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The Empress Hotel (New Jersey)
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The Empress Hotel, located in Asbury Park, New Jersey, opened as a luxury resort for vacationing families in the 1950s. In the hotel's heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, Judy Garland stayed there for a month.
In the 1970s, when Asbury Park began its decline, the hotel began to decline as well, notwithstanding Bruce Springsteen using it on the cover of his 1980 "Hungry Heart" single sleeve. It was very rundown and struggling for business in the late 1980s, and closed in 1988. It reopened in 1991, but quickly closed again.
By the 1990s the property was in horrible disrepair. The "Empress Motel" sign was missing an "s", and the entire property was boarded up. It was abandoned for nearly a decade when, in 1998, Shep Pettibone bought the abandoned building and opened the Paradise Nightclub inside. The nightclub lured crowds of gay travelers away from Fire Island and instead to the beaches of Asbury Park. The hotel portion reopened in August of 2004, and is very popular among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transvestite travelers in New Jersey. The hotel was a typical doo-wop hotel at the Jersey Shore until Pettibone renovated it; today it is a stylish and clientele-savvy destination, with a primarily gay clientèle.
In 2004 the City of Asbury Park threatened the club, saying that by way of Eminent Domain they would seize the property if Pettibone did not renovate, and re-open the remaining Hotel portion as lodging. After extensive renovations meant to bring the long vacant rooms up-to-date, the Hotel re-opened in 2004. It is one of the Jersey Shore's most chic resorts, as well as its only Hotel which caters to the gay community. The Empress Lounge also opened that year.
The club attracts first class live entertainment and is one of the Jersey Shore's most popular clubs.