Belmar, NJ

Belmar is a Jersey Shore borough on the south side of the Shark River, with a boardwalk-and-beach identity shaped by summer visitors from New York, Philadelphia, and nearby New Jersey towns. It was first incorporated as Ocean Beach, a name that still fits the place pretty well, before becoming Belmar. River Road and the Shark River give it a boating side as well as a beach-town one, and the compact borough has the seasonal rhythm of a small community that gets much busier when warm weather arrives.