Marker at the Naval Air Center

Lakehurst, NJ The Lakehurst Motel has a big, blue blimp on its neon sign. Right down the road is the Air Ship Bar. And the Lakehurst Historical Society Museum, open for three hours on Wednesdays and Sundays, has a small exhibit of photos and artifacts. But there's little else in this sleepy town that hints at its place in history, for here is where the Hindenburg crashed and burned in 1937. The Hindenburg, for those who don't know, was the largest zeppelin ever built -- a hydrogen gas-filled, metal-framed airship. It had just crossed the Atlantic, on its maiden voyage of the year, when it exploded over Lakehurst. Thirty-six people died and so did the popularity of zeppelins as mass transit.

The Naval Air Center, just a hundred yards from the Air Ship Bar, is where it happened. The guard at the gate gave us a special Hindenburg pass that we set on our dashboard -- back when we visited in the Summer of 1995. About a mile down the main base road, past the gargantuan Zeppelin hanger on our left, we saw a little sign lettered "Hindenburg" in German blackletter, shaped like a Zeppelin. This pointed to the site. We travelled around the Center several times, not realizing just what we were looking for. Despite the implied popularity of the special pass, we were the only visitors.

Where the Hindenburg crashed is now a vast, empty expanse of crumbled asphalt mixed with occasional scrubby weeds. It's typical military base junk land: flat, infertile, ugly. It was picked clean of souvenirs long ago; no stray scraps of bone or burned metal tempt the collector. And to think we travelled 37 miles from Long Branch, NJ to see this!

The exact spot is marked by another little Zeppelin, atop a wind vane on a pole. If the wind is right, you can take photos of the little Zeppelin with the giant hanger (closeup photo below) as a backdrop. Next to the wind vane, a wreath of fading plastic flowers sits on a spindly wire frame. It's been here for years. No one has bothered to remove it.

The Hindenburg is obviously a disaster that's run its course, a little blip in our memory CD that's slowly being error-corrected out of existence. We recommend that you visit before the govenment sells the property to Sam's Club. Shutterbug alert: If you've been negligent in your preparations when you visit, too bad. The base commissary does not sell post cards, and will not sell you film.

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