Doo Wop Motels

The three New Jersey beach resorts known collectively as The Wildwoods have recently been the subject of widespread notice for their unique concentration of mid-century commercial architecture. Known in The Wildwoods as Doo Wop, the style is mostly represented in the resorts' surviving motels, built between 1955 and 1970, and comes in a variety of forms: Modern, with jet-age glass walls; Vroom!, with thrusting pointed features; and Polynesian Pop, with thatched roofs and tiki torches. This fun, colorful book recounts the stories of the motels, describes their special features--from glorious neon signs to ubiquitous plastic palm trees--and covers the recent Neo-Doo Wop buildings that have risen in the wake of Doo Wop preservation.