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The Rolling Stones
playing Dewey Beach? That’s got to be a joke, I thought, when I first
heard the rumor. Only a few years ago, the biggest musical acts that
promoters could lure to venues in slower lower Delaware were faded pop
stars from the 1950s and ’60s: groups like The Tokens (The Lion Sleeps
Tonight) and Mitch Ryder (Sock It to Me, Baby). Their shows, set on the
deck of the Rusty Rudder, provided a lot of classic rock ’n roll fun
for minimal cover charges.
But,
as with so many things in the greater Rehoboth area of late, the ante is
getting higher.
This
summer, the Bottle & Cork has attempted in all seriousness, its
management swears, to book the most expensive oldies act in the world,
the Stones, to play a concert in September from a barge docked on the
Bay behind Ruddertown. At first, the Cork’s offer was laughable,
$150,000 “plus free t-shirts.” But the club kept upping the
performance fee, finally to $1.2 million, plus $40,000 in security.
Ticket prices would be in the $300 to $500 range. That’s an
extraordinary amount of money even for a concert at a city venue, and
we’re talking about Dewey Beach after Labor Day. It says a lot about
the changing nature of metropolitan Rehoboth that promoters are
confident a large enough group of people would cough up the big bucks to
get a glimpse of the geriatric Glimmer Twins (Jagger and Richards)
staggering around a beached barge.
Every
year, almost everything about the Delaware shore becomes dramatically
more expensive. In the past decade, I’ve seen a rack of lamb at a
favorite bistro rise in price from $17 to $28 to nearly $40, and the
size of the rack has been shrinking like a head under a voodoo spell. To
be fair, I must admit that I’m old enough to remember nickel Cokes (in
my early childhood), but what amazes me about Rehoboth’s current
economy is the frantic pace of inflation. Take the real estate market,
for example.
I
first learned of the possibility of the Stones concert from a Rehoboth
realtor’s newsletter. I suppose that the agent, who would love to sell
John and me a house to replace the one we sold a couple years ago,
figures that anyone who can afford resort-area property today would
think nothing of dropping half-a-grand on the opportunity to hear Jagger
“get no satisfaction” one more time.
But
we’ve already experienced two of the Stones’ “retirement” tours
for much less money. And, even with the amount we would save by not
buying tickets, we can no longer afford to replace our old Rehoboth
home. Prices simply have gone through the roof in the last 18 months.
The cost of newly constructed housing, even townhouses, is particularly
frightening.
Just
a stone’s throw east of one of the area’s poorest neighborhoods,
South Rehoboth, rises a big new development of townhouses (about
$400,000 for a four-bedroom unit) and detached homes (you can get a
four-boudoir model for a mere $679,000). This is not beachfront
property, or even fourth-ocean-block. To get to the surf, buyers still
must wait their way into Rehoboth Avenue traffic, pass the storage lot
of propane gas tanks, cross over the drawbridge and then start looking
for a place to park. But there appears to be no shortage of buyers.
Perhaps,
as is the case with a few of my more affluent friends, groups of
frightened investors are grabbing up such properties because they see
resort real estate as the only way to protect whatever savings they
haven’t already lost to a bombing stock market and collapsing 401-Ks.
It’s a theory that also could apply to those lamb chops: better to eat
up now than to lose out on the opportunity later. Of course, I will be
shocked to see these new real estate investments grow. Are we really
approaching a time when a townhouse on the outskirts of Rehoboth will
cost three-quarters of a million and up?
How
things change (except, perhaps, for the Stones repertoire). When John
and I first began looking at property in the Rehoboth area in the
mid-1980s, a realtor refused to take us to a value-priced property we
had seen advertised. “Oh, no, I can’t show you that one,” he said.
“That’s
in a colored area.” Although we said that we’d still like to see the
house, he quickly steered his car (and us) away. Less than two decades
later, white investors are tossing millions into West Rehoboth’s
backyard. As the area skyrockets in value, I can’t help but worry
about what will become of all the African-Americans who have made the
neighborhood (long neglected by local governments) their home for
generations? At least those folks who own their own houses in West
Rehoboth might finally get a chance to make some bucks selling out to
eager white buyers. But they might be better advised to take a cue from
what’s happening in Florida, where black investors are banding
together to hang on to at least some of the properties threatened by
developers who have made incursions into their traditional seaside
areas. One good example is American Beach, the struggle over which is
part of the plot in John Sayles’ excellent new film Sunshine State.
But
where are low-income residents supposed to go when their neighborhoods
are consumed by new developments for the upper-crusty set? Farther and
farther away from the beach, it seems. And that can only lead to even
less racial and economic diversity in an already unusually white town.
Ironically,
so little diversity makes the Rehoboth area less appealing to some black
people who can afford its high-priced real estate market. My old college
roommate is one such man.
A
well-paid, nationally known journalist who makes his year-round home in
racially mixed Takoma Park, Maryland, he has enjoyed several vacations
at the beach with his wife and kids. A while back, he asked me where his
family might purchase a summer house in the Rehoboth area.
“Well,
anywhere you like,” I said. “How about my old neighborhood, the
Yacht and Country Club Development, or King’s Creek?”
“Are
there other black families there?”
“Not
that I’ve ever noticed,” I had to admit.
“It’s
not that we mind being around a lot of white folks,” he said with a
laugh. “It’s just that, if we’re going to spend much time there,
we’d like the kids to be exposed to some other black people.”
“Well,
just like us gay folks, you’re everywhere,” I tried to defend
Delmarva’s shores. “Maybe Lewes would be a good place to look.”
Then I remembered how many of that town’s black families have been
displaced by pricey new houses snatched up by white people. “Why
don’t you talk to a couple realtors?”
My
friend said that he would, and he did. But he didn’t come away from
his discussions with much enthusiasm. “I think we’ll just put an
addition on our house in Takoma,” he said, “and use the difference
for taking the kids on some world travels. Broaden their horizons, you
know.”
I
haven’t heard from my old roomie since he set out for broader
horizons. But, back in our post-graduate days in Washington, we were
both big fans of the Rolling Stones, and we would sing along loudly
whenever Brown Sugar or Jumpin’ Jack Flash came on the radio. So, if
the band ever does sign a contract to play Rehoboth Bay, I’ll probably
give him a call and try to arrange a reunion for the show. Given current
market conditions, what better place than the nation’s summer capital
to join Mick Jagger in belting out, “You Can’t Always Get What You
Want” and, of course, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.”
Bill
Sievert, a transplanted Delawarean, resides in Florida. He may be
reached at allforthecause@aol.com.
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