Seaside Park — The 2013 Fire's Origin Point, Island Beach State Park, and a Quieter Family Resort

The Fire's True Origin Point, a State Park at the Doorstep, and "The Family Resort"

Seaside Park was incorporated as an independent borough on March 3, 1898, when New Jersey Senate President Foster M. Voorhees signed the incorporation bill, carving the new borough from portions of Berkeley Township. The original borough ran "from 14th Avenue to North Avenue," about half its present size, before the Berkeley Tract was annexed around May 12, 1900. In 1914, the name became one word -- "Seaside Park" -- when a newly appointed municipal clerk wrote it that way in the council minutes; before that, it had been written as two words. It is named simply for its Atlantic Ocean location, with no more elaborate name-origin story documented. This is this site's twentieth New Jersey market, and the second of a central Jersey Shore stretch built immediately after its northern neighbor Seaside Heights -- both towns sit on the Barnegat Peninsula, reached via NJ Route 37 and the Toms River, a different barrier peninsula entirely from Long Beach Island's own Route 72 causeway, and nothing on this page re-covers any LBI market's spine or Sandy-damage percentages.

Seaside Park's most consequential real event is the September 12, 2013 ten-alarm boardwalk fire, and it belongs to Seaside Park first: the fire, believed to have started around 2:05 p.m. EDT, originated beneath a building housing Kohr's Frozen Custard and Biscayne Candies on Seaside Park's own end of the boardwalk, caused by electrical wiring under the boardwalk subfloor that had been compromised by Hurricane Sandy floodwaters. It destroyed the Funtown Pier amusement park and more than 50 businesses along the boardwalk, including some recently rebuilt after Sandy, and spread north into neighboring Seaside Heights. More than 400 firefighters from multiple counties responded; they demolished roughly 25 feet of boardwalk at Lincoln Avenue to create a firebreak, and used a water-cannon system plus water drawn from Barnegat Bay after Sandy-damaged water-supply pipes hampered normal firefighting. The fire was brought under control by about 7:45 p.m. EDT. Total cleanup and demolition costs were reported at $4.7 million -- no single overall property-damage total beyond that cleanup/demolition figure was found in this research pass, and none is invented here. The boardwalk reopened for summer 2014; Funtown Pier's planned rebuild was scrapped in July 2016 due to planning-board height restrictions. Seaside Park also shares an earlier disaster with Seaside Heights: on June 9, 1955, winds estimated at 50 mph spread what is remembered locally as the Freeman's Fire, destroying 85 buildings across the boardwalk and pier area with an estimated $4 million in damage -- affecting both towns, and not claimed here as exclusively Seaside Park's own. Separately, the nor'easter of March 8, 1962, regionally remembered as the Ash Wednesday Storm, destroyed a large section of the borough's own boardwalk.

Wikipedia's own framing draws a direct and deliberate contrast between the two neighboring towns: Seaside Heights developed commercial amusement attractions and boardwalk nightlife, while Seaside Park became known simply as "The Family Resort" -- quieter, more residential, and distinct in character. That identity is reinforced by geography: Seaside Park sits at the southern gateway to Island Beach State Park, one of the last undeveloped barrier-island stretches on the entire Jersey Shore. Route 35, the peninsula's paved road, dead-ends into the state park just south of the borough -- well-established, widely-known public geography, though no single sourced page states a precise shared-border distance, so this is presented as general geographic context rather than a measured figure. This proximity to protected, undeveloped shoreline is a real and distinguishing part of Seaside Park's identity that its more built-up northern neighbor does not share.

Seaside Park was also the site of a real, fully resolved criminal matter that deserves factual, sober treatment rather than sensationalism. On September 17, 2016, a pipe bomb planted by Ahmad Khan Rahimi detonated at approximately 9:35 a.m. along the route of the Seaside Semper Five Marine Corps charity 5K race, before the race's scheduled 9:00 a.m. start time. Per the US Department of Justice's own account, the race start had been delayed, which is the specific documented reason no runners were in the blast zone when the device detonated. No injuries resulted from this device. It was one device in a broader spree: the same day, Rahimi planted two bombs in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, one of which detonated that evening and injured more than 30 people, and the next day six more devices were found in a backpack at an Elizabeth, NJ transit station. Rahimi was convicted on all eight federal counts on October 16, 2017, and received a mandatory life sentence -- a fully resolved, decided legal matter, not an ongoing situation. No casualty, injury, or motive detail beyond what is documented above is stated or implied here.

On geography and everyday life: Seaside Park sits on the Barnegat Peninsula, a barrier island separating Barnegat Bay from the Atlantic Ocean, bordering Berkeley Township and Seaside Heights, with Island Beach State Park just to its south. Its total area is just 0.81 square miles -- 0.66 square miles of land and 0.16 square miles of water. The 2020 census counted 1,436 residents, down 9.1% from 1,579 in 2010, itself down from 2,263 in the 2000 census -- a long-term decline distinct from Seaside Heights' own population trajectory. Historically, the Toms River Bridge, completed October 23, 1914, combined with new boardwalk and pier construction in 1915 to help drive a 219% population increase between the 1910 and 1920 censuses. No exact current (2026) home-price, property-tax-rate, or flood-insurance-premium figure specific to Seaside Park was found in this research pass; treat any cost content here as illustrative and confirm current numbers with a local agent, insurer, or the borough directly. This is a New Jersey market, not a Delaware one: New Jersey levies a real state sales tax (currently 6.625%) and has its own property-tax structure, distinct from any no-sales-tax framing used elsewhere on this site.

A handful of real, documented notable people round out the picture: Gary Michael Cappetta (born 1952), professional wrestling announcer, author, and voice artist; Lawrence Dentico (1923-?), a reputed Genovese crime family associate; and John J. Horn (1917-1999), a labor leader and New Jersey state legislator. Seaside Park is also distinct from its immediate neighbor Seaside Heights, built in this same batch of central Jersey Shore markets: Seaside Heights is the nightlife, amusement, and Jersey Shore television town, while Seaside Park is the quieter, more residential family-resort neighbor that was, in fact, the true origin point of the 2013 boardwalk fire -- not merely a town the fire "also affected." This page is independent research, not legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice; confirm anything time-sensitive with the appropriate licensed professional or local government office before making a decision.