It was December 1998 and I was standing in Macy's department store, holding a shoe from the sale rack and debating whether I'd be able to glide through a whole New Year's Eve party without tripping over a heel.

Nearby, a group of well-dressed women were accumulating their own pile of glittery shoes while discussing an up-coming holiday ball.

"I can't believe you're wearing that!" one of them suddenly screeched, and I was mortified to realize that she was pointing directly at me.

Jolted from my daydream, I anxiously scanned my clothes and feet. No unexpected split seams. No holes in my understated leopard-print socks. Oh heavens - was something horrible smeared on my face?

"What? What?" I asked, with a rising panicky feeling.

"Why, that shirt!" she replied, surprised. "Nobody wants to be associated with that place!"

Dumbfounded, I looked down at my shiny new "Greetings from Asbury Park" sweatshirt.

"Well," I answered, confused, "I live there. I own a gallery there. And we sell these shirts at our gallery."

She stared at me for a long minute.

"That's, uhm, a very nice shoe you're holding," she finally said.

In the 18 years I've lived here, I'm still amazed that even the most well-mannered people assume that anything goes when they're talking to an Asbury Park resident or business owner.

Which is why I always hated driving along Ocean Avenue in towns like Belmar and Avon. Because when you looked north along those sunny, people-packed beaches, C-8's blistered skeleton stood out like a warning sentinel at the gates of Hell.

It wasn't always that way.

When we bought the perfect home here in 1988, my AT&T Bell Labs co-workers were suitably skeptical: "Asbury Park? It will never come back!" But their opinions softened the following summer when they attended an open house for Ocean Mile, a lavish high-rise that would spill across Ocean Avenue.

"Enjoy a luxurious, cosmopolitan lifestyle," the brochure promised: Sumptuous master suites. Gourmet European kitchens with the finest appliances. Party-sized terraces and patios. Sparkling indoor and outdoor swimming pools. Oceanfront sundeck. Exclusive fitness club and jogging track.

Then the bottom dropped out of the real estate market: Half-completed Ocean Mile became the skeleton known as C-8. Our house lost almost half its value overnight, and we couldn't refinance our crushing 10.5 percent mortgage.

"That's Asbury Park for you," people sighed, shoveling literal and figurative sand in our faces. But there's something magic - and determined - about Asbury Park that just refuses to quit.

And so it was a dozen years later that I found myself part of a city council handing an ultimatum to a new generation of developers: Knock down C-8 or redesign it. But get it completely off Ocean Avenue. And lose that despised, '80s-era outer shell.

As you know, Metro Homes dramatically chose the "knock it down" option last Saturday, and people who hadn't agreed on anything in six decades came out to celebrate. (Well, almost everyone, of course: Kingsley Deli owner Rita Marano did admit she'll miss it.)

And - in an ironic twist of fate that no one could have predicted in 1988 - Saturday's newspapers also reported that my former Bell Labs workplace - an architectural showplace in upscale Holmdel that once housed 5,000 people - is also being demolished, due to the unimaginable demise of once invincible AT&T.

C-8's dramatic implosion provided welcome photo ops - and tangible encouragement to out-of-town visitors and potential investors - but it is only one very visible symbol of a still-battered community that is finally rising to its feet.

Which is why Esperanza - or Hope - is the perfect name for C-8's successor. Which is also why (listen up, you guys!) we need to ensure that non-beachfront essentials like our long-overdue senior and community center aren't lost in the shuffle. (And special thanks go to Bruce Springsteen for bringing national media coverage to Asbury Park last week with a quartet of rehearsal concerts that will benefit a dozen Asbury Park groups.)

Last Saturday, Dave and I joined in a fourth anniversary party at Asbury Park's Studebaker's Antiques. Afterwards, he took an unexpected detour down Route 71, cutting through Belmar to Ocean Avenue.

"Look!" he told me as we crested the bridge between Belmar and Avon.

Far ahead, I could see Asbury Tower silhouetted against the evening sky. And directly in front of that was....

"The Berkeley-Carteret Hotel!" I whooped.

Score one for Asbury Park.