Related: Steel Pier / Seaworld San Antonio / The Kemah Boardwalk / Kennywood
Jenkinson’s Boardwalk is an amusement park located in Pleasant Beach, New Jersey.
The amusement park is named after Charles Jenkinson who, in the early 1900s, opened soda fountains in the shore towns of Ocean City and Asbury Park to cater for the many thousands of tourists who had begun to flock there. However, due to trading restrictions, he decided to quit earning his living that way and in 1926, he acquired property in neighbouring Pleasant Beach and opened his very own Jenkinson’s Pavilion in 1928. The pavilion was located on the beach and it was a large open air building with a soda fountain, refreshment stand and a candy store to which Jenkinson added a novelty shop and a swimming pool. Just a year later, he went on to add a dance hall and, subsequently, a miniature golf course.
The amusement park was able to survive the Great Depression of the 1930s quite admirably but Jenkinson died in 1937 at which point it was taken over by his son, Orlo. He added attractions to the amusement park over the years but he, too, died in 1964.
By the late 1970s, the amusement park found itself stagnating but a revival was to happen under the stewardship of Pasquale ‘Pat’ Storino, a juke box and arcade games dealer. Throughout the 1980s, Storino laboured tirelessly to make the amusement park a success and there were highs and lows throughout this decade, most notably when a fire broke out in 1989 which destroyed the Pavilion and, but for a favourable wind direction, almost destroyed the entire boardwalk.
The addition of a Fun House in 1998 to the amusement park went a big way to reviving its fortunes and it has continued to be popular and has been constantly evolving ever since. There are several rides at the amusement park which are geared towards younger children whilst the southern end of the amusement park plays host to the larger rides aimed more at teenagers. Popular rides at the amusement park include the Swing Ride, Himalaya and Moby Dick.