A Supreme Courtroom justice’s political flag shined a lightweight on a longstanding shore custom of flying flags — so many flags — to have fun faculties, sports activities groups and extra.
Reporting from Avalon, N.J.
June 30, 2024
The month-to-month teatime occasion on the Avalon Historic Middle is an off-the-cuff affair. There’s no agenda or speaking factors for the handful of regulars who costume up for the event, and anybody in a washing swimsuit and flip-flops can wander in and sit all the way down to contemporary scones and scorching tea.
On the group’s June assembly, I confirmed as much as ask about one thing that has lengthy been a curiosity however just lately turned nationwide information: What’s with all of the flags on the Jersey Shore?
In 2023, Supreme Courtroom Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his spouse, Martha-Ann Alito, flew three flags from their Barnegat Bay shore residence: a Philadelphia Phillies 2022 Nationwide League Championship pennant; a flag for Lengthy Seaside Island, which Barnegat Bay is a part of; and, within the highest place, an Enchantment to Heaven flag, a Revolutionary Warfare-era flag that has been embraced by the far proper and was carried by some rioters on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It was a notable grouping, and never simply because the Phillies pennant seemed to be a freebie that was given away at a recreation. Within the lengthy custom of flying flags from shore houses, individuals have usually caught with American flags or ones for numerous faculties. However on this case, many interpreted the Enchantment to Heaven flag as a daring political assertion on the residence of one of many nation’s strongest males, making it a reasonably excessive outlier.
In discussions with a dozen native librarians, historians and archivists, nobody may pin down precisely when individuals started flying flags within the wealthier barrier island cities on the southern a part of the Jersey Shore, the place the median residence sale worth ranged from $900,000 (Ocean Metropolis, N.J.) to $2.75 million (Avalon) in Could 2024.
The cities have historically been trip spots or second houses for individuals from Philadelphia and its suburbs, with a wealthy historical past that features celebrities just like the actress (and eventual Monaco royal) Grace Kelly, who grew up in Philadelphia and frequented her household shore residence in Ocean Metropolis. Justice Alito grew up in Hamilton Township close to Trenton.
Dorothy Hordubay, 85, an everyday on the Avalon Historic Middle conferences, began coming down the shore in 1948 to Stone Harbor, which shares an island with Avalon, and he or she remembers seeing school flags hanging from boardinghouses the place lifeguards lived for the summer time. These homes have lengthy since been demolished, however the custom continued as some guests, like Ms. Hordubay, bought second houses. She and her husband purchased a house in Avalon in 1965, and that’s when she observed that flags “started being hung extra the way in which they’re now,” shifting from being draped over porch railings to hanging from brief flagpoles mounted on second- (or third- and even fourth-) story balconies.
Even when they don’t notice it, these owners, together with the Alitos, are carrying on a flag custom relationship to when flags had been the best method to sign between ships, stated Ted Kaye, the secretary of the North American Vexillological Affiliation, a gaggle dedicated to the examine of flags. Flags might be used to speak with different ships, to sign misery or intention or to declare a house port.
Flags continued to function guides, even after know-how made them much less crucial. “In pre-cellphone days, you would say ‘go down that road and discover the flag for our school on it,’” Mr. Kaye stated.
As extra leases changed into second houses occupied by their homeowners through the summer time, flying school flags turned much less about navigation and extra about showcasing one’s belonging to a gaggle.
“It’s a part of your delight in your college,” stated Lynne Hipp, 80. Her household shore home is on a nook lot in Avalon, and school flags fly from the second-story balcony on each street-facing sides, representing the colleges of everybody within the household. She additionally likes to see the vary of locations individuals go to school now — not simply the Ivy League faculties and native favorites, like Villanova, Penn State and St. Joseph’s, anymore, although she has one of many latter, together with the Citadel and George Washington College. She’s at present on the lookout for a flag she likes from Mount St. Mary’s College, to honor her just lately deceased husband.
Kevin Fisher, 61, a retired choices dealer, flies the school flag of whichever member of the family is in the home on the time. He began going to Lengthy Seaside Island as a baby, and he and his spouse purchased their first Stone Harbor home in 1998. They now reside full time in a house they inbuilt 2016. He would see all of the elite college flags hanging from homes, he stated, and was proud to fly the Penn State flag from his, as if to say he made it, regardless of “having a chip on my shoulder being a state-school child,” he stated.
With school flags, it’s a bit about exhibiting off, stated Simon Joseph, a Philadelphia-based vexillologist and a member of NAVA. “In case your baby or your self has gone to an Ivy League college, you need to present that off a bit,” he stated. And that spurs others on. “And there’s a nonzero quantity of tradition that claims if all people else is doing it, I ought to, too.”
Folks additionally fly other forms of flags at their shore houses, like these celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles 2018 Tremendous Bowl win, the Grateful Useless, flags of different states and even municipalities, like these bearing DELCO, which is brief for Delaware County, positioned within the Pennsylvania suburbs of Philadelphia. Satisfaction flags, which Mrs. Alito complained about in a recorded dialog, are pretty frequent as nicely.
Whereas flags of a extra political persuasion are much less frequent than different flags, the Alitos aren’t the one ones flying them: There are additionally Israeli flags, Ukrainian flags and some “Let’s Go Brandon” ones that signify slang for swearing at President Biden. Political flags have a excessive focus in Wildwood, the place boardwalk outlets are identified for promoting crass T-shirts, a few of which characteristic political statements.
“These flags,” Mr. Joseph stated, “went from originating with in-group identification, each pleasant and foe to say ‘right here is my little group of individuals.’”
As of late, the choices for that look like infinite.
