🦈 Shark week | Down the Shore

Before there was Jaws — the fictional story of a killer shark terrorizing a sleepy beach town — there was the very real summer of 1916 at the Jersey Shore.

Five shark attacks. Seventy miles of coastline. Less than two weeks.

According to Michael Capuzzo’s book Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence, the first attack happened in Beach Haven in July 1916. In the end, four people were killed. One was injured.

Nearly 100 years later, another shark captured the Shore’s attention — this time, with a little less bloodshed.

In 2012, researchers with the shark-tracking nonprofit OCEARCH caught a roughly 3,500-pound, 16-foot great white in Cape Cod. They named her Mary Lee, tagged her with a GPS tracker, and released her back into the Atlantic. The researchers tracked her all along the East Coast.

Mary Lee quickly went viral. She became an internet sensation when she appeared off the coast of the Jersey Shore in 2015, swimming through Cape May and near Ocean City. She gained about 130,000 Twitter followers on a parody account. That summer, she came within 700 meters of Lavallette’s Normandy Beach during one of her sojourns.

She visited the Jersey coast three summers in a row. She was less than 40 miles off the coast of Atlantic City in 2016. She was spotted off Wildwood on Memorial Day 2017, and later that season off the coast of Point Pleasant.

The warm response to Mary Lee marked a departure from the sheer terror instilled by a shark with the same iconic gray fin — a fin that, 50 years ago this summer, became a universal symbol of impending doom, thanks to Jaws.

And then Mary Lee went missing.

Her tracker was built to last five years. On June 17, 2017, it stopped pinging. The battery died. Mary Lee disappeared.

What made Jaws an effective horror movie in 1975 was fear of the unknown, and a faded memory of a gruesome summer 60 years earlier. It made people afraid to go into the ocean.

You know, distorting reality for dramatic effect.

So, what happened to Mary Lee?

Well, she’s probably still out there.

Happy swimming.

📮 How many times will you watch Jaws this holiday weekend? Will you think twice before going in the water? 👀 Let me know what you think by replying to this email, and Amy will include the most interesting responses next week. And remember: Please be our eyes and ears at the Shore! Send us tips or story ideas here, or send them to The Inquirer’s tip line here.

😎 All signs are pointing to a sunny Independence Day.

— Tommy Rowan (🐦 Tweet me at @tommyrowan . 📧 Email me here.)

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🚨 Bart Blatstein pays debts. The Showboat owner paid a $500,000 debt to a contractor after a warrant was issued for his arrest, according to the Press of A.C.

💰 New Ocean City tax? Ocean City officials are set to vote July 17 on a proposed 3% tax on Airbnbs and other short-term online rentals, according to the Press of A.C.

🏖️ Free the beaches. According to a Stockton University poll, most New Jerseyans think Shore beaches should be free. Half of polled residents also felt the cost of beach tags was too high.

🎆 Happy Fourth of July! Check out this handy guide to the fireworks shows and festive celebrations happening across the region.

📖 Beachgoers read everything. From fantasy romances to nonfiction, books are as essential as sunscreen. My colleague Hira Qureshi rounded up a list of the top page-turners Shore visitors are reading this summer.

🐶 New park for puppers. Atlantic City recently opened its first city-run dog park at South New Hampshire and Pacific Avenues in Altman Park. The grassy and mulched doggy digs has separate sections for larger and smaller dogs, and both include obstacle courses and open space. It’s now open daily from sunrise to sunset.

Tonio’s was the pizza joint in Avalon that served late-night revelers on Ocean Drive for 30 years before closing in 2021. Congrats to David Danoff who was first to get it right.

This week’s question:

Which current NFL head coach vacationed in Ocean City as a child?

A. Andy Reid

B. Mike Tomlin

C. Sean Payton

D. Jim Harbaugh

If you think you know the answer, email us here.

Serial moviegoer Vince Sculli went to see Jaws so often in the summer of 1975, at mostly single-screen Wildwood movie theaters, that employees nicknamed him “Joe Jaws.” And the name, as well as the iconic film about the vicious shark, has been following him around ever since. We profiled JJ in this very newsletter last year.

But as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the seminal summer blockbuster, we decided it was a good time to follow-up with our Shore slam book questions:

Favorite beach: Fifth Street in North Wildwood.

Favorite summer breakfast: Scrapple and pancakes.

Your idea of a perfect beach day: Sleeping for as long as I can on the beach. I put my chair so it faces the ocean, and then I could sleep for three or four hours at time, unless the Phillies are on.

Perfect night? Things have changed. In 1975, I was at the movies. At 64, I’m content with coming home from the beach and watching the Phillies.

Best Shore sandwich: Pork roll and cheese on a hamburger bun.

Ice cream/water ice order? Water ice, blueberry and lemon mixed. Ice cream is Dolewhip, mix of strawberry with the pineapple.

When summer approaches, I feel: Excited.

It wouldn’t be the Jersey Shore without: The boardwalk.

Best thing for kids: The rides on the boardwalk. Stay away from the games because they’re all ripoffs, but the rides are great.

Surfing or fishing? Crabbing!

Sunrise or sunset? Sunset.

Shore pet peeve? Overcrowded parking.

The Shore could be improved if: They’d stop knocking down motels and building condos.

From Joseph Farley: The station wagon seemed to bulge like in a Willie the Worm cartoon; where endless hordes of Micky Mouse types invade a building. Our family of ten filled the seats with the baby on mom’s lap. It was 1955, the tires were near bald and Dad kept a gallon of water handy to feed the radiator should it geyser in heavy traffic. We left Cheltenham for Wildwood already singing, “On the Way to Cape May.” My pockets bulged with the contents of my piggy bank, my life’s savings. It was a six-hour trip, four of them spent in Dorothy, a town on the Tuckahoe Road, enjoying lunch while Dad made repairs to the car.

That night I choose to ride the “Salt & Pepper Shaker” on Morey’s Pier; a scary ride that took you into the stars. At the top, it flipped upside-down. All the coins in my pockets fell out, clanking off the girders to oblivion. This broke ten-year old, turned moocher, still had a glorious vacation. I returned home brown as a berry with a tale that became family lure, a “feel sorry for dad story” that still brings sympathetic sighs every time I tell it.

📮 Send us your favorite Shore memory or moment for a chance to be featured here. Or tweet it to me or Amy. Remember: By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirer’s Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.

That’s a wrap. Amy’s back from vacation next week, and I have a cooler to pack. So have a great holiday, and I’ll see ya at the rest stops.✌️

— Tommy