Matt DePonti of Powerhouse Signworks gets the word about Wedding Walk out above Broad Street last week. (Click to enlarge)

Here come the brides-to-be again, as Red Bank merchants reprise an idea that’s turned into one of the more popular recurring draws of shoppers and diners.

As with the first three editions of this shopping extravaganza, merchants of everything from formalwear to framing, from rehearsal-dinner restaurant meals to riverfront hotel suites will open their doors on Saturday to an expected swarm of soon-to-be-marrieds hoping to nail down details of their big day.

Organized by downtown promotion agency Red Bank RiverCenter, the free, one-day event is designed for prospective brides, grooms, their families and friends to come to town to plan their weddings, checking out more than 40 wedding-related businesses have to offer.

Florists, gown and tuxedo retailers, photographers, jewelers, hair and nail salons and banquet facilities are on board, RiverCenter says in an announcement. Most will be offering promotions, light refreshments, and libations and live music will be performed all day at three locations throughout town.

From RiverCenter:

The day begins at 9:00 AM with Registration/Check In and Continental Breakfast at the historic Molly Pitcher Inn, at 88 Riverside Avenue followed by a self-guided tour of the town’s participating businesses.  All registrants will receive a Wedding Walk map/passport and each registered couple will receive one complimentary tote bag to hold all the giveaways and information.

Free shuttle, limo and trolley service will also be available with stops at each of the downtown’s shopping areas. Guests must visit at least 16 businesses (including one from each zone) to be eligible for the prize drawings at the end of the day.

The day concludes with a fabulous champagne reception including hors d’oeuvres at the Oyster Point Hotel, a beautiful, waterfront, wedding venue at 146 Bodman Place at 3:00 PM.  The prize raffle will be held at 3:15 PM where guests can enter to win fabulous prizes with their validated passport including the Grand Prize of a 6-day vacation in Costa Rica!  The Wedding Walk will conclude at 4:00 PM.

Guests are strongly encouraged to pre-register @ www.OnlyOneRedBankWedding.com where they can browse the participating businesses and map out their itinerary to get the most out of their day.  Engaged couples, mark your calendars for the Red Bank Wedding Walk on Saturday March 24th! Your dream wedding awaits!

For more information go to www.OnlyOneRedBankWedding.com or call Red Bank RiverCenter at 732-842-4244.  Red Bank RiverCenter is a not-for-profit alliance of businesses, property owners, and residents working toward the economic vitality of the Red Bank Business District.  Please visit www.redbankrivercenter.org for additional information.

Local-history librarian Elizabeth McDermott, below, with a custom-branded Eisner lightbulb in the second-floor New Jersey Room of the Red Bank Public Library, once the home of industrialist Sigmund Eisner. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

On April 15, 1937, the Red Bank Public Library – for decades an itinerant but growing collection of books and archival material – finally found a permanent home, relocating from a downtown storefront to a mansion at 84 West Front Street.

Three months earlier, the heirs of Sigmund Eisner – mass-manufacturer of uniforms for the Army, the Boy Scouts and other organizations  – had donated their late father’s mansion overlooking the Navesink River to the library.

The shared hope of H. Raymond, Monroe and J. Lester Eisner was that the house would provide a warm and dry place for reading, but also that it would function “as a bit of a museum, too,” says local-history librarian Elizabeth McDermott.

Next month, the library will celebrate its 75th anniversary in the house with museum-like displays that highlight Eisner and his transformative impact on Red Bank as an industrialist and philanthropist.

The event, says McDermott, “is completely about” Eisner.

The ornate first-floor parlor of the Eisner mansion, above, and an undated photo of Sigmund Eisner, below. (Click to enlarge)

Valued at $25,000 at the time, the house was donated partly furnished, according to a Red Bank Register account of the opening. Wicker chairs provided welcome indoor seating overlooking the river.

The house had been home to Eisner and his wife, Bertha Weis, a member of a well-established Red Bank family. An Eastern European immigrant who “came to Red Bank as a peddler,” Eisner set up a sewing machine in a rented house near Broad Street and eventually built an manufacturing empire that employed 5,000 people at its peak during the first World War, said McDermott.

Eisner’s complex of factory buildings at the West Front Street and Bridge Avenue was reported to be the largest uniform factory in the world, she said.

Some of that property is now the home to the Galleria at Red Bank, a collection of restaurants, shops and offices. Another portion, on the northeast corner of that intersection, is home to the Antique Center of Red Bank.

Antique Center owner Guy Johnson is lending some of his collection of Eisner and old Red Bank memorabilia to the library display, including uniforms and a lightbulb branded with the Eisner name, probably for use in the factory, McDermott said.

The event will also highlight the reopening of the library’s New Jersey History Room. For many years, an ornate front room trimmed in ornate Gothic woodwork served as the repository for reference and archival materials about Red Bank, Monmouth County and the state. But the rarity and delicate condition of some of the materials, including one-of-a-kind atlases and directories, called out for a dedicated, controlled-access space, said McDermott.

That space is now a second-floor room of several hundred square feet that is open to the public from 2 to 4 p.m. each Tuesday afternoon, and by appointment at other times. McDermott said it is available to anyone, and is particularly helpful to people interested in researching family and property histories.

McDermott herself has been immersed in the materials as she assembles the exhibit, she said. And one regular visitor, a volunteer in the effort to put together the exhibit, has been known to exclaim, while going through old photos, “Oh my god, that’s my great-grandfather,” McDermott said with a laugh.

The goal of the exhibit is to create “a kind of timeline” about Eisner, a philanthropist who left money in his will to his factory workers, as well as to a host of churches of various persuasions, said McDermott.

“He didn’t have any barriers,” she said.

The building got a $1.6 million renovation in 2007, reopening after a problematic 15-month closure in January, 2008. In the interim, the library operated out of retail space donated by Hovnanian Enterprises.

Here’s an article from the January 6, 1937 edition of the New York Times announcing the donation of the house to the borough: Eisners deed house to library

And here’s the announcement about next month’s event:

On Saturday, April 14, 2012, from 2 – 4 PM, the Red Bank Public Library will celebrate 75 years as the Eisner Memorial Library with a Ribbon Cutting and Reception in our newly restructured New Jersey History Room.

Our New Jersey Collection contains many unique and valuable items pertaining to the Library, the Borough of Red Bank, and Monmouth County. The Library building itself is a special place, having been previously the home of Sigmund Eisner, businessman, civic leader and philanthropist, and his wife Bertha, an influential businesswoman and civic organizer. Presented to the Borough of Red Bank in January 1937, the former mansion was opened as a Public Library on April 15, 1937, thanks to the generosity of the Eisner sons, Raymond, J. Lester, and Monroe Eisner.

Please join us on April 14, as we celebrate this historic anniversary in our beautiful building on the Navesink River. For more information, please feel free to contact the library at 732-842-0690.

By JOHN T. WARD

Four months after LoBoudoir Photography sexed-up a long-vacant Red Bank space, the former Kislin’s sporting goods store diagonally across East Front Street is also about to get a photo studio.

Kramer Portraits, which for the past 10 years has occupied a narrow storefront next door to the Jade Garden take-out Chinese place on Broad Street, plans to relocate to 8 East Front next month, studio manager Ed O’Malley tells redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.

Kramer Portraits is leaving the storefront it has occupied for the past decade. (Click to enlarge)

Kramer could hardly be farther away on the photo spectrum from LoBoudoir, which specializes saucy shots of average women and complements a wedding photography business under the same umbrella.

Kramer, by contrast, specializes in formal “photographic quality” and “painter quality” portraits of full dressed individuals and families. Passersby may recognize Kramer as the shop that occasionally has among its window displays a large portrait of former Yankee’s manager Joe Torre.

The studio’s move, triggered by a need for more space and, frankly, a second restroom, according to O’Malley, will give Kramer 2,500 square feet, about one-third the space available at the new address.

Kramer expects to make the move in mid-March, O’Malley said.

Kislin’s, a family-owned sporting-goods retailer that counted Katherine Hepburn and Bruce Springsteen among its customers, did business in town for a century before closing in 2005. The upper two floors were converted to apartments, but the retail space at ground level has gone begging for tenants ever since.

By JOHN T. WARD

The oversized, constantly changing photos of well-dressed young models you may have noticed in the window of Skye Blue & BeTween in Fair Haven aren’t stock images provided by clothing manufacturers.

They’re the store’s ‘tween customers, girls aged 13 to 16, the age “just before they start shopping at Urban Outfitters,” says shop owner Debbie Mishan. And a spot in the boutique’s frames has become one of the hottest tickets among adolescent girls on the Green – and a marketing boon for Mishan and a local photographer.

Mishan opened the River Road store three years ago, after selling a building across the street where she ran What A Doll, a doll shop, for a dozen years.

Soon after she opened, in wandered Rumson photographer Avery Brighton, who asked Mishan if she might display some of her work in the store to generate portrait business.

“I said, ‘How about we put some of the customers in the window?’” Mishan tells redbankgreen.

They did, and soon, “customers started coming in and asking, ‘How do you get in the window?’” Mishan said. “It mushroomed.”

That’s evident in the the large glass vase on the store’s counter. It is stuffed to overflowing, mushroom-like, with hundreds of clothing tags, each bearing the handwritten name and phone number of a girl eager to be among the eight chosen for the new monthly display.

“It’s been phenomenal what’s happened,” said Brighton, who posts the latest crop of photos on her blog.

Winners are treated to a free photo session at Brighton’s Shine Bright Studios, complete with hair-blowing fans and a stereo system pumping out Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and other cohort-appropriate ear candy.

The girls find the experience thrilling.

“Debbie has amazing clothes,” said 12-year-old Charlotte Kaye, a recent transplant from Rumson to Allenhurst who was featured in the January display. “I was really looking forward to it.”

“They’re beside themselves when they come in,” said Brighton, who notes that the process of selecting clothes for the shoot, and the shoot itself, is often “a bonding experience between the girls and their mothers, who sometimes see a side of their daughters they’ve never seen before” once the music starts playing.

“The moms are like, ‘I had no idea she could dance like that,’” Brighton said.

“It’s a huge self-esteem booster, especially for girls this age,” said Jennifer Kaye, Charlotte’s mother. “These girls are just so fragile. Anything that helps them feel good about themselves at that formative age is wonderful.”

The posters are noteworthy in an era of increasingly sexualized youth for their unforced, naturalistic depiction of girls having the time of their lives in the latest fashions.

“These girls have just gotten their braces, they have freckles,” said Brighton. “These are real kids.”

The pictures “have a lot of personality, and they’re very age-appropriate,” Kaye adds.

The shoots have become so popular that one donated by Mishan and Brighton is said to have raised more than $1,2000 for a local charity, though Mishan said was unable to confirm that.

The effort has generated more sales for Skye Blue than any type of advertising Mishan has ever tried, she said. But she admits that what now looks like a bolt of marketing genius was actually inspired by a far more pedestrian aim.

“The god’s honest truth is that I did this to keep the sun out,” she said, pointing to the store’s south-facing windows.

The parents are under no obligation to buy any pictures. But the arrangement has been a fruitful source of referrals for her as well, Brighton said.

“We’re taking two small businesses and working together, using both our strengths, to do something nice for the community and to help our businesses,” she said.

It’s a full-on sight-and-sound spectacular: the annual night-after-Thanksgiving Santa Claus train ride into Red Bank followed by the parade to Broad Street, the downtown light-up and the Holiday Express concert.

For the 18th consecutive year, it was all once again best experienced perched on dad’s shoulders while wearing a funny hat.

redbankgreen photographer Peter Lindner was there. Were you?

By JOHN T. WARD

Vacant for more than two years, a high-profile storefront in downtown Red Bank has landed a small co-op of wedding-related businesses as tenants.

This is not, however, where your grandma went to have her engagement portrait taken. And when the curtains are drawn across the glass-fronted space, you can be sure something sexy is happening inside.

Photographers Chris LoBue, left, and Suzanne LoBue with DJ Mike Hernandez Jr. (Click to enlarge)

No, it’s not as raunchy as you might think, but it does have a racy element to it. Among the new tenants is LoBoudoir Photography, which offers the latest in must-have personal imagery: sessions for clients willing to strip down to their lingerie, or less.

It’s for the woman who wants to see herself in a new light and share the results with her boyfriend, fiancé , husband or… others, say photographers Chris and Suzanne LoBue.

The soft-lit, sensual boudoir sessions are one element of a multifaceted cluster of services that moved in earlier this month at 21 East Front Street, the sexy and gleaming space last tenanted by the chic furniture seller Design Front, which left in 2009.

The husband-and wife LoBues, of Hazlet, own LoBoudoir and CLB Photography, which does wedding, engagement and day-after-the-wedding “trash-the-dress“sessions, at which brides let down their hair and get down and dirty in a gown they’ll never wear again. They also have an industrial photo business.

The LoBues took one half of the space. The other half is now home to Mike Hernandez Jr.’s Sounds to Go DJ service, which in addition to offering event music, works with cinematographers and videographers.

After a decade of sharing space in an office building at Avenue of the Commons in Shrewsbury, Hernandez and the LoBues decided it was time to answer the siren call of downtown Red Bank, which had long appealed to them.

After all, this is where many of their young clients hang out and shop, and the trio wanted to make the planning of a wedding part of a vibrant “experience,” in which clients would stop in before or after dining downtown or before hitting the clubs.

When a real estate agent showed the threesome 21 East Front, “we just stared through the window for literally an hour and said, ‘holy s___,’” said Suzanne.

“As soon as you see this space, you start to envision what you can do here,” she said.

With its northern rear wall also dominated by windows, and white walls on either side, the open, 1,875-square-foot space floods with natural light while conveying an urban, gallery-like vibe. In fact, the space, part of a three-story addition made about six years ago to an existing seven-story structure then owned by redeveloper Metrovation, has been used as a pop-up art gallery in the two-plus years it’s been vacant.

The photo and DJ services aren’t contingent on one another: a client is free to use one and not the other. But “there’s a a benefit” to brides-to-be, many of whom appreciate the ability to square away major planning elements of their big day, said Chris.

“Seventy-five percent of the people we meet with are thrilled that there are two vendors in the same place,” said his wife.

Hernandez, of Eatontown, says that while the rent is steeper than the trio had been paying in Shrewsbury, “the reaction of clients is worth it.

“When you’re in this space, you just feel cool,” he said. “You’ve got to be as cool as your product.”

Though the proximity of other wedding industry players in town wasn’t a particular draw, the threesome say they’re looking forward to participating in Red Bank RiverCenter’s third edition of its highly successful Wedding Walk next March 24.

BTW, there’s at least one other photographer in town offering boudoir sessions: Brandi Grooms Photography.

Framing shop/gallery Frame to Please in the Galleria at Red Bank hosted an opening reception Thursday night for “SQ + SQ x 2,” a collection of square photos by students of Laury Egan of Highlands.

The shooters were asked to see in squares and double squares to underscore the benefits of tight cropping, which Egan says makes images “more muscular, more exciting.”

The show runs through November 13, and some of the sale proceeds benefit the Monmouth County Historical Association.

The second annual Red Bank Guinness Oyster Festival, delayed a week by rain that never came, roared into in town on Sunday  under classic autumn conditions: cool, partly sunny and heartily festive.

Twenty-five Red Bank restaurants supplied culinary delights such as lobster rolls, seafood chowder, corned-beef sandwiches, bacon-topped cupcakes and, of course, Guinness and oysters by the boatload for thousands of visitors to the White Street municipal lot.

redbankgreen was there, natch. Were you? Look for yourself and your friends in our photos.

Red Bank’s annual Street Fair drew early-autumn skies – plus an orchestra, lots of crafts makers, the Socialist Party, food vendors and a whole slew of home-improvement contractors – to Broad and Monmouth streets Sunday.

redbankgreen was there, camera in hand. Were you?