I Heard There Were No Waves in New Jersey: Surfing on the Jersey Shore 1888-1984

A love letter to the beaches and boardwalks of the Jersey Shore, this is the first visual history of the passionate surf culture that has thrived on the Atlantic coast of New Jersey, and its influence on the worlds of surfing, skateboarding, and beyond.

Often overlooked for the warmer waters of its Hawaiian and Californian counterparts, the Atlantic coast of New Jersey has inspired a surf culture all its own, and in turn has held unsung influence over the history of the sport in America.

Drawing on archives of photographs and ephemera from private collections, and from those held in the New Jersey Surf Museum and New Jersey Surfing Hall of Fame, this is a celebration of East Coast surfing, from its pioneering beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to its heyday in the 1980s as the scene converged with skateboarding and a shared influence on street style.

Alongside insightful texts that illuminate previously unheralded moments in the evolution of the sport, the book not only introduces some of the greatest unseen surf photography of the last century but also lets the Jersey Shore take its rightful place in the history of American surf culture.

About the Authors:

Danny DiMauro is an East Coast surfer, filmmaker, and writer. Formerly editor at large for Saturdays Magazine, published by Saturdays Surf in New York, his writing has appeared in publications such as Esquire.

Johan Kugelberg is a writer, curator, and archivist living and working in New York City. Through his own Boo Hooray Gallery he stages exhibitions and publishes catalogues focusing on the intersection of art, design, photography, and popular culture. He is the author of many books, including The Velvet Underground: A New York Art, Punk: An Aesthetic, and God Save Sex Pistols, all published by Rizzoli.