Firefighters found the blaze strongest at the northwest corner of the house, as seen from a neighboring backyard, above, and from Hudson Avenue, below. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Two Red Bank families escaped safely as a predawn fire tore through a Hudson Avenue house Thursday.

One half of the structure, at 46-48 Hudson, was fully involved in flames when firefighters arrived on the scene shortly after 3 a.m., said fire Chief Josh Sanders.

Police patrol units, which were already there, reported that the occupants had escaped safely, he said.

Volunteer firefighters train water on the northwest corner, as seen from Clay Street. (Click to enlarge)

Four adults, two children and three dogs were in the house at the time of the fire, said one of the occupants, Ryan Howard, who was asleep in a second-floor bedroom when the fire broke out.

“I heard the kids next door screaming as they were running out of the house,” said Howard, who lived in the southern half of the two-story structure, at number 48. “Then I saw orange light.”

Ryan said he, his wife and their two dogs were easily able to exit. The couple next door, their two boys and a dog also exited safely, he said.

Firefighters described the blaze as one of the fastest-moving they’d seen in years, though they managed to largely confine it to the northern half the structure at number 46. Northwesterly winds pushed heavy smoke to the ground for blocks around.

The mid-block house is owned by Ray Rapcavage, who also owns several other rental properties on the street.

By JOHN T. WARD

Kathie Panepinto was leading a tour of the Red Bank Primary School property and lamenting the heavy growth that hides an adjoining pond Monday when groundhog that had been sunning itself in the grass scooted across her path and into the brush.

“Oh, look at that,” she said said excitedly, noting that up-close sightings of deer and other wildlife are common at the school, which sits on landfill in a former wetlands abutting the Swimming River.

It was the kind of moment that for decades has inspired talk of the school’s potential as natural sciences learning center. And it underscored the value of ongoing efforts by Panepinto and other volunteers in their most ambitious effort to date: creating a permanent physical link between the school and the inaccessible pond.

A concept plan shows a walkway out into the pond that the foundation hopes to win funding for. (Click to enlarge)

Since its revival from dormancy four years ago, the nonprofit Red Bank Borough Education Foundation has focused its efforts on small-bore projects: leading cleanups of the 17-acre primary school property, lending a hand and a few dollars to installations such as a butterfly garden, a small greenhouse and a human sundial clock.

Now, though, the all-volunteer group is raising its sights with a proposal to build an outdoor classroom in the form of a pier and observation deck on the pond. The structure would enable students at the K-3 school to see land and aquatic habitats up close, and “to do wet and muddy samplings,” said RBBEF member and Councilman Ed Zipprich.

“Most folks don’t even know there’s a pond back there,” said member Susan Berke.

“The idea is to make access to the pond not just for science, but for reading, writing, art,” said Panepinto, an RBBEF officer.

No cost estimate for the project has yet been worked up, and foundation members don’t even know if they would need and might obtain permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection for the structure, which may be subject to limitations on building in coastal areas.

Still, they’ve begun the process of trying to win a grant for as much as $460,000 from the National Science Foundation, said foundation president Doug Winning, an architect. “We’re going for the full enchilada,” he said.

Meantime, the organization has raised about $10,000 in each of the past two years through art auctions held at the Atrium at Navesink Harbor. This year, no such event is planned, though members hope to put together an Antiques Roadshow-type event for 2013.

Meantime, the group has produced a reusable canvas shopping tote featuring Red Bank student art that will soon be available around town for $5. For $10, residents get the tote and membership in the RBBEF.

“We’re still taking baby steps at this point, but we’ve got momentum going, and that’s the important thing,” said Zipprich.

In an unwritten opinion, Judge Anthony Mellaci ruled from the bench in Freehold Friday that a municipal court judge had given “misplaced” credibility to the accusers of firefighter Justin Hughes, said Hughes’s attorney, Scott Servilla.

Hughes, 29, was found guilty of harassment for provocative statements, which he denied making, that 25-year-old Steven Lang, a former Marine, “should have died in Iraq.”

The alleged insults, in the Sea Bright firehouse bar during a wetdown ceremony for a new truck, were said to have incited attacks on Hughes by Lang and his brother, Peter Lang, 33. The scuffles, in which Hughes claimed he was injured, were captured on closed-circuit security video.

Lang and his brother were both convicted by Little Silver municipal court judge James Berube of assaulting Hughes.

All three came away with the same sentence: $500 in penalties, as well as a requirement to perform 100 hours of community service.

But Servilla, himself a Sea Bright fireman for 28 years, said Mellaci found that “there was insufficient proof to find that Justin had even made those statements.”

Asked to comment, Servilla said the ruling “speaks for itself. It was always clear to several people that Justin didn’t make any such statements.”

He declined to comment further, except to say that the events of October 9, 2010, were not representative of the character of the volunteer fire squad, which “has moved on in a positive direction” under the leadership of Chief Chad Murphy.

Hughes told redbankgreen that Mellaci’s ruling left him with “a smile on my face that couldn’t be any wider.”

It was unclear late Friday if the Langs had also appealed their convictions. William Wilson, the lawyer who represented the Langs, could not be reached for comment.

All three firefighters were expected to face disciplinary action by the borough council for violating employee policy. Hughes said he will now seek to have that action against him terminated based on Mellaci’s ruling.

By JOHN T. WARD

A fire that appeared to start in mulch caused limited damaged to a Red Bank auto dealership Sunday morning.

Volunteer firefighters, responding to an alarm at Red Bank Nissan, on East Newman Springs Road, arrived shortly after 10 a.m. to find a portion of the western wall ablaze beneath metal siding panels, they said.

The fire appeared to have started in mulch that abutted the facade, allowing the flames to contact the structural wood underneath, firefighters said.

The blaze was quickly brought under control without any evident damage to the dealer’s cars, though the showroom filled with smoke.

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.

Melgar was reported to have jumped off the platform in front of a northbound train as it was pulling into the station at 9:15 p.m., according to New Jersey Transit spokesman John Durso Jr.

“The train was entering the station, so it was going at a slow rate of speed,” Durso tells redbankgreen.

Durso said the train’s engineer saw the victim walk from the vicinity of a ticket-vending machine on the eastern platform and leap in front of the engine. Emergency stopping measures were unable to halt the train in time, he said.

Volunteer fire and first aid responders found Melgar lodged under the train on the westerly rail near the rear of the engine. Durso said he suffered a fractured skull and fractures to his arms and legs.

Melgar’s condition was not immediately avaialble.

About 40 passengers on the train were transferred to another train, Durso said. The one that struck the victim remained in the station until about 11 p.m. while an investigation was conducted, Durso said.

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank taxpayers are facing a cost of up to $1 million to replace an aerial ladder truck, town officials said Wednesday night.

The borough council introduced a $1.1 million bonding ordinance to pay for a new rig, which would replace a 25-year-old truck whose ladder components failed during routine maintenance last year, said Fire Marshal and Administrator Stanley Sickels.

Replacement parts are not available, and the vehicle is no longer compliant with national firefighting equipment standards, he said.

The existing truck, housed at the Navesink Hook & Ladder Company on Mechanic Street, cost the borough about $450,000 when it was built in 1987, Sickels said. Prices have more than doubled since then, he said.

Bids are expected to come in around $950,00 he said. The existing truck has no market value except as scrap, he said.

More than a dozen blue-clad volunteer firefighters turned out in support of the bond introduction. One of them Vince Sarullo, owns an a specialty accounting business located directly opposite the Hook & Ladder house on Mechanic.

“We’re volunteers,” Sarullo told redbankgreen afterward. “The last thing you want is to go to a fire and worry if the equipment is going to fail underneath you.”

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank’s largest public event, the annual KaBoom Fireworks show, is off for 2012 and facing steep barriers to a return, organizers said Wednesday morning.

The nonprofit show’s executive committee, after several months of mulling, concluded about a week ago that the costs and challenges of staging the event, which draws an estimated 100,000 visitors to the borough each July 3, could not be met this year, chairman Tim Hogan told redbankgreen.

“It was a victim of its own success,” Hogan said, with increasingly bigger crowds  drawn to what was billed as the fourth-largest Independence Day fireworks celebration in America in terms of the number and size of shells lofted into the sky above the Navesink River.

“It was a big event,” he said. “It was a challenge to control the crowd and make sure we were providing security to the folks who came.”

An armored personnel carrier was on hand in 2011 as authorities promised to crack down on unruly behavior after several brawls broke out at the 2010 fireworks.  (Click to enlarge)

Organizers have faced rising hurdles in recent years, said Hogan, the president of Riverview Medical Center, one of the event sponsors.

Growing crowds spurred drunkenness and sporadic brawling in the streets, with fights breaking out in 2010 and again in 2011, and dozens of arrests.

The borough government, under tight fiscal restraints, stopped donating police and cleanup services three years ago, saddling the event with an additional $60,000 or more in yearly costs.

Coordination with New Jersey Transit on train scheduling brought thousands more visitors into town, adding to both the crowd size and the need for security, Hogan said.

Meantime, raising money from the private sector became harder as the broader economy struggled to recover from the housing crisis of 2008. Hogan said the 2011 event, in his first year as chairman, started off with a $40,000 deficit from 2010, and though some $360,000 was raised last year, the event just broke even.

Most of the funding came from large donors, including Springpoint Senior Living, which owns the Atrium at Navesink upscale seniors residence on Riverside Avenue; Meridian Health, parent of Riverview Medical Center, where Hogan is president; and Wells Fargo Bank. On-site donations by attendees were relatively paltry, generating less than $15,000 last year.

The organizers themselves, Hogan acknowledged, may have overreached, in 2010 expanding what used to be a one-day event into three days of carnival rides and other attractions that didn’t draw adequate crowds.

In addition, downtown merchants complained that the event caused them problems with rowdy partiers who were more interested in using restaurant and store bathrooms than in spending money.

But the final nail in the event’s coffin may have been the daylong rain that imperiled the show in 2011, said Hogan. The fireworks went off, but turnout was about half of prior years, underscoring for organizers just how fragile the endeavor was.

The show “got big and ambitious, and when the weather doesn’t cooperate…” he said, trailing off. “We saw the effects of that last year.”

Does he see a comeback for the show in 2013? Hogan said the event “can only be successful with community support. There’s a lot of forces that need to come together” to make the event – which he termed “hard to manage, hard to fund” – work.