Bomar's Service Station
Known Name(s)
Bomar's Service Station
Address
Springwood and Ridge Asbury Park, NJ
Establishment Type(s)
Service Station
Physical Status
Demolished
Description
Bomar’s was listed in The Green Book from 1950 to 1954 as located at the corner of Springwood and Ridge Avenues on Asbury Park’s West Side (https://tinyurl.com/SpringwoodAveHeritageWalk). The 1950 Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory gave the street address of 1500 Springwood, and thus the service station was on the southwest corner. According to the 1930 Sanborn map, the building was a concrete block structure with a concrete floor set in the back corner of the lot. A photo of the service station appeared in a 1949 ad in The New York Age. That structure is gone, a restaurant now on the lot.
Sources: Sanborn Map Co., Insurance Maps of New Jersey Coast, New Jersey, Vol. 2 (1930), sheet 201; Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory, 1950; “Asbury Park Ideal Vacation Spot Now,” The New York Age, 30 July 1949.
Detailed History
Bomar’s Service Station took out an ad, complete with photo that perhaps shows the owner, in concert with a 1949 article in The New York Age. The ad touted Asbury Park as a genial vacation spot for African Americans, thanks to new civil rights legislation in New Jersey and the “untiring efforts of Asbury Park citizens.” The ad and also the city directory name A. Oliver Bomar as the operator of the business. According to his obituary, Austin Oliver Bomar was active in his community, and died in October of 1965. His wife, Beatrice Davis Bomar, died in 1967, her obituary noting her longtime job as a teacher at the Bangs Avenue School on Asbury’s West Side.
Sources: Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory, 1950; “Asbury Park Ideal Vacation Spot Now,” The New York Age, 30 July 1949; “Austin Oliver Bomar,” Asbury Park Press, 11 October 1965; “Beatrice Davis Bomar,” Asbury Park Press, 28 July 1967.
J. Shaffer
