Today I saw a ghost.

I saw the white sands of Asbury Park, N.J., filled with bright bikinis, striped umbrellas, children with pails and shovels. Lifeguards on a wooden platform monitored a throng of boogie boarders and wave jumpers, as judges with clipboards and sunglasses reviewed the entries in a sand- castle contest: a mermaid astride a dolphin, a stylish art deco couple kissing inside a deep hole, a bathing beauty. Up on the boardwalk, a queue awaited the next batch of french fries at the Mayfair snack bar.

This was not just another day at the beach; it was an out-and-out apparition, for there has been nothing like it in my hometown for a long, long time.

"We're so ... busy!" gasped Diane Heleotis, the proprietress of the Mayfair. Last time I was here, a year ago, she was closing early because they hadn't sold anything all day.

Since the mid-'70s, the splendid resort town where I grew up has been down on its luck in a serious way. A race riot in July 1970 is the most frequently mentioned cause of Asbury's decline, but that was one of many problems: the abandonment of downtown stores and cinemas for malls and multiplexes, the vicious corruption of the city government, the closing of nearby state mental hospitals, releasing patients into an already impoverished urban population, to name a few. The medical waste that washed up on the Jersey shore in the '80s was the very icky icing on the cake.

By the early '90s, when I would come back to visit my mother, who still lives nearby, the town of 17,000 had hit rock-bottom. A developer bought up most of the beachfront, then went bankrupt, leaving a morass of litigation as well as the cement carcass of an unfinished condominium.

Meanwhile, the majestic old structures on either end of the boardwalk -- the Victorian Casi-no, with its glass and dark-green spires; the Italianate Convention Hall, with its washed-purple arches and furbelows, both designed by the architects of Grand Central Station in Manhattan -- seemed almost haunted.

I'd pay $3 to take my sons onto the beach, buy them a hot dog from the ever-languishing Mayfair and play "abandoned minigolf" -- bringing putters and balls to smack around the warped, weedy little course. By the mid-'90s, there wasn't even a cop to tell us to shoo.

"Here's where the U-Pedal boats were," I'd tell the boys, pointing to the still surface of Wesley Lake, where I worked the summer I was 14, alternating with shifts at a bustling coffee shop at the other end of the boardwalk.

"This is where Aunt Nancy played pinball," I went on, showing them a boarded-up arcade. "And this was Mrs. J's," I said, trailing off as I remembered nursing teen-age crushes on hoodlum boys in the long-vanished bar and burger joint.

My sons must have thought I was very, very old, because Asbury Park looked like a place where nothing had happened in about a hundred years.

A town rises again

Those not-quite-100 years of solitude have ended, and though Asbury Park is not exactly your typical travel destination, it's already a place well worth a visit -- if you want to combine a couple of days at the beach with a bird's-eye view of a ghost town being reborn.

If you nurture a dream of running a B&B; or a frozen yogurt stand at the shore, quick! Come before rents get any higher. Or if you just want to appreciate the rare phenomenon of individuals bringing the place they live back to life, building by building and block by block, rather than some corporate-sponsored gentrification blitz, go ahead and get in the car. From Baltimore, you can be there in 2 1/2 hours.

On the other hand, you can wait five years. By then, there will be more than one hotel in town and no more vacant blocks. A day at the beach will probably cost more than $3 (though I'm hoping the same sun-baked old sailor will still be there to collect it.) By then Asbury Park will probably have become some kind of cross between Province-town and Ocean City, adding its trademark funky grandeur and rock 'n' roll attitude to the virtues of those enclaves.

But if you wait, you'll have missed being part of something exciting.

"There are two kinds of people who come to Asbury Park -- those who get it and those who don't," says Michael Liberatore, proprietor of Insomnia, an espresso bar and sandwich shop in the newly breathing downtown, which lies about five blocks inland from the boardwalk.

"Some friends come down from [New York] city to see me, they take one look around, and they say, 'Are you out of your mind? This is West Beirut!' Others," Liberatore says, "put down their suitcases and go out for a walk. They come back two hours later and they've made an offer on a house."

Liberatore was an early scout for an influx of gay and lesbian home and business owners who have fallen in love with the potential of Asbury Park. He first visited five years ago -- "and it was a little scary," he admits.

But he was sure the town, with its proximity to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore and its value-priced historic homes and retail spaces, would come back. The question was when; he raised that question in an article he wrote for Empire, a New York gay periodical.

On another reconnaissance run two summers later, Libera-tore found a poolside gay bar called Paradise flourishing in an old pink motel across the street from the boardwalk. Lounging among the muscled sunbathers drinking pina coladas, he de- cided that the answer to his question was "now."

And he was right. Within a year, an article in The New York Times was headlined "Move Over, Fire Island, Here Comes Asbury Park; Urban Gays Lead Way in Reviving This Run-Down Resort."

And what does Asbury think of these new people?

"They're great," says Sue Henderson, an area native I've known since high school, now head of the Asbury Park Homeowners Association. "A few years ago, we had 50 people in the association. Now there's way over 200. When meetings were held about redevelopment of the oceanfront, 2,500 people were there. Everybody gets involved."

Around the corner from Liberatore's Insomnia, on the once-arterial Cookman Avenue, chichi shops nestle between the graffiti-covered facades and painted-over windows.

"I was about to rent a tiny space in Manhattan, in the meat-packing district, for $1,000 [a month]," explains Suzi of Alan and Suzi, a vintage and consignment designer clothing store whose main outlet is on the Upper West Side, "when I read the article in Empire. We came down to Asbury and got this place for less than half of that. We love it here."

Her sentiments are echoed by new owners up and down the block. Then there's the not-so-new kid, Billy Meisch, who's been selling "futuristic furniture with a sordid past" out of a storefront in Asbury Park for 22 years. How did he manage that?

"I wholesaled to New York and did props for movies," he explains, as he stands on the sidewalk staple-gunning a green Naugahyde seat cover to a cafe chair.

Asbury's favorite son

For those further from the cutting edge, the rebirth of Asbury may be dated to a few days ago, when the Today Show broadcast live from Asbury Park to mark the release of The Rising, Bruce Springsteen's new CD.

Area native Springsteen is the most famous member of another crucial segment of Asbury lovers -- musicians and artists. Springsteen's 1973 album, Greetings from Asbury Park, is the only thing most people have ever heard about the place, and his shows at Convention Hall and at the Stone Pony continue to draw visitors from all over the world.

"What the Beatles did for Liverpool, Bruce Springsteen has done and is still doing for Asbury Park," says Patricia Padula of Monmouth County's Department of Tourism.

Like Billy Meisch's vintage furniture store, the Stone Pony stayed open through Asbury's leanest years, its doors closing only from 1998 to 2000. On my recent visit, I met a couple of middle-aged women from North Jersey who were checking out of Asbury's Berkeley-Carteret hotel after a Gary U.S. Bonds / Nils Lofgren show at the Pony the night before. "We've done this a bunch of times," they said. "This is a great night out for us."

Lively arts scene

Asbury supports two other live music clubs, Crossroads and the Saint, as well as a number of unexpected venues. On Friday and Saturday nights, you can slide into a booth at Sonny's Southern Cuisine, get a plate of ribs, catfish or other down-home specialties, and hear live jazz -- $5 cover, BYOB. And live music is a standard element at gallery openings downtown.

The art and music crowds add a welcome funky edge to the new ambience of Asbury Park, and their headquarters is Michele Schaefer's Be. This "gallery / lounge / performance space" reflects the vibrant, eclectic taste of its owner, and her multimedia opening parties have drawn many first-timers who have come back to stay.

Next door, Asbury Art Center continues the art-party theme in its spacious, funky quarters.

Kate Mellina used to own a contemporary crafts store across the street, but she was too far ahead of the curve. Today, she's a member of the Asbury Park City Council, a group of residents who, in about a year, have flushed out the last of the crooks and have negotiated multimillion-dollar redevelopment deals for the waterfront and downtown areas.

For Kate, the people who have been here all along are as much a part of the story as the new folks. "Asbury Park is like if you took New York City and crunched it down to a mile and half," she says, "that's our mix. Haitian, Hispanic, black, white, young old, gay, straight. ... They're all here."

And so are about a dozen hair-braiding salons and several blocks of bodegas and inexpensive Mexican restaurants. One hopes that the rising fortunes of the city won't drive out these places and the longtime residents they serve.

A quieter alternative

As this drama of resurrection plays out in Asbury, its neighbor immediately to the south has gone through some changes too. Back in my day, Ocean Grove was a Methodist retreat town. If you drove through its gates on a Saturday night, you could not get your car out until Monday. We were just as scared of Ocean Grove as some people now are of Asbury.

Though the town is still dry and the Camp Meeting As- sociation still controls the real estate, Ocean Grove has opened its arms to all kinds of vacationers. If you visit the area, you may well wind up at one of its 31 inns and B&Bs;, and I'm guessing you'll feel pretty comfortable.

Barbara Bergen, at the Bellevue Stratford Inn, has a weekend coming up during which her 27 rooms will be divided between Minnesota guests at a wedding and those celebrating a gay Puerto Rican birthday party out of Jersey City.

Ocean Grove is still different, Bergen explains. "It feels safe to people. There are no condominiums, no boom boxes on the beach, no bars. And yet the population is probably 50 percent gay now, and all kinds of hip people from New York are staying here." She adds, "We seem to attract writers, thinkers, people with problems who need some kind of sanctuary."

Bergen's sanctuary is a particularly inviting one, with spotless rooms starting at $45, big breakfasts, beach chairs and towels, a bottle of wine on the porch for those who tend in that direction. ("Just because we can't sell it doesn't mean you can't drink it," she says.)

When asked about the other lodgings in town, Bergen explains that they range from shared-bath old-style places to fancier spots with air-conditioning, hot tubs and VCRs. Her friends Dan Margo and Randy Bishop run the Melrose, where guest rooms reminded me of an inn in New Orleans' French Quarter, as did the smells from the kitchen.

Ocean's Grove's impressive wooden Great Auditorium now plays host to a concert series as well as worship services, and around it stand the original tents where visiting Methodists lived, still filled every summer with their descendants. The tents are draped over wood frames; they have screen doors and full household furnishings -- it's definitely worth a peek on your way to get ice cream at Day's or Nagle's.

A taste of the beach

Whatever else can be said about New Jersey, it has always had terrific food, and you really will have to stay a while to sample all the delicacies of the region. Here are a few of the places I can't live without:

A few miles north of Asbury in Long Branch lie the Windmill and Max's. Each of these places sells, among other things, an indescribably delicious frankfurter. These grilled dogs have been the focus of a which-is-better controversy raging in Central Jersey since my childhood. My mother prefers the Windmill's Sabretts brand to Max's Schickhaus hot dogs, but I don't suggest you take her word for it.

Similar differences of opinion are found about Italian restaurants, but I have just one word to say: Vic's. When Woody Allen filmed Stardust Memories in Asbury Park, he must have left all his extras there, but it's not just the bizarre preserved-in-amber atmosphere I go crazy for. This is the real Jersey Italian, the pizza and pasta -- nothing else is ever as good for me.

Best breakfast in town is on the deck at Sunset Landing, overlooking Deal Lake and its many ducks. The pancakes come with additions ranging from Nestles Crunch pieces and coconut to cranberries and pecan. Owned by surfers since 1960, this place is awesome.

If you just want coffee and pastry, visit my old classmate at Stuart Kramer's Cravings, just a few blocks away in Allenhurst.

These places and many others I grew up with have been joined by a few fun new eateries in Asbury Park's resurgent downtown. Moonstruck, an upscale Italian restaurant that moved in from Ocean Grove so they could sell liquor, has delicious food, outdoor dining with views of my old pedal-boat lake, and a lovely hostess named Alexandra.

Vivas is a little Spanish-Portuguese bistro in a neighborhood formerly thought of as life-threatening. Now everyone's hanging out at Georgie's bar next door and the Cameo around the corner.

Which brings us to one final question. Is Asbury Park dangerous? I say to you, residents of occasionally dicey Baltimore, it is not. Though obviously crime is not unheard of, you won't see much to fear unless you're afraid of boarded-up buildings.

The general feeling of the place is small-town. I accidentally left my baby stroller on the boardwalk when I went home from the beach one evening, and people were smilingly pointing it out to me when I returned the next day.

The first time I left Asbury Park, I was 17, and filled with a passion to get as far away from my Jersey roots as possible. This is a feeling common to kids everywhere, but those reared in the Garden State often get a worse case than most. In fact, I've always thought Spring-steen's Born To Run should be the state song.

In recent years, visiting an ever ricketier and paler shell of Asbury, walking the deserted boardwalk, the fury of that first farewell was gone. It changed to nostalgia, to sadness, to disbelief. But after this trip, there was something else.

I wanted to stay.

When you go

Getting there: Take Interstate 95 north to I-295 to the New Jersey Turnpike north. Get off at Exit 7A for I-195 -- Trenton / Shore Points. Take I-195 east to Route 18 north. Get off at Exit 10A for Route 66, which goes into Asbury Park.

Beaches: There are no free beaches in New Jersey -- those that aren't private are controlled by the municipalities. Asbury's beach is $3 on weekdays, $4 on weekends, kids under 12 admitted free. Season badges for adults are $20.

* Other nearby beaches include, to the south, Ocean Grove, Avon, Bradley and Belmar; these are about $6 a day.

* Great early-morning jogging, walking and in-line skating starts on the boardwalk at Ocean Grove and heads south, but no skates, bikes or skateboards after 10 a.m.

* For more information on area beaches, call the Asbury Park Press at 732-643-2563 and request a copy of the Summer Guide ($2.50.)

Lodging:

Berkeley Carteret, 1401 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park NJ 07712

732-776-6700

www.berkeleycarterethotel.com

* At the moment, the only hotel in Asbury Park. The property has been open since 1924, and many of its 250 rooms and suites have been renovated and offer ocean views. There's a pool and a comfy bar; the only problem is the service -- everything at the Berkeley is very slow.

* Advertised room rates start at $149, but specials make it more reasonable.

Bellevue Stratford Inn, 7 Main Ave., Ocean Grove, NJ 07756

732-775-2424

www.bellevuestratfordinn.com

* Charming Victorian B&B; rates from $45 to $145

The Melrose, 34 Seaview Ave., Ocean Grove

800-378-9004

www.melroseog.com

* Country inn one block from the ocean; rates $90-$200

For a complete list of lodgings in Ocean Grove, visit www.oceangrovenj.com. For accommodations throughout Monmouth County, see www.visitmonmouth.com.

Shopping: Because it's an Urban Enterprise Zone, sales tax is only 3 percent in Asbury Park. Here are a few places to burn some cash. Call ahead -- many of the shops are not open every day of the week.

* Be Gallery, 704 Cookman Ave.; 732-774-2411. Great Web site at www.beinasburypark.com

* Asbury Art Center, 708 Cookman Ave.; 732-988-3284

* Alan and Suzi, 711 Cookman Ave.; 732-988-7372

* The House of Modern Living, 701 Cookman Ave.; 732-988-2350

* The Hair and Beauty Spa, 560 Cookman Ave.; 732-774-6335. One of the teen-age girls in my group got great braids for $55.

Dining:

* Insomnia, 620 Mattison Ave.; 732-869-9666

* Moonstruck, 517 Lake Ave.; 732-988-0123

* Sunset Landing, 1215 Sunset Ave.; 732-776-9732

* Sonny's Southern Cuisine, 574 Cookman Ave., 732-774-6262

* The Windmill, 586 Ocean Blvd., Long Branch; 732-229-9863

* Max's, Ocean Boulevard and Matilda Terrace, Long Branch; 732-571-0248

* Vic's Bar & Restaurant, 60 Main St., Bradley Beach; 732-774-8225

* Vivas Bistro, 808 Fifth Ave.; 732-897-0707

Nightlife:

* Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park, 732-502-0600; www.stoneponyonline.com

* Paradise, 101 Asbury Ave., Asbury Park; 732-988-6663; www.paradisenj.com

Information: www.asburypark.net is an excellent Web site with great listings and links.

An ideal day

7:30 a.m.: Jog down the boardwalk.

9:30 a.m.: Serious breakfast at Sunset Landing.

11 a.m.: Hit the beach.

1 p.m.: Drive up Ocean Avenue to Max's or the Windmill for lunch. Ogle mansions of the wealthy.

4:30 p.m.: Pina coladas poolside at Paradise.

7 p.m.: Pasta at Moonstruck or spaghetti at Vic's.

8:30 p.m.: Cruise Cookman Avenue -- maybe there's an opening at Be or Asbury Art.

10 p.m.: The Stone Pony, Crossroads, the Saint -- all rocking by now.

2 a.m.: A late-night Asbury tradition -- the Talking Bird diner.

6 a.m.: A really late-night Asbury tradition -- sunrise over the Atlantic.