the area south of 15th Street, and there is likely a story there, even if the lot is vacant today.”
“Just a few weeks later, Baker was back in court, this time accusing four teenagers from Washington with malicious destruction at his rooming place,” Katz said. “The underage boys had persuaded someone to buy them beer and then apparently went on a rampage – not an unusual occurrence.”
The building was sold again in 1961, mostly torn down and leased to what was then called the U.S. Post Office Department, Katz said.
“These stories come up quite often, given Ocean City’s 150-year history,” Katz said. “Ocean City is almost continuously reinventing itself.”
Katz pointed to another recent discovery: the town’s first substation, unearthed at the southwest corner of Baltimore Avenue and Somerset Street near the Boardwalk.
“Boys, we have lots of improvements that consist of new floors, newly painted walls, hot showers and Englander Innerspring mattresses with rates the same,” the ad stated.
The concrete slab of the old building was still intact beneath the former post office, Adkins said.
He reached out to local historian Gordon Katz, of the Ocean City Life-Saving Museum, who shared the story with The Sun.
Collins Ayres, the couple’s son, took over management in 1940 and bought the building a year later. An ad in The Sun on June 30, 1945, read “STOP at safe garage. Storage. Simonizing, washing & greasing, also rooms for rent.”
According to Katz, the 1947, ad in The Baltimore Sun is notable because it mentions, “We will cater to fraternities this season,” likely a reference to an early version of Senior Week.
“The first such documented event in Ocean City took place in June 1946, when college students and ex-servicemen descended on the town in an impromptu pilgrimage that is now repeated (and expanded to include high school seniors) annually,” Katz said. “The Safe Garage offered 15 rooms to house the ‘boys’ for their romp in Ocean City.”
The building was sold to Frank Baker in 1948, and renamed Columbus Garage, though the same services continued, Katz said. During the 1950s, Baker offered the property to the town for $55,000 as a possible location for a new convention center. The town passed.
Baker had several run-ins with local police in 1957, Katz said. In early June, he was denied a permit to convert the garage into a service station but did the alterations anyway until a Circuit Court halted the project with an injunction.
“That the site had been the location of Ocean City’s first electric power plant, built in 1892, which had been converted to an oil-fired engine in 1923,” Katz said. “The power plant burned down in 1925, taking with it the Atlantic Hotel, the neighboring Seaside Hotel, much of the south side of Wicomico Street, and the pier.”
Future owners “simply covered the old tanks when erecting their new structures,” until Public Works discovered it in 2024.
In another example, Katz said the north side of Worcester Street between Baltimore and Philadelphia avenues once housed a thriving Black community in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
“You would never know it today,” Katz said. “You can pick almost any site in Ocean City, especially in the area south of 15th Street, and there is likely a story there, even if the lot is vacant today.”
“Just a few weeks later, Baker was back in court, this time accusing four teenagers from Washington with malicious destruction at his rooming place,” Katz said. “The underage boys had persuaded someone to buy them beer and then apparently went on a rampage – not an unusual occurrence.”
The building was sold again in 1961, mostly torn down and leased to what was then called the U.S. Post Office Department, Katz said.
“These stories come up quite often, given Ocean City’s 150-year history,” Katz said. “Ocean City is almost continuously reinventing itself.”
Katz pointed to another recent discovery: the town’s first substation, unearthed at the southwest corner of Baltimore Avenue and Somerset Street near the Boardwalk.
Labels: Baltimore Sun, Down the Ocean, Gordon Katz, Josh Davis, Michael Wright
posted by Juliana L'Heureux at 11:37 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home