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.
The towns have traditionally been vacation spots or second homes for people from Philadelphia and its suburbs, with a rich history that includes celebrities like the actress (and eventual Monaco royal) Grace Kelly, who grew up in Philadelphia and frequented her family shore home in Ocean City. Justice Alito grew up in Hamilton Township near Trenton.
Dorothy Hordubay, 85, a regular at the Avalon Historical Center meetings, started coming down the shore in 1948 to Stone Harbor, which shares an island with Avalon, and she remembers seeing college flags hanging from boardinghouses where lifeguards lived for the summer. Those houses have long since been demolished, but the tradition continued as some visitors, like Ms. Hordubay, purchased second homes. She and her husband bought a home in Avalon in 1965, and that’s when she noticed that flags “began being hung more the way they are now,” moving from being draped over porch railings to hanging from short flagpoles mounted on second- (or third- or even fourth-) story balconies.
Even if they don’t realize it, these homeowners, including the Alitos, are carrying on a flag tradition dating to when flags were the easiest way to signal between ships, said Ted Kaye, the secretary of the North American Vexillological Association, a group devoted to the study of flags. Flags could be used to communicate with other ships, to signal distress or intention or to declare a home port.
Flags continued to serve as guides, even after technology made them less critical. “In pre-cellphone days, you could say ‘go down that street and find the flag for our college on it,’” Mr. Kaye said.
As more rentals turned into second homes occupied by their owners during the summer, flying college flags became less about navigation and more about showcasing one’s belonging to a group.
“It’s part of your pride for your school,” said Lynne Hipp, 80. Her family shore house is on a corner lot in Avalon, and college flags fly from the second-story balcony on both street-facing sides, representing the schools of everyone in the family. She also likes to see the range of places people go to college now — not just the Ivy League schools and local favorites, like Villanova, Penn State and St. Joseph’s, anymore, though she has one of the latter, along with the Citadel and George Washington University. She’s currently looking for a flag she likes from Mount St. Mary’s University, to honor her recently deceased husband.
Kevin Fisher, 61, a retired options trader, flies the college flag of whichever family member is in the house at the time. He started going to Long Beach Island as a child, and he and his wife bought their first Stone Harbor house in 1998. They now live full time in a home they built in 2016. He would see all the elite school flags hanging from houses, he said, and was proud to fly the Penn State flag from his, as if to say he made it, despite “having a chip on my shoulder being a state-school kid,” he said.
With college flags, it’s a bit about showing off, said Simon Joseph, a Philadelphia-based vexillologist and a member of NAVA. “If your child or yourself has gone to an Ivy League school, you want to show that off a little,” he said. And that spurs others on. “And there’s a nonzero amount of culture that says if everybody else is doing it, I should, too.”
People also fly other kinds of flags at their shore homes, like those celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles 2018 Super Bowl win, the Grateful Dead, flags of other states or even municipalities, like those bearing DELCO, which is short for Delaware County, located in the Pennsylvania suburbs of Philadelphia. Pride flags, which Mrs. Alito complained about in a recorded conversation, are fairly common as well.
While flags of a more political persuasion are less common than other flags, the Alitos are not the only ones flying them: There are also Israeli flags, Ukrainian flags and a few “Let’s Go Brandon” ones that signify slang for swearing at President Biden. Political flags have a high concentration in Wildwood, where boardwalk shops are known for selling crass T-shirts, some of which feature political statements.
“These flags,” Mr. Joseph said, “went from originating with in-group identification, both friendly and foe to say ‘here is my little group of people.’”
These days, the options for that appear to be endless.
