OCEAN GROVE, NJ-Most of the New Jersey boardwalks that were beat up by Hurricane Sandy last October will be ready for the Memorial Day weekend, municipal officials have been reporting.

A quick walk this morning along the rearranged sand in Ocean Grove and neighboring Asbury Park makes it obvious how much further along Asbury is toward the goal. Ocean Grove has a particular hurdle to overcome, however – namely financing.

FEMA has rejected the community's request for $1 million to repair its boardwalk, because it is owned by the private, non-profit ministry group Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. State Sen. Jennifer Beck has said that's unfair. Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association owns all the real estate from Main Street to the ocean, including the disappeared boardwalk, the beach and 2,000 feet into the water.

“They actually operate like a small municipality within Neptune Township,” Beck has argued. “And the boardwalk itself is actually critical infrastructure.”

Nevertheless, while Asbury has proceeded with rebuilding its famous boardwalk – the one Gov. Chris Christie so famously frequents – there was only the beginning of progress a few hundred feet away. In the last few days, the association has brought in workers to start raising the lampposts that helped define the look of its shoreline promenade for many decades.

A bulldozer was moving several of the huge dunes created in the storm underneath the missing boardwalk's flagpole, where banners hung at half-mast the day after tragedy in Boston. The raised lampposts, some of them still cock-eyed, stood at attention as best they could.

Instant Insights /

Restoring the Shore in Asbury & Ocean Grove

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