Doo Wop experience recieves Cape May County Chamber award

WILDWOOD -- The new Wildwoods By-the-Sea Doo Wop Experience in Fox Park received the 2007 Cape May County Chamber of Commerce Historic Preservation Award at the Chamber’s Annual 2007 Meeting and Dinner.
The award was presented to Doo Wop Preservation League trustee Randy Hentges and League President Dan MacElrevey in recognition of the organization’s work to save the resort’s famous Surfside Restaurant and restore the building as a cultural center and band shell.
Hentges’s company, ABS Signs, built many of the neon signs for which the resort’s Doo Wop Motel District has become famous in the United States and Canada. The Wildwoods By-the-Sea were known for many years as the “Little Las Vegas of the east” because of these beautifully designed and colorful neon signs.
Most recently, Hentges’s firm has been restoring and installing some of the best example of these famous signs as the centerpiece of the Doo Wop Experience Sign Garden that is being erected in front of the building. Those signs, and the colorful neon bands highlighting the unique saw tooth roofline for which the Surfside was famous, have made Fox Park even more exciting as a centerpiece of the developing Wildwood events parks and band shell.
Hentges pointed out after receiving the award that the Doo Wop Experience and Sign Garden are as much a celebration of the entire community as they are a site for preserving memorabilia and exhibits from the resort’s mid-century Doo Wop buildings and lifestyles. Hentges noted that the museum was saved and rebuilt using contributions from all segments of the community including the donation of land by the Fox family and a very generous donation from the Byrne family.
After the presentation, Hentges said, “We are really accepting this award on behalf of the entire community since some many groups, businesses and individuals contributed, and continue to contribute, time and money for this community project.”
Hentges added that, “we appreciate everyone’s support, including the city of Wildwood By-the-Sea, to create this new attraction promoting cultural tourism, Doo Wop architecture, and the resort’s place as a music center and birthplace of rock and roll.
Hentges noted that the center has already been visited by thousands of people and “it is not even finished.”
The Doo Wop Preservation League recently announced its 2007-2008 sponsorship drive for funding the interactive exhibits, the Lynch-Wall, and completion of the ’50s style Doo Wop “jitterbug Malt Shop” for the 2008 season. That sponsorship drive is co-chaired by Jay Ford, Crest Savings Bank; Tom Byrne, Byrne Insurance Agency; Frank Nave, Lynch Exhibits; Jack Morey, Morey Organization; and Chuck Schumann, Sightseer Tours.
The Doo Wop Preservation League thanks Vicki Clark, Cape May County Chamber of Commerce executive director, and the entire Chamber for this recognition of the community’s efforts to celebrate much of what is unique about the past-and the future- in the Wildwoods By-the-Sea.