Deal

Deal — Shore Road Estates and an Ocean in Motion

Deal is among the most exclusive communities on the Jersey Shore — no boardwalk, no hotels, just private estates behind a beach that has been fighting erosion for over a century. The 1920 aerial shows the grand oceanfront homes with generous lawns reaching nearly to the beach, an era when the shoreline seemed permanent. By 1933, the Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane had taken a visible bite out of the dune face, and several oceanfront lots appear noticeably narrower. The 1962 aerial was taken after the Ash Wednesday Storm, which drove enormous seas against Deal's largely unarmored oceanfront and left the beach dramatically narrowed compared to the 1920 view.