Pastel motor court motels with jutting rooflines and neon signs line the avenues behind a wide wooden boardwalk.
What Wildwood looks like
A motel stands every few doors along the avenues that run the length of town, each one wide enough for parking on both sides. Ocean, Atlantic and Pacific carry most of them. The buildings are low, two and three storeys. They sit set back from the street behind their own parking courts, with a pool in the middle of each lot.
Most of the motels date from the 1950s and 1960s. Rooflines are angled and jutting, with zig zag balconies stacked over the parking below. Walls are stucco, painted in bright pastels. A tall freestanding neon sign stands at the kerb in front of nearly every building, some cut into diamonds, others into boomerangs or starbursts. on Atlantic Avenue still has its own pool and sun deck inside the parking court.
The Starlux Hotel on Rio Grande Avenue is smaller, a single block of rooms behind a short sign, with an Airstream trailer parked on the grounds as a coffee bar. The side streets behind the avenues are quieter, ordinary two storey houses on small lots with driveways out front.
A wooden boardwalk runs along the beach, lined with one and two storey arcades, pizza counters and fudge shops under painted fascia signs. A trackless tram car runs its length each summer, past and , with amusement rides visible over the rooftops from the avenues behind. The on Ocean Avenue keeps original signs and motel fittings under one roof.
Shot in Wildwood
Touched used the boardwalk and the piers Morey's operates today for its exterior scenes, shot in 1982, with Hunt's Pier visible in the background of some shots before it closed. A 1994 documentary called Wildwood, NJ followed teenagers along the boardwalk, a rooftop sun deck and the Dracula's Castle haunted house. The haunted house burned down in 2002 and is gone.
Touched, 1983
The production shot extensive scenes on the boardwalk in and around Morey's Piers, which still runs the same stretch of boardwalk today under Mariner's Pier and Adventure Pier. Hunt's Pier, which appears in the background of some shots, closed and was torn down after the film was made. Street View
What Wildwood can double for
Ocean City, Maryland
Ocean City's Motel Row runs between 15th and 33rd Streets with the same low, pastel painted motor court motels from the 1950s and 1960s. The Empress on 19th Street still has its original 1965 neon peacock sign. A few blocks south, the Arabian themed Ocean Mecca keeps the same low roadside scale. The boardwalk there sits a block or two behind the motels rather than right outside them, so a tight shot on the motel fronts and their pastel motel signs holds the match better than a wide establishing shot. Try searching pastel motel signs now.
Central Avenue through Nob Hill still has Route 66 motor court buildings from the same decades as Wildwood's motels, among them the restored neon sign at the old Nob Hill Court. Nob Hill sits in high desert with mountains on the skyline and no ocean, so only a tight shot on the motel fronts and their Route 66 neon signs keeps the setting from giving itself away. Try searching Route 66 neon signs now.
Lake George, New York
Route 9 between Lake George village and the Great Escape still has roadside motor court motels from the same period, the Mohican Motel's 1956 sign among the survivors. Lake George sits on fresh water in the mountains rather than the ocean, so a wide shot needs to stay off the water and the tree line to hold the comparison. Try searching roadside motor court motels now.
