By JOHN T. WARD

The building appears to sigh and lean, as though aware of its fate. Inside, nooks and corners that once teemed with the cast-offs of the decades have begun to empty out.

It’s a sad time at Monmouth Antique Shoppes, one of the anchors of Red Bank’s vaunted Arts & Antiques District. Eviction notice in hand, owner John Gribbin has informed his 23 remaining dealers that they, like he, must be out by the end of the month, ending a 29-year run.

“It’s not the best time for me to talk,” Gribbin told redbankgreen Tuesday, as he had also last week. “I’m trying to find a home for me and my dealers, and it’s not easy going.”

More than a dozen of the displaced shops are finding a new home just a few doors east, at the Gizzi family’s Riverbank Antiques. (Click to enlarge)

The wood-frame building, at the southeast corner of West Front Street and Bridge Avenue, was once part of the Eisner uniform factory complex – “a sweatshop,” said Gribbin. Now, it is slated to be razed to make way for the MW West Side Lofts project, a mixed-use assemblage of luxury rental apartments, street-level retail, live-and-work artists’ spaces, a parking garage and a Triumph Brewing Company restaurant.

No permits for the demolition or ensuing construction have yet been issued, according to a borough official. But Monmouth Antique Shoppes and Ambiance antiques, which occupies a neighboring building owned by the lofts developer, have been told to clear out. They were recently given 60 days notice, almost six years after the lofts plan won approval.

Unaffected by the action is Guy Johnson’s Antique Center of Red Bank, which occupies two sprawling buildings, including the giant barn-red structure at the intersection’s northeast corner and a second warehouse opposite Brothers Pizza.

The diaspora has proven to be an awkwardly welcome boon for Carla Gizzi, who runs her family’s Riverbank Antiques business just a block east of Gribbin’s. She’s busily making arrangements to accommodate more than a dozen displaced dealers.

“I feel horrible for John, but it actually enables us to stay in business, and we’re keeping these dealers in Red Bank,” Gizzi said. “We’re consolidating and enabling them to stay.”

Among those making the move are Reggie Hawn and Cheryl Figliola. Hawn, who’s been at the shoppes for less than two years, said she’s “looking forward to the day when we can all reunite under one tent,” reforming a group of dealers with complementary specialties.

“What made us successful here was that we’re all collectors first,” said Figliola, a 17-year tenant of the shoppes. “Everyone found their own niche.”

Gribbin said he doesn’t know where he and other dealers, who together operate as a sort of cooperative, selling each other’s goods when dealers are absent, will wind up. But he sees his business’s departure as part of an inexorable slide toward oblivion for the antiques district.

“As to me, I’m leaving Red Bank,” he said. “This industry has been a major draw for the town, and it’s going away slowly.”

Just across the street, another storefront formerly occupied by an antiques dealer stands empty following the recent departure of Plum Cottage, which relocated to Fair Haven.

Fair Haven’s newly renovated Bicentennial Hall, aka Fisk Chapel, is among the historical landmarks that will play a key role in the borough’s centennial.

Its 1.7 square miles boast some of the oldest homes on the greater Red Bank Green, and a classic small-town vibe that’s lamentably lacking in much of stripmall America  — but some may be surprised to learn that Fair Haven, New Jersey isn’t a day over 100.

Carved from the former Shrewsbury Township and officially incorporated in March of 1912 (the current borders, adjusted with neighboring Red Bank, date back just a little more than 50 years), the still-young borough that brought us the area’s most iconic Firemen’s Fair (and served as home field for the legendary Vince Lombardi) is scarcely too old to party in style. And this weekend, Fair Haven throws itself a “Night of the Century” celebration that promises to draw “well over a one-hundred neighbors, local business owners and community leaders who love Fair Haven.”

Scheduled for Saturday night at the Raven and the Peach restaurant on River Road, The Party That Happens Only Once Every Hundred Years is being touted as “a very special occasion for everyone who contributes to the life of this town,” in the words of Centennial Gala co-chair Christine Burke Eskwitt.

With newly sworn-in Mayor Ben Lucarelli as acting auctioneer, and a slate of live music from borough-based entertainers Bob Lucky and River Road Band, the event is one in which, as Councilwoman Susan Sorensen puts it, “our focus is Fair Haven.” It’s a focus that extends to the Centennial Gala’s silent auction, an offering for which Sorenson and fellow co-chair Marie Noglows solicited original artworks from “collectible professionals and accomplished amateurs,” all with an arty accent on Fair Haven and the surrounding area.

During the “fast but furious auction” conducted by Hizzoner, participants will bid on such big-ticket items as “a vacation home, a cocktail cruise on the Navesink, an afternoon fishing trip with catered lunch, four tickets to a Nets game with courtside club passes and a personal photo op with members of the Nets’ Dance Team or the Nets Mascot.”

A 50/50 drawing is also on the program, and co-chairs Erin Gotch and Cathy Alescio have assembled “an extensive gift card Pot of Gold” with the participation of local merchants (the Gala Committee is joined by Nicole Rice, who supervised the decor and coordinated with the Fair Haven Business Association).

Tickets ($55 per person; $100 per couple) are still available and include hors d’oeuvres, carving and pasta stations and desserts from Raven and the Peach. An additional $25 per person includes access to a VIP wine room, and reservations can be made by contacting Charlie Hoffman at (732) 747-0241, ext. 216.

Five months after securing state Register of Historic Places status, Little Silver’s 347-year-old Parker Homestead has been added to that list’s national counterpart, the Asbury Park Press reports Thursday.

The borough’s oldest surviving homestead, which includes a main house and three outlying barns, the Parker property was acquired by the borough from Julia Parker, the last descendant of the original family, who passed away in 1996.

Former Mayor Suzanne Castleman, who died in July, was a driving force behind the acquisition, heading a board dedicated to the home’s preservation.

From the Press:

The most pressing issue at the homestead now is stabilizing and repairing three barns on the property, estimated to cost $500,000. However Mayor Robert C. Neff Jr. said the listing on the national register now makes the homestead eligible for federal grants to do that work.

The board is scheduled to meet March 8 at 7:30 p.m. at borough hall.

By TOM CHESEK

He appears right around this time each year, making people smile; a familiar figure instantly recognizable by his trademark headgear and his distinctive transportation.

We’re talking of course about Cousin Eddie, the boorish ne’er-do-well played by Randy Quaid in various Vacation movies — specifically Christmas Vacation (and its direct-to-video sequel). The image of Eddie, clad in bathrobe and flap-eared trapper hat, has been burned into our nation’s pop-cultural consciousness in recent years. And on Saturday, December 17, downtown Red Bank revelers and strolling shoppers may encounter another “thing you can’t un-see,” when nearly two dozen Cousin Eddies take to the streets (and saloons) in support of a worthy cause, as part of the newly minted local tradition known as EddieCon.

And by some Christmas magic, Saturday also marks the first appearance in Red Bank of SantaCon, the international pub-crawl phenomenon described as “a non-denominational, non-commercial, non-political and non-sensical Santa Claus convention that occurs once a year for absolutely no reason.”

Organized as part of an event that transpires in over 200 different cities worldwide, SantaCon Red Bank may not have a reason, but it has a cause — raising money in support of the Red Bank Middle School Athletics Foundation, with the entry fee for participants ($15 in advance, $20 day of Con) donated to the local nonprofit organization.

According to organizers Alex Federico and Dan Campbell, SantaCon is an event in which “EVERYONE dresses in their best Santa attire and takes to the street for a day of debauchery” — with the Bad Santa bacchanal governed by a very precise set of rules that are detailed in entertaining fashion on the crawl committee’s web page.

From the Rules of SantaCon: “Watching Santa get drunk and obnoxious is fun. Babysitting Santa while they vomit in an alley is not. Don’t be that Santa.”

The inaugural Red Bank crawl kicks off at 12:30pm inside The Dublin House, where registrants can pick up a bracelet that will allow them to enjoy bargain-priced ($1 to $3) drink specials at participating bars and restaurants around the Santa circuit. The crawl continues until 8pm,with Alex and Dan’s Good Time Committee urging one and all to “dress in your best Santa or Christmas inspired outfit” — and to take a few minutes to read those all-important rules of decorum, engagement and general Spreading of the Red.

Before there was Santa, there was Cousin Eddie — at least here on the Green, where Chris Kenny of Shrewsbury and Dave Carr of Rumson organized the unique-to-Red Bank EddieCon for the first time in 2010. As reported here on redbankgreen, the Quaid parade was set up as a shake-the-bucket fundraiser for Monmouth Day Care Center, and the facility on Drs. James Parker Boulevard (for which 18 participants raised over $500 last year) will once again be the bar-crawl beneficiary as some 20 Eddies assemble on Wallace and Washington Streets at approximately 3pm.

From there, the men in bathrobes head west to Broad Street, where they’ll get down to the serious “E-day” business of soliciting donations and visiting some dozen or so Red Bank watering spots.

If you’re looking to don the robe and earflaps yourself and join the march, be advised that the organizers have closed the event to additional Eddies (“in an effort to not overdo it and keep it a little exclusive”) — although cash contributions, matched this year by a pair of sponsoring businesses, are welcomed as the group aims for a 2011 fundraising goal of $3,000.

No information about the cause of the blaze or the extent of the damage was immediately available, but the nearby garage door was burned and siding had melted from the second-story eaves.

Authorities closed down Rumson Road between Harding Road and Prospect Avenue, as well as the eastern end of Church Street. (Click to enlarge)

Grant Wilson (left) and Jason Hawes (right) are the SyFy network’s GHOST HUNTERS, and they’re coming to the Count’s castle for a Thursday night appearance.

By TOM CHESEK

Tag along on any of the Red Bank Walking Lantern Ghost Tours that wind through the downtown business blocks every Friday night through Halloweekend and you’re likely to hear told about the tradition of the “ghost light” — and why historic old auditoriums like the Count Basie Theatre have found it prudent and necessary to keep a bulb burning for the restless entities who are often said to haunt the catwalks, catacombs and balconies.

On Thursday night, October 20, the Basie gets a visit from Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, New England-based bosses of the Atlantic Paranormal Society and — thanks to the long-running hit SyFy Channel series Ghost Hunters — internationally renowned (and even somewhat reluctant) TV stars.

The pair of regular-joe tradesmen (they also famously operate a Roto Rooter franchise by day) and lifelong history buffs haven’t been called to the Count’s castle to flush out a clamorous poltergeist, or even snake out a sluggish floor drain. When they step out onto the stage that’s hosted many of the biggest names in show business, the men from TAPS won’t be tap-dancing, singing or telling jokes, but offering up a refreshingly matter-of-fact presentation on the nature of their work, the fascinations that led them to their passionately pursued avocation, and the real reasons why they spend so many nights lurking around allegedly haunted houses all over the United States — including, we kid you not, the house where this correspondent lives (more on that in a moment).

The Paranormal Desk at redbankgreen spoke to the well-traveled Grant Wilson in what could be called his most frequent haunt — behind the wheel of a moving vehicle on an interstate highway. Following is what we found when we reviewed the recording.

Wilson and Hawes hunt for ghosts when not snaking out clogged drains.

redbankgreen: I guess the first thing I should say is, greetings from the Stephen Crane House in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where you taped an episode of GHOST HUNTERS back in 2010.

My wife and I moved in after you guys were here, and while there are plenty of bizarre things about the place, it’s been pretty quiet on the ectoplasmic front — except, perhaps, for the first few nights we were here. Doors swung open and clicked shut by themselves. I’d lock up, go out and find the doors wide open when I got back — and wherever I aimed a camera, I’d find something on the wall or curtain that looks like a face.

GRANT WILSON: Well, it’s possible to find faces in just about anything if you’re looking for them. Either that, or the faces find you! We appreciate the history behind the house — a lot of the places we visit are museums, libraries, things like that, and we don’t always get to hear from someone who lives in one of them.

We’re talking to you in advance of your live show at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank on the 20th. It’s one of those great old places, built in the 1920s — and as I’m sure you’ve visited a lot of similar places, does it seem to you that just about every one of them has a spectral story attached to it?

A lot of them do, yeah. I think that a theater, a place where people come to be entertained, has a lot of emotions imprinted upon it. It’s a happy place, maybe I should say a place of emotional highs and lows. And that seems to leave an impression.

So what can we expect to see during the presentation that you take on the road?

It’s basically a variation on the lectures that we’ve been giving for many years, since long before the TV show. The difference is that ten years ago we’d have like 30 people show up, and now we’re consistently selling out these big halls, which is just amazing to me.

We’ll give a keynote presentation; talk about some case studies, look at evidence that we’ve collected. We’ll take you behind the scenes of the show, show you stuff that hasn’t been on TV. And we’ll have a Q&A with the audience, which is important to us; we like to engage the people who follow the show, just talk to them like the regular guys we are. There’s some laughs, a little bit of paranormal in there, but we’re not psychics!

According to some things you’ve said, you’re not really “ghost hunters” either…

We consider ourselves to be paranormal investigators — we’re not trying to conjure anything or channel anything. People come to us with questions and we’re just trying to help them figure it out. We disprove claims wherever we can, come up with the truth behind the story rather than making something out of nothing. And most of the time, not much happens.

We actually turned down doing the TV show five times. We weren’t crazy about the title GHOST HUNTERS, and we were afraid that the production company would try to make what we do into something it’s not — those first couple of seasons we butted heads with them over a lot of things.

Well, in an age when most TV personalities have to be louder, more colorful characters with their wild hairdos and catch phrases, you guys distinguish yourselves by the low profile you present.

We’re regular guys, you know, we babysit neighbor’s kids and things like that. I hardly ever watch the show — when I do catch it I love it, but none of my friends really watch it. You’ve gotta keep grounded.

So then are you able to go about your business, go to Home Depot or Lowe’s, without getting mobbed like you’re the Beatles?

Unfortunately we’re past that point — everywhere I go I get mobbed! I forget that I have a show on TV, but really, everyone I meet is respectful and I have to remember that they’re genuinely interested in what we do. I make time for them.

And imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, a whole lot of similar shows have sprung up in the past couple of years.

Well, no two shows are going about it the same way. Each show has a certain goal. Nobody’s getting hurt, and there’s room for everyone right now.

You do have your fans out there. You may not walk around feeling like a rock star, but I’ve got a friend, a woman who lives in Middletown, New Jersey — she and her husband have triplet sons named Philip, Andrew and Douglas, and those kids are obsessed with your show. They want to do their own ghost investigations. To them you guys are almost like superheroes…

I don’t feel like a superhero or a superstar or a super-anything. As I said, I’m just a guy who certainly didn’t set out to be a TV star. I do want to give those kids a shout out, let them know that we appreciate them, and it’s great to have fans who understand what we’re trying to accomplish with the show.

I went not too long ago on a professional ghost investigation, to an old bowling alley down the street from where I live, just to write about the experience. What was most interesting, I think, was the real-time aspect of staking out a place for hours. The dark and quiet and solitude establish a rhythm that’s quite different from the fast paced edits of the TV shows. It’s kind of a relaxing way to spend a night.

You’re absolutely right. When you’re sitting quietly for long stretches, just listening, kind of getting a feel for the place you’re in, it’s an experience that we obviously can’t do in an hour TV show. It is relaxing in a way, just thinking about what’s going on.

Tickets for Thursday’s 8pm appearance by the Ghost Hunters, presented by Mills Entertainment, are priced between $20 and $45.50 (with a limited number of $85 VIP seats available), and can be reserved right here.

By EVAN SOLTAS

While it gets attention from a few devoted visitors, there’s a distinct sense that the Rumson Burying Ground has been largely forgotten by the public.

Cars whip by on Rumson Road, but time here isn’t measured in minutes and seconds. One sees its passage in the dark stains on headstones, in the termite tubes that have slowly consumed one of the site’s remaining wood grave markers, and in the haunting inscriptions that date back to 1722.

Captain Hartshorne Price, died 1849.

Eleazer Parmly, died 1842.

Huldah Borden, died 1883.

For all its stillness, however, the graveyard at the corner of Conover Lane has been dragged – not for the first time – into the modern world by a dispute over its maintenance.

Dead men may tell no tales, but here, they are not entirely silent.

The Borough of Rumson, the site’s current steward, took over legal responsibility for its care after First Union National Bank, which once administered its upkeep, effectively walked away on contractual obligations.

In the process, Rumson took custody of a $20,000 trust established in 1955 with a $10,000 investment by Rumson resident Thomas McCarter . His daughter, Madeleine, left an additional $10,000 under her will in 1978. But by 2000, the trust had withered to $328.51. That’s when Bill McCarter, also a Rumson resident and Thomas McCarter’s grand-nephew, sued First Union. The bank settled, and handed the account over to the borough.

But the only funds disbursed since the settlement have been $795 in attorney fees paid to Bill McCarter himself in 2003. The  balance sits in an interest-bearing account, according to Rumson chief financial officer Helen Graves. Earnings have gone into the borough’s general fund, instead of toward the cemetery’s conservation, she acknowledged.

That irks McCarter, whose family name dominates a large white mausoleum there. He believes Rumson is not fulfilling its obligations.

“It would appear to me that the borough accepted the $20,000 from the lawsuit and has not kept up their end of the bargain, instead relying on the Boy Scouts to clean it once a year,” he told redbankgreen.

A decade ago, then-mayor Charles Callman commended McCarter for his suit against First Union, and assured him in a letter that the burying ground would be maintained, calling that responsibility the borough’s “moral obligation.”

The burying ground, however, is no stranger to protracted periods of neglect. Fallen trees and branches repeatedly have mangled the cemetery’s black iron fence. Ivy and weeds have swallowed up many of the headstones. Others are no longer upright, their pieces now strewn across the grass.

But Rumson’s Public Works Department does maintain the site, usually on a quarterly basis, using funds from its general budget, said Mayor John Ekdahl.

“The borough is holding the $20,000 in trust, saving it in the event that major maintenance – say if a large tree was to come down, or to replace a fence – is needed,” Ekdahl said. “By wrapping it in with the list of properties maintained by the borough, it has not cost us as much as if we were to separately contract out that service.”

redbankgreen visited the site three times over the last year, and found there has been upkeep. A fence, previously in pieces and lying on the ground, had been righted, although haphazardly. Dirt filled a large hole at the cemetery’s edge where a tree’s roots and stump had been pulled out of the ground.

But one small stone grave marker, which had been dislodged by the downed tree, is now itself missing from the cemetery.

Neighbors report that they have seen borough employees maintaining the cemetery.

“The town is very responsive in cleaning things up after storms and such,” said Sarah Andreski, who lives on Conover Lane, opposite the cemetery.

Of course, too much TLC might take away from the otherworldly spirit of the place.

“If you clean it up too much, I would think that it loses its character,” said Andreski.

McCarter has not been the only one to take matters into his own hands due to what he perceives as long interims of neglect. Several Hance family headstones appears to have replaced with new ones in recent years.

Local historical groups, seeking to catalog the headstone inscriptions before any further decay, have also ventured into the burying ground and published their documentation online. Beneath the ivy, moss, and water stains, they feel, is a glimpse of Rumson’s past, one that few of its modern residents would recognize.

George H. Moss, who was the borough’s historian until his death in 2009, hailed it as a site worth preserving in the anthology Town by Town: Impressions of Monmouth County, calling it a “landmark” graveyard thought to have been established before 1700.

Then, Rumson was made up of a handful of farms, a port and a tavern. According to Moss and other sources, life here went on little changed from 1665, when it was first settled, until a rush of high-end development that began in the 1870s.

The 200-grave cemetery now brims with Rumson’s oldest families, including the Bordens, Corlies, Hances, Traffords, Wardells, and Whites. Their names, many of which now designate local streets, make this cemetery almost a road map for today’s Rumson.

Some local residents, largely history buffs and amateur genealogists are agitating for attention to the site.

“This cemetery should definitely qualify for historic landmark status at the state, if not the national level, where it could receive more reliable funding support,” said Ocean resident Michael Weber, a history teacher who became active in local history and preservation after his retirement. “With its headstones dating back nearly 300 years, there’s no question that more needs to be done.”

Red Bank’s landmark downtown clock is back to telling time, even if its owner has moved on.

The distinctive Reussille’s clock was shut off three weeks ago, when Ballew Jewelers, the successor to Reussille’s, ended a 126-year run in town.

At the time, members of the Ballew family did not respond to inquiries about whether the clock would be turned back on. That prompted some local Facebook users to launch a “Save the Reussille’s Clock” page.

As of Friday afternoon, the hands of the giant timepiece had quietly resumed their slow march around the dial.

Called for comment, a Ballew employee told redbankgreen late Friday that all questions about the clock had to be directed to owner John Ballew, “but he’s not taking any calls about the clock,” she said.

Talk about circular logic…

By TOM CHESEK

The packed and popular public house on Monmouth Street hosts an apparently eternal tenant by the name of Mrs. Patterson. The dark waters of the Navesink have reportedly seen the nocturnal navigations of Captain Cooper and his spectral sloop. The business blocks of West Front Street are said to be home to pet-shop poltergeists, murderous maids and the occasional caught-on-camera “orb.” Even the local surf and skate emporium can boast its own free-spirit at unrest.

The way Tabitha Bradley tells it and sells it, the sidewalks, storefronts and second-story suites of Red Bank’s downtown represent a whole other city that never sleeps, nor rests in peace. From Lenape tribespeople to Revolution-era figures and Civil War infantrymen, the denizens of “Dead Bank” jostle for attention with the Friday night throngs of barhoppers, theatergoers, park-hanging teens, emergency vehicles and Escalades.

Every Friday from August through Halloweekend, Bradley’s team of experienced spirit guides from Jersey Shore Ghost Tours shines a LED lamplight on some largely forgotten fragments of local lore. With multiple tours departing from 8:30p in front of  The Dublin House (where an upstairs room is kept dark and quiet, as to Mrs. Patterson’s preference), the sepulchral safaris are a way to gain an altogether different perspective on some familiar scenery, an activity with which “you’ll have a good time and even learn something without realizing it,” she says.

Jersey Shore Ghost Tours founders Tabitha and Ryan Bradley commune with the spirits at their Dublin House base camp.

As teachers by profession (in the Keansburg school system), forensics students and avowed history buffs, Tabitha and her husband Ryan Bradley founded their ectoplasmic excursions venture with an emphasis on learning, rather than competing with the jump-out horrors of the many live spookhouse attractions that spring up this time each year. Researching their tour-guide scripts for historical accuracy — and participating in ghost walks at history-drenched haunts from Harpers Ferry, WV to Charleston, SC and New Hope, PA — the Bradleys set up their first lantern-lit tours in 2006, in the Bayshore borough of Keyport, home to tales of rum runners, pirates and Prohibition botleggers.

When the Keyport tours began to swell to 60 attendees in a single group, Tabitha (who may or may not be named for Samantha’s daughter on Bewitched) began to take on additional tour guides — and when the Bradleys inaugurated their Red Bank walkabouts in the summer of 2009 (securing the necessary permits and meeting with the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter), their roles became that of coordinators, with guides  such as Bill and Genny donning the shroud and wielding the walk-staff.

During the peak weeks leading up to Halloween, the Red Bank Ghost Tours (which quickly started outdrawing the original Keyport walks) can have as many as three tour groups — each of them numbering up to 25 people — out on the streets at the same time. Unlike the Keyport tours, the guides stick strictly to the commercial blocks of Broad, Monmouth and Front streets — a route that might not seem so atmospheric (it’s often necessary to shout over the hubbub of traffic, crowds and sirens), although it surely casts seemingly non-spooky places like Stokaboka and Tobacco Paradise in a new light. Patrons will come away from the experience having learned a little something, whether a generalized fun fact (such as why theaters like the Count Basie keep a “ghost light” burning) or the particulars on William Reed, apparently the only man to have fought on both sides of the Civil War.

While a steadfast belief in restless spirits isn’t a requisite here, the JSGT website does feature its share of controversial “orb” photos — nighttime scenes dotted with the scrubbing-bubbles of what’s believed by many to be the ectoplasmic manifestations of the deceased. Although redbankgreen‘s recent excursion yielded no such photographic evidence of “boo-boogers,” they’ve been known to show up when and where you’d least expect it.

Of course, even the most skeptical of scholars must embrace the local ghost story as a vital component of hometown identity — and as Tabitha has said of the town fathers, “It’s in their best interest to bring people into the business district — anything that draws people into town, they’re on board with it.”

A full house for one of multiple Friday night tours.

“Everybody’s got a story, or knows someone who does,” says Tabitha, who praised “the people who are in charge of promoting Red Bank” for helping the seasonal venture get started — even to the point of helpfully supplying leads to some eerie local legends.

Red Bank Ghost Tours continue on October 15, 22 and 29, with tickets (available on the spot at The Dub’s front courtyard) priced at $12 for adults, and $10 for kids 10 and under. Do try and check out the Keyport Ghost Tours as well; they continue Saturday nights through October 30 and depart from the harborside pocket park across from Espresso Joe’s on West Front Street (attendees who take the Red Bank tour can mention that fact for $2 off the Keyport ticket). Reservations are strongly recommended for both, and can be made by calling (732)500-6262.

Today’s Red Bank oRBit takes it down to Long Branch, the better to toast the memory of West End’s greatest contribution to our popular culture (after the Windmill) — the late 20th century author, activist and all-around wit Dorothy Parker.

A member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, an Oscar-lauded screenwriter and one of the most-quoted poets, columnists and storytellers in American history, Mrs. Parker never made much mention of her Jersey Shore roots. But for the past several years a dedicated group of fans have carried a torch for this founding mother of the Vicious Circle, gathering at the local library for a program of readings, skits and book signings, followed by some serious cocktail action and a justifiably famous Dog Parade that includes canine costumes and an honest-to-God “Blessing of the Pets.”

There’s also an invitation to all “Parker poseys” to take part in a Dorothy Lookalike Contest, open to everyone regardless of “age, gender or hat size.”

So park it right here —  at the big round table known as Red Bank oRBit.