A Supreme Court justice’s political flag shined a light on a longstanding shore tradition of flying flags — so many flags — to celebrate colleges, sports teams and more.
Reporting from Avalon, N.J.
The monthly teatime event at the Avalon Historical Center is a casual affair. There’s no agenda or talking points for the handful of regulars who dress up for the occasion, and anyone in a bathing suit and flip-flops can wander in and sit down to fresh scones and hot tea.
At the group’s June meeting, I showed up to ask about something that has long been a curiosity but recently became national news: What’s with all the flags on the Jersey Shore?
In 2023, Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, flew three flags from their Barnegat Bay shore home: a Philadelphia Phillies 2022 National League Championship pennant; a flag for Long Beach Island, which Barnegat Bay is part of; and, in the highest position, an Appeal to Heaven flag, a Revolutionary War-era flag that has been embraced by the far right and was carried by some rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It was a notable grouping, and not just because the Phillies pennant appeared to be a freebie that was given away at a game. In the long tradition of flying flags from shore homes, people have typically stuck with American flags or ones for various colleges. But in this case, many interpreted the Appeal to Heaven flag as a bold political statement at the home of one of the country’s most powerful men, making it a fairly extreme outlier.
In discussions with a dozen local librarians, historians and archivists, no one could pin down exactly when people began flying flags in the wealthier barrier island towns on the southern part of the Jersey Shore, where the median home sale price ranged from $900,000 (Ocean City, N.J.) to $2.75 million (Avalon) in May 2024.
