For many people in the D.C. region, summer memories include trips to Ocean City, Maryland. Now, some of those memories are up for grabs.
An auction featuring retired Ocean City Boardwalk and street signs is drawing bids from longtime visitors, residents and collectors who want to take home a piece of the beach town’s history.
When Wyatt Harrison, owner of Plak That, got the job of replacing Ocean City’s Boardwalk signs, including the street signs with marlins on them and boardwalk regulation signs, he had to decide what to do with the old ones.
Rather than recycling the aluminum or dumping them, he came up with another idea.
“I didn’t want to just like give one sign to one person, and then have like other people on that street mad at me or mad at my company,” Harrison said.
Harrison’s company replaced hundreds of signs throughout Ocean City and decided to save and auction the retired signs.
“You’ve got the ‘leave only your footprint signs,’ which are real classic, have that big footprint on them from like the beach accesses, then you’ve got some like ordinance and rules,” Harrison said.
Part of the reason for the interest, he said, is the emotional connection people have to specific parts of Ocean City.
“Everyone kind of has their street,” Harrison said. “Even if you haven’t been to Ocean City in 40 years, you remember some street that something happened to you.”
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He said families, longtime visitors and collectors are all trying to claim a piece of Ocean City history.
“Some of them I know are pooling their money to just like outbid everybody and keep it at like the family house,” Harrison said.
The signs come with decades of memories and, Harrison suspects, more than a few stories.
Asked which sign might have seen the most over the years, Harrison pointed to one in particular.
“I would say, yeah, maybe like ‘North Division Street’ boardwalk sign has probably seen some stuff,” he said.
And when it comes to signs closer to where he grew up, he joked:
“I know the ones that we looked at every day at, you know, at Malibu’s (surf shop) on Eighth Street and Surf Avenue. I mean, I’m glad those things can’t talk,” he said.
Net proceeds from the auction will benefit Believe In Tomorrow, a nonprofit that helps children with serious illnesses and their families.
The online auction ends Friday.
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