Eleanor M. Kelley, 79, of Philadelphia, longtime French teacher at International Christian High School, onetime adjunct professor at Temple University, role model, mentor to many, and lifelong athlete, died Friday, Feb. 20, of complications from Parkinson’s disease at Rydal Park & Waters retirement community in Jenkintown.
An honors graduate at Abraham Lincoln High School and twice at Temple, Mrs. Kelley was a compassionate, faith-driven intellectual who excelled at languages, teaching, and friendship. She taught French for two years as an adjunct professor at Temple and then for 48 years, from 1972 to 2020, at Cedar Grove Christian Academy and its successor, International Christian High School.
She worked with thousands of students from around the world at International Christian in Olney and chaperoned nine trips to Paris with her French classes. She connected with students, they said in online tributes, by smiling often and singing songs and quoting the Bible in French.
Former students called her “intellectually challenging” and “fiery when it came to teaching French.” They said: “You never gave up on us.”
Mrs. Kelley was honored online by colleagues at International Christian High School.
Her achievements were recognized by educational organizations, and she told her husband, Bill: “I need to find new ways to challenge the students. I must avoid getting caught up in the routine of teaching.”
Nearly everyone called her Madame Kelley, and they dedicated three school yearbooks to her. Several of her online tributes were written in French. “Au revoir, Madame,” they said. “Merci.”
On Facebook, Benjamin Brittin, head administrator at International Christian, said: “Mrs. Kelley was a devoted co-worker, wise, fair-minded, loving, and faithful in her support of both students and colleagues.”
She also taught English and health, and was the school’s discipline administrator and director of the Honors Society. She served on school and church committees, and helped her husband coach the International Christian boys’ basketball team.
Mrs. Kelley played basketball and volleyball at Abraham Lincoln High School.
“She was one in a million,” a former school colleague said in a Facebook tribute. Another said: “I will never stop striving for the perfection you maintained with incredible grace.”
Mrs. Kelley played basketball and volleyball in high school, and later earned 10 medals and trophies at local running events. One time, her husband said, she slowed near the end of a race so a friend could pass her and win a medal.
She earned three awards for coaching the boys’ basketball team at International Christian, and she and her husband ran often in Wissahickon Valley Park and along Kelly Drive.
“Teaching was her passion, indeed a promissory gift to so many of her students,” her husband said. “She was a fisher of minds and souls who made ideas matter.”
Mrs. Kelley and her husband, Bill, married in 1972.
Eleanor Mary Tolia was born Feb. 12, l947, in Philadelphia. She enjoyed family vacations in Atlantic City when she was young and graduated summa cum laude from Abraham Lincoln High.
She met Bill Kelley when both were students at Temple, and they married in 1972. He was on his way to basketball practice one afternoon when he saw her in her father’s diner, and he stopped in to meet her.
They lived in Roxborough, and he doted on her for more than five decades, including daily visits to her bedside over the last year. At Temple, she earned summa cum laude bachelor’s and master’s degrees in French.
Mrs. Kelley and her husband made memorable trips to Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts and the Jersey Shore. She loved flowers and Italian food, adopted three stray cats, and framed and displayed all 54 of the poems her husband wrote for her every Christmas.
Mrs. Kelley “gifted me more of my humanity,” her husband said.
She usually mailed more than 125 Christmas cards and stayed in touch with former students who became old friends. She wrote letters to the editor of The Inquirer about local events, filled 30 albums with photos, and saved practically every note and letter she ever received.
Friends called her Ellie Kelley. “She showed more humanity than anyone I ever met,” her husband said. “She gifted me more of my humanity. She was my life. She was my hero.”
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Kelley is survived by a brother and other relatives.
The Atlantic City International Airport will soon offer even more southbound flights.
Breeze Airways, a budget carrier founded in 2021, is set to add direct flights between A.C. and Tampa twice a week starting this summer, the company announced Tuesday.
The routes will be offered on Wednesdays and Saturdays beginning July 1, according to Breeze, and fares for a one-way ticket will start at $79 per person.
The airline announced the new route to and from the Jersey Shore along with more than a dozen other nonstop flights nationwide.
Breeze Airways is adding nonstop flights from Atlantic City to Tampa twice a week starting in July.
“The addition of these new cities and routes will give even more travelers the opportunity to save precious hours that would otherwise be spent flying through hubs or driving,” David Neeleman, Breeze Airways’ founder and CEO, said in a statement, noting his company’s mission to offer affordable airfare in underserved markets. Neeleman has founded four other airlines, including JetBlue.
Last month, Breeze announced new nonstop service from Atlantic City to Charleston, S.C., and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., as well as a flight to Tampa, Fla., that includes a stopover.
The Charleston flights are set to be offered on Wednesdays and Saturdays starting May 6. And the Raleigh-Durham and stopover Tampa routes are scheduled for Thursdays and Sundays starting June 11.
All Breeze flights out of Atlantic City can be booked online now at flybreeze.com.
Breeze Airways is a private company, so it is not required to publicly report its finances. Last year, however, the airline announced that it had turned a profit for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2024, a period in which the company generated more than $200 million in revenue.
The Utah-based carrier has expanded in recent years, now operating more than 300 routes, including seasonal flights, to 86 cities in the U.S., Mexico, and the Caribbean.
Breeze is one of only a few major airlines that operate a dozen or so flights in and out of Atlantic City every day, depending on the season.
American Airlines allows passengers to go through security in Atlantic City and then get on a bus to catch flights at the Philadelphia International Airport.
Why did the little seal pup leave the ocean, wander up the beach path, go one block up Middlesex Avenue, then cross three lanes of Long Beach Boulevard in Harvey Cedars?
Who knows?
Maybe it was just the long slick surface of post-storm snow and ice that urged the seal to keep going until a sunny spot in this beach town’s southbound slow lane invited her to stretch out.
Luckily for the gray seal pup, a landscaper on his way to plowing snow did not mistake her for a chunk of snow, and pulled over to block the roadway and help, Harvey Cedars Police Chief Robert Burnaford said Tuesday.
“At approximately 7 o’clock, an innocent bystander was driving by and saw the seal laying in the Boulevard,” Burnaford said by telephone.
“They called us, and the officers confirmed the seal was kind of just relaxing in the slow lane of Long Beach Boulevard,” the chief said. “Literally it crossed over three lanes of traffic to where it was finally hanging out.”
A member of Public Works wrapped the seal in his jacket and moved her to Middlesex Avenue, out of traffic, Burnaford said. The Marine Mammal Stranding Center responded and carried her to their truck, and then to their hospital in Brigantine.
A gray seal pup wandered off the beach in Harvey Cedars and ended up in the middle of Long Beach Boulevard on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, a day after a snowstorm dropped a foot and a half of snow on the island.
The Stranding Center put it this way on Instagram: “POV: When your nap shuts down a whole street.”
The center said in social media statements that the pup had no injuries but was in “thin overall body condition.”
“She is currently resting comfortably in Pen 2 of the Pool House,” the center wrote.
Seal beachings are not uncommon at the Jersey Shore, but the animals rarely end up off the beach. Burnaford said that a seal once ended up in the driveway of an oceanfront home.
“They beach themselves to sun themselves,“ Burnaford said. ”Maybe she was sick and tired of the weather, trying to find another place.”
A gray seal pup wandered off the beach in Harvey Cedars and ended up in the middle of Long Beach Boulevard on Tuesday, a day after a snowstorm dropped a foot and a half of snow on the island.
Official totals put towns on Long Beach Island at around 18 inches of snow.
“It was icy and maybe [the seal] was able to slip and slide easier,” the chief said.
Ben Vaughn is a man of many moods, and an equal number of career twists.
The Camden County native and radio host’s hourlong show The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn — “broadcasting weekly from the Relay Shack, from parts unknown” — airs Saturdays at 6 p.m. on WXPN-FM (88.5). It’s also heard on 19 other stations in the U.S. and one in France.
The singer-guitarist has released 20 albums, starting with his 1986 debut, also called The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn, and including one, 1997’s Rambler ’65, recorded entirely in his car.
His collaborative album with Providence, R.I.-based band and Ben Vaughn fanboys Deer Tick is due in October, and his first U.S. tour in nearly three decades will follow. (He plays regularly in Spain, France, and Italy.)
In the 1990s, the Mount Ephraim-native moved to Los Angeles and worked as a music composer for the hit TV sitcoms 3rd Rock From the Sun and That ‘70s Show. His credits as a record producer include legends and eccentrics such as Charlie Feathers, Alex Chilton, Los Straitjackets, Nancy Sinatra, and New Hope duo Ween.
Along the way, he’s accumulated a lifetime of stories, from his encounter with Billy Joel’s hippie band Attila in Philly head shop 13th Street Conspiracy to playing harmonica with Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Spectrum in the 1980s.
Ben Vaughn’s new podcast with Laura Pochodylo is “Straight From the Hat.”
This week’s episode of the pod, which debuted in January with episodes released every other Thursday, concerns a subject dear to Vaughn’s heart. Philly DJ Jerry Blavat — the Geator with the Heater, the Boss with the Hot Sauce — was Vaughn’s “mentor without knowing it” for years until the two became close friends and then collaborators late in the life of Blavat, who died in 2023 at 82.
Straight From the Hat took shape because Sonny Bono brought Vaughn and Pochodylo together.
In 2022, Vaughn was digging into the Sun vaults to curate a compilation for the storied label’s 70th anniversary. With songs by Feathers, Harmonica Frank, and the Prisonaires, it shows the flair for unearthing musical gems that Vaughn displays in the 552 Many Moods episodes that have aired since launching on Valentine’s Day 2009. (Over 300 are available on podcast platforms.)
Speaking from Many Moods headquarters near Joshua Tree in California’s Mojave Desert, Vaughn says that “even though she’s a lot younger than me” — he’s 70, Pochodylo is 33 — “her record collection is almost identical to mine.”
They bonded over “non-ironic appreciation” of Bono, the late singer, actor, and politician famed for his work with his wife Cher. Bono also wrote songs recorded by Sam Cooke, Jackie DeShannon, and the Rolling Stones. Pochodylo calls herself “a Sonny Bono evangelist.”
Vaughn told Pochodylo stories about musicians in Sun Records’ collection who he had worked with.
“And then we came up with the idea to write all these names down and throw them in a hat. She picks one out, and I say whatever comes to mind. No preparation, no planning.”
In this week’s episode, Pochodylo pulls out Blavat’s name, and Vaughn has plenty to say about the Philadelphia life force he first felt at age 10 in 1965, when he tuned into Blavat’s afternoon TV show The Discophonic Scene.
“I started going to these dances he would put on at gymnasiums and Knights of Columbus Halls,” Vaughn said. “The first song I ever played lead guitar on in front of an audience was ‘Sheba’ by Johnny and the Hurricanes because the Geator was using it as a theme song.”
Jerry “The Geator” Blavat with Ben Vaughn in 1997.
Vaughn played drums in his first band when he was 12, and got a South Jersey musical education at Blavat package shows seeing vocal groups like the Dells and Delfonics.
A Four Tops performance at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City “spoiled me,” he said, “because the Four Tops were one of the most professional acts in the history of entertainment. So everything was perfect.
“And then I saw Canned Heat [at the Pier], and I remember they were very high, and couldn’t keep their guitars in tune because of the salt air. I remember thinking: ‘There are several ways to go as an entertainer, and this is one way I will never go!’”
The free-form nature of The Many Moods, which last week featured songs under two minutes by artists like Francoise Hardy, Bob Dylan, and Nina Simone, was shaped not by Blavat but by early 1970s Philly DJs like David Dye and Michael Tearson on WMMR-FM (93.3).
Ben Vaughn in Philadelphia in the summer of 1970.
But the unstoppable self-confidence and business acumen of Blavat, who Vaughn got to know in the 1980s, shaped Vaughn’s career.
“There was a way the rest of the world did things, and a Geator way,” Vaughn said. “He told me I should own my own show, which I do.” Blavat emphasized self-belief. Whatever Vaughn did would have value, as long as it was truly unique.
“The Geator would buy time on the radio, and sell ads himself. I would drive around with him to pizzerias and shoe stores and car dealerships and watch him. And then we’d drive away with a car with his name on the side. The Geatormobile!”
Philly musicians in future Straight episodes include “Mashed Potato Time” singer Dee Dee Sharp and rock and roller Charlie Gracie, who befriended Vaughn in the 1970s at the Mount Ephraim club Capriotti’s, where Gracie was nightly entertainment and Vaughn a dishwasher.
“I watched it and you can hardly hear me. But I show up in the close captions and they spell my name right. So that’s a victory.”
In 2021, Vaughn helped Blavat move out of his office on East Market Street and found unopened letters from 1964 with song requests to play on Blavat’s WCAN-AM (1320) radio show. Blavat and Vaughn opened them on air on XPN in 2021 in a show called The Lost Dedications.
“The Geator created something that never existed before,” Vaughn said. “Geatordelphia! It was a subculture. The way he talked, the kind of records he played, the way he had of communicating with the audience.
“He connected so many human beings, and made everybody feel good. He made us all feel like we were better looking than we really were. Only South Philly could have produced a guy like him. It didn’t make sense to anyone outside of a 90-mile radius. The Jersey Shore, Trenton, Wilmington, that’s it.
“That was the great thing about doing the podcast. Laura is originally from Detroit, and she didn’t know anything about the Geator. And trying to explain the Geator to an outsider is an amusing thing.”
“Straight From the Hat” episodes are at straightfromthehat.com and on all podcast platforms.
Murray Wolf, 87, of Avalon, the legendary no-nonsense beach patrol captain whose half-century reign inspired and guided generations of lifeguards, while aggravating some famous and not-so-famous beachgoers along the way, died Monday, Feb. 16, at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City following a stroke.
“He was probably the most loyal person I’ve known in my life,” said his wife of 43 years, Vicki Wolf. “Anybody who came into contact with him, he made them a better person, no question about it.”
Murray Wolf was captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol for more than a half-century and spent 65 years on the patrol. “He had the highest of standards,” said John Glomb, who served under him for decades.
“He had the highest of standards,“ said John Glomb, who served under him for decades. ”When the conditions were not favorable, he drove around the beaches and made sure the guards were on top of their bathers, making sure that nobody was in harm’s way.
“He had a record where in his 65 years, there was never a drowning. That’s a record that is absolutely spectacular.”
Not everyone appreciated Mr. Wolf’s brand of beach enforcement. In 1999, he famously tangled with then-WIP sports radio personality Angelo Cataldi over a beach tag, showing him no mercy.
Cataldi endlessly railed about it on air, and never truly got over it, saying in 2016, as Wolf entered his 61st year on the beach patrol, “I do harbor ill will toward Murray Wolf, and I always will.” Cataldi did not respond to an email following news of Mr. Wolf’s passing.
Mr. Wolf brushed off the Cataldi encounter like he did most of his encounters on the beach, a place he patrolled with military precision, complete with nightly wave-offs, stand by stand, from his jeep. Rules were meant to be enforced. But he could laugh about it, even if Cataldi couldn’t.
There was also Frank Wilson, formerly of Chester County, who sued Avalon in 2001 and won $175,000, driven arguably mad after being repeatedly whistled out of the water when he tried to swim after 5 p.m. “We have the right to protect our bathers,” Mr. Wolf said at the time.
Murray Wolf, shown here rowing with his son Tyler during his final year on the Avalon Beach Patrol.
Within the ranks of his family — wife Vicki; sons Matthew, Erich, and Tyler; and his 10-year-old black Lab, Ruger — Mr. Wolf’s loyalty, kindness, and appreciation for Avalon’s simple pleasures were deeply admired.
The same was true for the ranks of lifeguards, wrestling teams, his Pleasantville school district physical education classes, and the multiple championship South Jersey beach patrol teams he coached in Avalon with the utmost of pride.
Mr. Wolf rode his bike around Avalon almost to the end and walked Ruger in the deepest of snows.
Murray Wolf, longtime captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol, taking a break from preseason preparations at age 77 to watch his son coach his baseball team.
“He was happy to sit home and watch the football game, sit on the couch, yell at the dog for running in and out,” his wife said. “He loved his Avalon. There wasn’t one time we rode over the bridge into town when he didn’t say, ‘Oh, that was the best decision I made, moving to Avalon.’ He was just a content man, satisfied.”
His blunt style could rub some the wrong way. Vicki Wolf, who met her husband at the Princeton, Avalon’s iconic bar, spotting at first his muscular arms, she recalled, said she always knew when someone in town had had an uncomfortable encounter with Mr. Wolf when they would veer away from her in the supermarket.
He led his patrols through a pandemic, hurricanes, and new technology: He vowed to fire any guard caught with a cell phone on the stand. “It says Lifeguard on Duty,” he said in 2016. “It’s a duty.”
“There was nothing phony about him,” Vicki Wolf said. “He was never one to take low blows about him. Not everybody liked him. He had enemies, but they respected him.”
“He took a lot of pride in Avalon doing well — that was in everything Murray did,” Glomb said. “He ran a tight ship. He ran a tight beach.”
In the offseason, Mr. Wolf coached championship wrestling teams and was a physical education teacher in the Pleasantville school district for 50 years. His son Matt took his place as Avalon beach patrol captain in 2021 and also coaches wrestling in Middle Township.
Murray Wolf, longtime captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol pictured here in 2016 with some of his lifeguards at the patrol’s headquarters. ED HILLE / Staff Photographer
Matt Wolf said his father suffered a stroke on Nov. 11 and was hospitalized until his Feb. 16 death. It seemed to so many that he might live forever, given his lifelong physical fitness and vigor, the devotion to his routines of bike riding and dog walking through town.
“I think people saw him as very serious when he was in that public spotlight,” Matt Wolf said. “He had a great sense of humor. He didn’t need to be out with a bunch of people. He was happy to be home with his family.”
The generations of guards who worked under him paid tribute to Capt. Wolf following his passing. “It was an honor to work with The Captain — there’s nobody quite like him,” Ryan Finnegan wrote on Facebook. “He taught his guards countless life lessons over the decades. Thousands of lives were saved because of him. The beaches in heaven are much safer now! Rest easy Capt.”
Murray Wolf was captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol for more than a half-century and spent 65 years on the patrol. “He had the highest of standards,” said John Glomb, who served under him for decades.
George Murray Wolf III was born Aug. 16, 1938, in Philadelphia to Elizabeth Gerhard and George Murray Wolf II and was raised on the Main Line. He and his family vacationed in Avalon from the time he was a child.
He graduated from Conestoga High School and, after briefly working in a steel mill, Mr. Wolf attended Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., where he competed in wrestling and won a team national championship. He graduated with a degree in physical education and later earned a master’s in educational administration from Rider University.
Mr. Wolf spent more than 50 years teaching physical education in Pleasantville. As head wrestling coach, he led the Pleasantville High School Greyhounds to the 1974 District 32 Championship. “He loved his job working with students and his colleagues at Leeds Avenue School,” his son wrote in the family obituary.
Avalon Beach patrol chief Matt Wolf (center) with his parents Vicki and Murray at the 2024 South Jersey Lifeguard Championships in Brigantine.
Mr. Wolf served as captain of the Avalon Beach patrol from 1967 to 2020 and served a total of 65 years on the patrol. His teams, competing in the storied lifeguard races every summer, won nine South Jersey Lifeguard Championships, and Mr. Wolf had the joy of coaching his sons in winning boats.
Mr. Wolf and his wife were fixtures at their sons’ football, wrestling, baseball, and track and field games and meets, when their sons were competitors and, later, when their sons became coaches themselves.
Ventnor’s retired beach patrol chief Stan Bergman, himself a legendary chief and coach, has called Mr. Wolf “a warrior.” “He’s battle-tested,” Bergman said in a 2016 interview. “They have a tough beach.”
Murray Wolf was captain of the Avalon Beach Patrol for more than a half-century and spent 65 years on the patrol. “He had the highest of standards,” said John Glomb, who served under him for decades. He took great pride in his teams winning the South Jersey Lifeguard Championships.
“He was a very staunch competitor,” said Ed Schneider, chief of Wildwood’s beach patrol and also a wrestling coach. “I was always nervous going up against his teams. He commanded a presence around him. He made people push themselves to be the best.”
After Matt Wolf took his place as captain of the patrol, he would include his dad as much as possible, taking him in the jeep along the beach. Murray Wolf always attended the lifeguard races, talking to the guards about the David J. Kerr Memorial Races, a competition he began in 1984 to honor a guard who died of cancer.
In his final weeks, when the family came into his hospital room, his wife said, he would look for his boys, and “always blow a kiss and say, ‘I love you.’”
“Every night I would get home, the dog would go sit on the deck and look down the street,” Vicki Wolf said. “It broke my heart. He was looking for Murray.”
In addition to his wife and their three sons, he is survived by another son, George Murray IV, and a sister. A son, Michael, died earlier.
Services will be at noon Friday, Feb. 27, at our Savior Lutheran Church, 9212 Third Ave., Stone Harbor, N.J. Visitation will be 10 to 11:45 a.m.
Donations may be made to the Middle Township Wrestling Program or the Helen L. Diller Vacation Home for Blind Children.
Murray Wolf was devoted to his three black labs, including Ruger.
A man has been arrested in the theft of more than $175,000 worth of metal and mechanical components from the iconic Jersey Shore theme park Morey’s Piers.
Wildwood police said they arrested William Morelli, 67, of Wildwood Crest. Police first became aware of the heist, which occurred over several days, on Feb. 4. The reporting party provided police with a suspect and vehicle description after reviewing surveillance video.
Upon investigation, police said they identified Morelli, as the suspect who removed a large amount of metal from Morey’s temporary work site on the beach.
Morelli allegedly removed metal from the beach before selling it to an unidentified scrapyard business, according to Wildwood police. Morelli was charged with theft of movable property and later released from custody.
The theft comes at a time when the iconic Morey’s Ferris wheel is undergoing much-needed renovations at the South Philadelphia Navy Yard.
Geoff Rogers, chief operating officer at Morey’s Piers, said although work crews remain optimistic, the stolen materials bring an “unexpected and disappointing setback” to the project.
“We are heartbroken by this incident,” Rogers said. “The Giant Wheel holds deep sentimental value for not only the company and our team members, but the generations of families who have made memories on it.”
Despite the theft, Rogers said that the planned Ferris wheel renovation should be complete by the start of the 2026 summer season, as originally planned.
The Giant Wheel, a 156-foot LED-lit Ferris wheel and one of the tallest at the Jersey Shore, is disassembled, repaired, and repainted regularly, but this year’s renovation required transportation to the Navy Yard to work on its 16,000-pound centerpiece.
Designed by Dutch ride manufacturer Vekoma Rides and installed in 1985, the Giant Wheel has been a recognizable symbol of the Wildwood skyline for decades. In 2012, they upgraded it with an LED light system.
After last year’s closures of Gillian’s Wonderland in Ocean City and Wildwood’s Splash Zone Water Park, Morey’s Piers are the last beachside water parks and one of the Jersey Shore’s remaining large-scale Ferris wheels.
Once again, there will be music on the beach in Atlantic City this summer.
Australian electronic dance music trio Rüfüs Du Sol will perform on the ocean side of the A.C. boardwalk on Aug. 29 in what’s expected to be the first in a wave of shows to take place this year.
That show by the Sydney-based pop/house music band, which is also playing Bonnaroo, Wrigley Field, and Madison Square Garden, will mark a return to the tradition of A.C. beach shows. The stage on the Arkansas Avenue beach will face north, with the Caesar’s Pier (formerly the Million Dollar Pier) behind it.
Over the years, beach concerts have included Pink in 2017, the Vans Warped Tour in 2019, three-nights of Phish in 2021 and 2022, the pop-punk Adjacent Music Festival in 2023, and the TidalWave country fest in 2022 and 2023.
Australian electronic dance music act Rufus Del Sol will perform on the Atlantic City beach on August 29.
For the last two years, however, there have been no large scale A.C. beach shows (though Philly impresario Dave P. did stage an intimate Making Waves festival last year).
Music fans had to travel north to Asbury Park for Sea. Hear. Now or south to Wildwood for the Barefoot Country to experience a surf side musical blowout.
But now Visit Atlantic City, the public-private partnership funded by New Jersey’s Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, has announced a new Atlantic City collaboration with Live Nation.
“With the help of Live Nation and our partners,” Gary Musich, Visit Atlantic City president and CEO said in a statement, the storied Jersey resort town aims to “attract a wide range of world class performers, energize our tourism economy, and continue delivering experience that resonate with visitors year round.”
That means more shows and not just in the summer, Molly Warren, Live Nation senior vice president of booking said in a statement. The concert promotion company regularly books venues such as Boardwalk Hall, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Borgata Hotel Casino, or, Warren said, “even right on the beach.”
No other 2026 Atlantic City beach concerts have been announced as of yet. Tickets for Rüfüs Du Sol go on sale on Thursday, Feb. 26, at 10 a.m. at RüfüsDuSol.com/live.
J. Cole play Xfinity Mobile Arena in South Philly on July 20.
Rapper J. Cole will bring his “Fall-Off Tour” to Xfinity Mobile Arena on July 20. It’s the Grammy-winning North Carolina producer and artist’s tour for his new album of the same name. It will take him not only across the U.S., but also to Europe and South Africa. Tickets for the Philly show go on sale Friday at 11 a.m. at thefalloff.com.
Three days later, Shinedown, the Jacksonville, Fla., rock band led by singer Brent Smith and guitarist Zach Myers, will play the Xfinity Mobile Arena on their “Dance Kid Dance: Act II” Tour.
The federal official in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers visited Ocean City and other Jersey Shore communities Friday, along with U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, pledging that beach replenishment help is on its way.
Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, came to New Jersey for a tour hosted by Van Drew. The Army Corps manages beach projects and puts up the majority of money. States and municipalities contribute the rest.
“There’s emergency funding that’s available,” Telle said from Fifth Street on Ocean City’s boardwalk, adding that some beaches would see repairs by summer.
Telle said the money does not hinge on legislation and has President Donald Trump’s support.
The Army Corps will evaluate which beaches are in the most severe condition, he said, including Ocean City, which is among the top of the list. Telle and Van Drew did not cite a specific amount of money but indicated millions could be available.
Telle, Van Drew, and other officials visited Strathmere, Avalon, and North Wildwood, which have all been heavily impacted by storm erosion over the last year. The short-term goal this year would be to take spoils from Army Corps projects and spread that on beaches.
They said they plan to draw on a mix of funding, including money still remaining from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, other supplemental funds, and earmarks — language in appropriations bills to direct federal funds to state and local projects.
Van Drew, a Republican, represents multiple Shore towns on the southern tip of New Jersey.
Friday’s tour came on the heels of zero dollars earmarked for beach replenishment in 2025 — the first time that had happened since 1996. Up to $200 million annually has typically been awarded for beach erosion control projects.
Van Drew also introduced a bill last week to establish a new source of continuous beach replenishment money through the Coastal Trust Fund Act.
The bill would pay for ongoing coastal storm risk management by the Army Corps. U.S. Rep. Laura Gillen, a Democrat from New York, is a cosponsor.
According to Van Drew, the legislation would use revenue from offshore energy leases to fund $1 billion a year into Army Corps of Engineers coastal storm management projects.
He said his bill, if approved, would create a permanent source of funding so that it would not depend on yearly appropriations from Congress.
“We need to get a permanent system in place so we aren’t riding this roller coaster,” Van Drew said.
However, he acknowledged that getting any bill approved in Congress right now is difficult.
“It’s going to be a labor of love,” Van Drew said, adding that he is gathering “support from all around the country.”
There is no date for a vote on the bill.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (center), Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle (right) and Upper Township Mayor Curtis Corson Jr. discuss shore erosion and beach replenishment in Strathmere.
A measure has been introduced by U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican from Tennessee, for $23 million to fund coastal replenishment projects this year. That would be supplemented by a Senate bill introduced by U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, that would allocate $62.2 million. However, neither bill is scheduled for a vote.
In 2025, multiple New Jersey Shore towns found themselves in a crisis over erosion as Congress and Trump pushed for a huge reduction in the federal budget.
No money was made available for crucial beach nourishment projects. The lack of funding became a political issue in New Jersey, which depends heavily on its beaches for tourism revenue.
For decades, beach projects have been a staple of coastal management in the United States. In 2025, projects were paused in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Projects set for Cape May, Stone Harbor, Avalon, Sea Isle, Strathmere, Ocean City, and Long Beach Islandwerestalled because of the lack of funding. Georgia and Florida also were affected.
In October, Ocean City declared a local emergency over the severe erosion exacerbated by storms like Hurricane Erin and a potent nor’easter in October. The city was left grappling with sand cliffs upward of five feet high after the storms scoured its beaches.
Mayor Jay Gillian and others pushed for urgent state and federal intervention, citing the difficulty of managing large-scale beach replenishments and dune restoration with city resources alone.
Gillian said Friday at the tour stop in Ocean City that he welcomed any help from the Army Corps and Van Drew.
“They’re working for a solution,” Gillian said of Telle and Van Drew. “The permanent funding, that’s huge because it stops the games, and it stops the politics.”
Van Drew represents the largely conservative 2nd District, which spans mostly rural and Shore communities in South Jersey, including all of Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Salem Counties, plus parts of Gloucester and Ocean Counties. He remains optimistic for funding.
VENTNOR, N.J. — They demolished the existing boardwalk from the tennis courts to the fishing pier, north to south, and now they are building their way back up.
Financed mostly with federal funds granted to New Jersey from the COVID American Rescue Plan, Ventnor and other Shore towns like Ocean City, North Wildwood, Atlantic City, and Wildwood have set out to redo or upgrade their iconic pathways.
Ventnor is using $7 million in federal funds and bonded for about $4 million more, officials said.
Will this stretch of boardwalk reconstruction be done by Memorial Day?
Construction continues on the boardwalk on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Ventnor City, N.J.
“It’s always a worry,” Ed Stinson, the Ventnor city engineer, said in an interview late last month. “We’ve had multiple meetings with the contractor [Schiavone Construction], one as recent as three weeks ago. In all the meetings, he’s said it’ll be complete and open before Memorial Day.”
The reconstruction has delivered a seven-block offseason interruption in a walkway that is popular year-round.
Work will stop for the summer, city officials say. In the fall, a second 13-block section, from Suffolk Avenue to the Atlantic City border at Jackson Avenue, will begin. There is currently no funding or plan for the boardwalk from Cambridge south to the Margate border, said Stinson.
The biggest change people will notice is that the original and distinctive angled herringbone decking pattern of the boardwalk is being replaced with a straight board decking. Ultimately, it came down to cost over tradition.
“There was discussion about it,” said Stinson. “There’s additional lumber that’s wasted when you do the herringbone, and the labor to cut that material. The additional material costs were significant. It’s a waste of tropical lumber. The only reason to go herringbone is tradition and appearance.”
The reconstruction has delivered a seven-block offseason interruption in a walkway that is popular year-round. Work will stop for the summer, city officials say.
Other differences are changes in lighting (lower, more frequent light poles) and some enhancements of accessible ramps. The existing benches, with their memorial plaques, will be back.
To demolish the boardwalk, the contractor cut the joist and the decking in 14-foot sections, “swung it around, carried it over to the volleyball court,” Stinson said, on Suffolk Avenue.
“That’s where they did their crushing and loading into the dumpsters. They worked their way down and followed that with the pile removing.”
The original herringbone pattern can be seen on the left, compared with the new straight decking pattern on the new construction side.
The other massive job was excavating the sand that had accumulated under the boardwalk. “They screened it, cleaned it, and put it down there,” on the beach in piles. It will be spread around above the tide line, Stinson said.
Once the excavation was down, the pile driving crew set out beginning at the south end and working their way toward Suffolk Avenue. “Then the framing crew came in and started framing,” Stinson said. On Feb. 2, the third team began its work: the decking crew.
The weather has slowed the pace, Stinson said. “They were doing about 20 to 24 piles a day,” he said, a pace that dropped to about nine piles a day after the snowstorm and ice buildup.
The framing crew installs pile caps, 8-by-14 beams that run across the boardwalk atop the pilings. The decking crew follows behind them, installing the wood, a tropical wood known as Cumaru. The use of Brazilian rainforest lumber at one time inspired protests, but that has not been an issue this time.
Construction continues on the boardwalk on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Ventnor City, N.J.
Ventnor’s boardwalk, which links to Atlantic City’s famous walkway, dates to 1910. It was rebuilt twice before: once after the hurricane of 1944 and again after the March storm of 1962. Margate, on the southern end, never rebuilt its boardwalk after 1944.
Stinson said the tropical wood is noted for its “denseness and durability. It does not last forever.”
In all, $100 million of American Rescue funds was set aside by Gov. Phil Murphy for a Boardwalk Fund and awarded to 18 municipalities, including, as Stinson said, “anybody who has anything close to a boardwalk.”
Brigantine, with its promenade, received $1.18 million. Ocean City, in the process of rebuilding a portion of its north end boardwalk, received $4.85 million.
The two biggest recipients were Asbury Park and Atlantic City, each receiving $20 million. Atlantic City has completed a rebuilding of its Boardwalk to stretch all the way around the inlet to Gardner’s Basin. Wildwood, with $8.2 million, has undertaken a boardwalk reconstruction project, and North Wildwood, receiving $10.2 million, is rebuilding its boardwalk between 24th and 26th Streets, combining the herringbone pattern with a straight board lane for the tram car.
Although the timing of the reconstruction was no doubt prompted by the availability of the federal funds, Stinson said Ventnor’s boardwalk had shown signs of age.
“We’ve been into some significant repairs on the boardwalk,” Stinson said. “Those have increased every year. We were getting into pile failures. It was due. I don’t know if the city would have tackled it without the [federal] money.”
Ventnor’s boardwalk, which links to Atlantic City’s famous walkway, dates to 1910. It was rebuilt twice before: once after the hurricane of 1944 and again after the March storm of 1962.
Over 60 years ago, the first American to climb Mount Everest sported an Eddie Bauer coat. Now the company behind the outdoor apparelfinds itself conducting liquidation sales.
The operator of Eddie Bauer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey on Monday and is winding down stores as it seeks a buyer.
Eddie Bauer is laying off some 58 employees in New Jersey at locations in Burlington, Gloucester, Middlesex, and Monmouth Counties, according to a layoff notice filed with the state.
“In an effort to rightsize the company’s store footprint and close underperforming stores, the company will be closing a number of retail locations in N.J.,” reads the notice.
In Pennsylvania, a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Labor and Industry said they had not received a layoff notice for Eddie Bauer stores as of Tuesday morning.
Before filing for bankruptcy, the company chose not to renew leases for 49 stores that had leases ending Jan. 31. Those locations have since closed, bankruptcy documents indicate.
The company is liquidating the remaining 175 stores as it seeks out a buyer.
In the Philadelphia area, Eddie Bauer stores are located at the Gloucester Premium Outlets in Camden County, at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets in Montgomery County, as well as in Concordville in Delaware County.
As of Tuesday, the Fashion District location in Center City appeared to be closed, according to the Eddie Bauer website.
What led to the bankruptcy?
Eddie Bauer stores have been operated by Catalyst Brands, which was formed in January 2025 in a merger that brought together brands including Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, and JCPenney.
The CEO of Catalyst Brands, Marc Rosen, said in a news release Monday that the Eddie Bauer operator had been in a “challenged situation,” even before the new parent company was formed last year. The company was dealing with declining sales and supply chain challenges amid other issues, he said.
“Over the past year, these challenges have been exacerbated by various headwinds, including increased costs of doing business due to inflation, ongoing tariff uncertainty, and other factors,” Rosen said. “While the leadership team at Catalyst was able to make significant strides in the brand, including rapid improvements in product development and marketing, those changes could not be implemented fast enough to fully address the challenges created over several years.”
