Things to Do in Ocean City

The Boardwalk: 2.45 Miles, Rebuilt After a 1927 Fire

Ocean City's boardwalk was first built in 1880, just a year after the town's founding, and it remains the spine of the visitor experience today. The current boardwalk runs 2.45 miles, from 23rd Street down to St. James Place, a long enough stretch that walking it end to end is itself a genuine way to spend an afternoon, past the piers, arcades, and shops that line it rather than any single ticketed attraction.

The boardwalk's history is not a smooth, uneventful one. A catastrophic fire in 1927 caused roughly $1.5 million in damage, destroying a significant stretch of the structure. When the town rebuilt, it did not simply replace what had burned -- it moved the new boardwalk 300 feet closer to the ocean than the original had been. That 85-year-old rebuilt structure then stood until a $10 million reconstruction project, carried out between 2013 and 2018, replaced it with the boardwalk visitors walk today. Few Jersey Shore boardwalks can point to a specific fire, a specific dollar figure, and a specific relocation distance behind their current footprint -- Ocean City's can.

"America's Greatest Family Resort": A Real, Dated Identity

Ocean City adopted the slogan "America's Greatest Family Resort" in 1920, and the slogan was not an empty marketing flourish grafted onto an otherwise ordinary shore town -- it grew directly out of the town's 1879 founding by four Methodist ministers as a Christian camp-meeting retreat. That founding produced a ban on alcohol sales within city limits that has held since 1879, was reinforced by 1881 blue laws enforcing community standards, and was formally codified by ordinance in 1909. It remains in effect today, making Ocean City genuinely different from most of the other barrier-island towns along this stretch of the Jersey Shore.

What that means practically for a visitor is a boardwalk and town built around family-oriented, alcohol-free entertainment rather than a bar-and-nightlife scene. Our research did not confirm the specific current policy on bringing your own beverage into local restaurants -- many New Jersey dry towns do permit BYOB at restaurants, but this page does not state that as confirmed fact for Ocean City specifically, so check directly with individual restaurants or the city itself before assuming a policy either way. Worth noting honestly: a 2017 USA Today analysis found the broader Ocean City metro region ranked as New Jersey's "most drunken" by certain binge-drinking metrics, a genuinely ironic statistic about the surrounding region given the town's own long-enforced sales ban -- not a contradiction of the ordinance, just an interesting footnote about the difference between a town's own rules and its wider metro area's statistics.

The Flanders Hotel: A Historic Landmark Worth Knowing

Among Ocean City's real, still-standing landmarks, the Flanders Hotel is worth knowing about before a visit. It is a genuine historic hotel, documented across multiple independent sources as a longstanding fixture of the town, the kind of building that anchors a sense of the resort's older architectural character alongside its boardwalk. This page does not invent current room rates, renovation details, or amenities beyond confirming that the hotel is real and historic -- check directly with the Flanders Hotel itself for current booking information.

The Kelly Family and Grace Kelly: A Real Summer-Home Connection

Ocean City's most distinctive historical-tourism angle is a real, well-documented connection to the Kelly family of Philadelphia, confirmed through Ocean City Magazine's own dedicated feature on the subject. The family kept a real summer home at 2536 Wesley Avenue. John B. Kelly Sr., Grace Kelly's father, was an Olympic champion rower who won gold medals in doubles sculls at the 1920 and 1924 Olympic Games and gold in singles sculls in 1920; in Ocean City, he was a close friend of longtime Beach Patrol lifeguard captain Jack G. Jernee and an active supporter of the Beach Patrol itself, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt later appointed him U.S. director-general of physical training in 1940.

Grace Kelly's brother, John B. Kelly Jr., known as "Jack," personally served on the real Ocean City Beach Patrol from 1942 to 1944 as a champion rower in his own right, before going on to compete in four Olympic Games -- 1948, 1952, 1956, and 1960 -- and winning a bronze medal in singles sculls in 1956. And Grace Kelly herself, after launching her film career in 1951 and winning the 1954 Academy Award for Best Actress, married Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1956; as Princess Grace, she and her husband brought their own children back to Ocean City to visit her parents at the family's summer home. It is a genuine, specific, documented link between a Hollywood-and-European-royalty figure and this exact town -- not a vague "celebrities have visited" claim -- and it is one of the more interesting pieces of history a visitor can carry with them while walking the same boardwalk and beaches the Kelly family knew.

What This Page Does Not Invent

This page is built around what our research confirmed: the boardwalk's 1880 origin, its current 2.45-mile length from 23rd Street to St. James Place, the 1927 fire and its roughly $1.5 million in damage, the boardwalk's rebuild 300 feet closer to the ocean, and the $10 million 2013-2018 reconstruction; the town's 1879 Methodist camp-meeting founding and its still-enforced ban on alcohol sales, reinforced by 1881 blue laws and codified by 1909 ordinance; the 1920 adoption of the "America's Greatest Family Resort" slogan; the 2017 USA Today "most drunken" metro-area statistic; the real, historic Flanders Hotel; and the documented Kelly family summer home at 2536 Wesley Avenue, including John B. Kelly Sr.'s Olympic rowing medals and Beach Patrol ties, John B. Kelly Jr.'s Beach Patrol service and Olympic rowing career, and Grace Kelly's film career, 1954 Academy Award, and marriage to Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

It does not state current amusement-pier names, ride names, or business names beyond the Flanders Hotel, current restaurant BYOB policies, current hotel rates, or any figures not confirmed during our research pass, because none of those details were confirmed. Confirm current attraction, dining, and lodging details directly with the City of Ocean City's own tourism resources before planning a visit around them.