"The Story of Asbury Park: The Record of Progress and Achievement, 1916-1931" read the faded, dog-eared cover. Inside were hundreds - maybe thousands - of photos of Asbury Park homes, shops, and public facilities built during those 15 boom years - including a photo of the house where I was now standing, with its original open porch and candy-striped awnings.

Inside, as well, was page after page of chatty text on everything from radio station WCAP ("Wonderful City of Asbury Park"), with its state-of-the-art Convention Hall studios, to upbeat details about city services in a town where up to 100,000 cars a day crunched along dusty gravel roads (watered down by horse-drawn wagons and later by city sprinkler trucks) and notorious crime figures from New York, Philadelphia and Newark sought (unsuccessfully, we are assured) to lose themselves in the vacationing crowd.

"Sell me this book!", I begged the owners, but they were saving it for their niece.

A few weeks later, Dave and I bought the house with that dark, dusty basement (and, yes, we've improved the lighting so you can really see the dust now), but it took another 14 years to get my hands on that coveted book - reprinted this summer by the newly reorganized Asbury Park Historical Society.

The Historical Society - which incorporated, obtained its tax-exempt and not-for-profit status, and expanded to over 100 members in the past year - reprinted the book from a copy owned by Don Stine of Asbury Park's Antic Hay Books. The printing company? Clayton Press of Asbury Park, which also printed the 1931 original.

And although tradition claims that the book was simply a clever re-election tool for then-mayor Clarence E.F. Hetrick, it is now an unbeatable treasure for everyone who loves Asbury Park. (Get your copy for $25 at Antic Hay Books, etc..., or Ocean Park Gallery. You can also send $30 - including shipping and handling - to the Asbury Park Historical Society, P.O. Box 1256, Asbury Park, NJ 07712.)

Best of all, because local residents and businesses generously underwrote the entire printing cost, every dollar supports Historical Society programs.

And what is the revamped society planning?

In its first year of operation, the society sponsored tours of Convention Hall and the Paramount Theatre, and offered free, quarterly talks on topics ranging from the role of a historical society, to the preservation of our beachfront treasures, to fascinating looks at historic city eateries and our eclectic musical heritage.

Upcoming topics will include everything from the Lenape Indians and bandleader Arthur Pryor, to city churches and natural disasters.

The group is also embarking on a major effort to restore the long-neglected fountain in Library Square, and recently submitted its first grant application as a valid, not-for-profit group.

And, whether this $5,000 grant application is successful or not, members are committed to raising funds for the $14,000 restoration project that would bring back the original lion's head water spigots, decorative light fixture, and memorial plaque celebrating city Mayor Frank Tenbroeck.

Members also hope to partner with city hall and with other organizations to ultimately restore the park's benches, paths and lighting, as well as the distinctive plantings that once made this so-called "specimen park" a popular retreat for city residents and summer visitors.

And, in a city that has preserved little of its very unique past, the society's Archives and Artifacts Committee is spending long hours documenting the long-neglected historical objects and records that still remain.

It's a discouraging task. For example, whatever became of the "Hall of Nations" museum in Convention Hall that (improbably) included a $2,000 bust of Mussolini, a painting of General Robert E. Lee, and a multinational mineral collection, according to our reprinted 1931 book?

And who recently pilfered a small Tillie painting inside the Palace Amusements building?

Still, untapped treasures do exist, like a city-owned storage room where piles and piles of old architectural drawings were strewn around the floor - many of them brittle with age or edged with mold.

Cataloging these resources in a computer database, raising money to restore and preserve them, and eventually making them available to the public again is a major society goal with which the city has been cooperating - particularly through the assistance of the Asbury Park Public Library, which will act as a reference center for historic paper records.

And while it will take several years to establish an actual historical museum, the society is currently looking for a donated, climate-controlled storage space to protect historical materials that don't yet have a home.

Want to learn more? Contact the society at history@asburypark.net, or talk to current board members Ellis Gilliam, Ruthanne Harrison, President Jim Nappi, Bob Stewart, Sara Anne Towery, Pete Walton, or myself.

Better yet, plan to attend the general membership meeting scheduled for November 26 at 8 p.m. at the Asbury Park Public Library, First and Grand Avenues, where members will receive an update on society activities and vote on an expanded, 11-member board. (Historical Society membership costs $15 a year or $5 for seniors.)

And, if Mussolini, William Penn, Christopher Columbus or any of our missing treasures are gathering dust in an unexplored attic or storage room somewhere, please let us know about them.

It's time to put Asbury Park's past back together again.