Customer Reviews

Doo Wop Motels: Architectural Treasures of The Wildwoods

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You don't have to know Wildwood to love this book, but when you finish it
you'll want to go. Hastings does more than write about the history and
architecture of this unique place, he brings its heart and soul alive. This
wonderfully kitschy resort has a fanatically loyal following - people come back
year after year for decades, staying in places built in the 50's and 60's
with names like the Astronaut,the Kona Kai,the Bonanza, the Ebb Tide,
the Singapore or the Tahiti. Just driving down the street was a lesson in
pop culture. DOO WOP MOTELS is fun, informative and obviously written
by someone who loves Wildwood. Unfortunately it's also one of the only
places to see these architectual treasures, since many have been
torn down in recent years in the name of "progress." The photographs of the
motels are beautiful...you'll feel like you're there sipping a drink
under a plastic palm, the "official" tree of the Wildwoods.

If you were a kid in the 50's and 60's and spent your summer vacations in Wildwood Crest, NJ, you will love this book. It is chock full of pictures and stories of all the motels that lit up the summer nights with their creative and thematic neon signs. So, put on some Beach Boys or Four Tops music, and sit down with this delightful look back at one of the most colorful memories of your childhood or teen years. Thanks to Kirk Hastings for putting it together.

Hastings' book is a treasure of Wildwood, NJ, motel architectural treasures! Having worked in the Wildwoods in the late 50s, I and about 100 others from my hometown of Altoona, PA, have deep ties to those beach towns. We love the shore and this book brings back for us in most ample color many of the places - not just Doo Wop motels - of that era. Some are gone. Many are still there. The book is a real treat for us. If you have memories like ours, treat yourself and buy this book! Take it and use it, like a Peterson bird guide, in your search for these Wildwood gems.

Lots of color pictures of retro style motels which is what I was looking for the most, the reading was fun and fascinating, has a history of the "Wildwoods" New Jersey, was like taking a retro vacation!! Has a year-by-year timeline of the destruction of the hotels, and proactively tells exactly what a new motel owner should do to re-create the retro vision and keep the "Doo Wop" tradition alive! Thank goodness for that and his wanting to create a "Doo Wop" wonderland!