Cool Cape May 2021-22

[18] summer events
Most of the
buildings are still
standing, like
Congress Hall,
the Sea Villa
and the Denizot
Hotel, now
Taco Caballito
Tequileria and
Iron Pier
Don Pocher
ments on the beach end. Like the Congress Hall
pier, the Denizott pier was able to accommodate
both steam ships and sailing vessels.
The Columbia name was resurrected in 1879,
with the building of the New Columbia Hotel on
a one-block parcel between Perry and Jackson
streets. It was constructed of brick, like Congress
Hall, with the belief that this would protect the
hotel against subsequent fires. That notion was
proved wrong when the New Columbia burned to
the ground in September of 1889.
The years immediately after the fire saw the
largest construction movement in the history of
Cape May. In addition to the many cottages built
throughout the burned district the western side of
the city was developed.
In 1882 the land that formerly housed the illfated
Mount Vernon Hotel was purchased by a group
calling itself the Cape May Beach Improvement
Company. They established a series of new roads
to divide the land and sold off individual properties
for the construction of new cottages.
The company was later bought out in 1887
by a new organization, The Mount Vernon Land
Company. This new group further developed the
western area of the city and founded the borough
of South Cape May in the vicinity of the current
Cove beach, with an extensive series of streets and
individual properties. Although it ultimately succumbed
to the ocean in 1944 after a series of pow-