Reflections of Asbury Park

"Asbury Park's Early History - James A. Bradley" James A. Bradley was born on Valentine's Day, 1830, at the Old Blazing Star Inn in Rossville on Staten Island in New York. He was the son of Adam and Hannah Bradley. He was baptized a Catholic. When he was only five, his father died from alcohol related problems. Two years later, his mother married Charles Smith and moved to Cherry Street in the Bowery. In those years before the Civil War, the city's population was exploding. The lower east side was the first stop for tens of thousands of immigrants to America. The original buildings had no heat, light, or running water and few windows until the late 1960's when the state enacted laws that forced landlords to improve living conditions. On hot nights, you could see tenants sleeping on fire escapes to get relief from summer heat. In 1837, the year they moved, a general economic panic had taken over the city. In that year over 100 firms went under, railroads fell, banks collapsed and building construction stopped. The city's working class crowded into tiny tenement apartments. The poor sewer system and primitive health services led to massive outbreaks of typhus and cholera. Bradley's stepfather set up a notions store selling groceries, meat, clothing, shoes and other items. Bradley was only seven years old at the time. He and his stepfather had a peddlers wagon, their favorite spot was down on Catherine Street outside the new specialty store, Lord & Taylor. Bradley obtained his early education in the New York public school system, and in later life continued his education through self-directed reading. At twelve, Bradley worked as a laborer at William Davis's Paper Mill in Bloomfield, New Jersey. As a teenager, Bradley hung with a rowdy immigrant crowd. He soon developed a fondness for wine. By the early 1840's the Bowery became more of a pleasure zone. Small hotels offered free "vaudevilles" to attract customers including ventriloquism, dancing, circus acts and com