Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

SANDY HOOK: LOST RESORT REVIVED ON VIDEO

Chris Brenner, below, made the above video to shed light on a vanishing piece of Sandy Hook history.  (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

chris-brenner-220x138-1746614Fair Haven resident Chris Brenner was fishing the Shrewsbury River one day last summer when low tide exposed the vestiges of a pier on the western side of Sandy Hook.

Brenner knew what the pier had been: part of a sprawling resort called Highland Beach that thrived for some 80 years years at that location. His mother, Jill, and late father, Ted, had even met there in the 1940s, at a popular bar called the Bamboo Room.

But looking to his right, as a stream of cars brought visitors across the Route 36 Azzolina Bridge to a park that’s now part of the federal Gateway National Recreation Area, Brenner wondered to himself: How many of those people even know what was once here?

highland-beach-postcard-500x313-8705727A postcard of the resort in its early days. (Click to enlarge)

That was the starting point for a six-month project that yielded a 44-minute video about the history of Highland Beach, Brenner said.

Brenner, 44 49, works in the computer field, and has little experience in video outside of shooting his kids’ sports events, he told redbankgreen. His only prior documentary work was a family history he compiled a few years ago.

But doing that project, “I really kind of took a liking” to the work, he said.

Brenner dove into his late father’s collection of postcards and images amassed by the late Rumson historian George Moss. He also tracked down people who provided visuals and historical perspective, including Susan Sandlass Gardiner, a granddaughter of the resort’s founder, William Sandlass Jr.

Gardiner, who now lives in Maryland, was raised in a house that once stood in the middle of what’s now the tollway entrance to the park and is now beside it, the last remaining structural vestige of Highland Beach.

For decades, Highland Beach was a thriving location as an excursion destination for citydwellers, who arrived by rail and ferry, as amply detailed in Brenner’s account.

By the 1940s, the Bamboo Bar “was the hot spot to go to,” akin to a place like the more-recently vanished Donovan’s Reef in Sea Bright, Brenner said.

But the rising dominance of the automobile killed the trains and ferries, and the Sandlass family turned their property into a beach club serving seasonal, rather than short-term, visitors.

The Sandlasses lost the property to eminent domain in 1962, when the Army leased the south end of Fort Hancock to the state of New Jersey on the condition that it be used as a park.

The Sandlass house is now slated for demolition, having been damaged by Hurricane Sandy, said Brenner. A spokesman for Gateway could not be immediately reached for comment.

Brenner calls his video “a labor of love,” but tagged it “Destinations Past,” he said, because he may create additional documentaries about once-thriving, now-forgotten sites along the nearby Bayshore.

“A couple of properties have similar histories,” he said. “They had a lot of amusement parks, hotels and beach resorts, all of which faded out” after the rise of the automobile killed the railroads and ferries.

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
redbankgreen Classics
Partyline
RAINBOW OVER RED BANK
Saturday, before and after the storm that rolled through town. (photo by Partyline contributor Thomas Doremus)    
Mini Ballers Bring the Heat at Fusion Basketball School
As the temperatures heat up, so does the competition in the mini baller clinic at Fusion School of Basketball. These little tykes are intens ...
DOZENS OF PLEIN AIR ARTISTS “PAINT RED BANK”
Plein air artists take over town for first ever "Paint Red Bank" event. (click to read)
RED BANK: SIGN ON ICONIC DANNY’S STEAK HOUSE COMES DOWN
The sign hanging from the shuttered Danny's Steak House comes down ten months after a manager reported Danny's Steakhouse would be back "bet ...
FOR YANKEES FANS, GOOD TRASH PICKIN’
A collection of framed photographs of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other New York Yankees greats was placed curbside along with a ...
RED BANK: NEW HANDICAPPED PARKING, WEST SIDE MEETING PLANNED
New handicapped parking sign West Side advocate had pressed for is installed, with meeting planned to discuss other concerns. (click to read ...
SUNSET AT SUMMER’S START
Crazy sunset clouds shot from Monmouth Boat Club on the Friday evening at the start of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer. ...
SIDEWALK GOES FROM WORST TO FIRST
P (photo by Brian Donohue) What had been, in our estimation – and apparently in the eyes of the several people who have emailed and te ...
RED BANK: PEERING FROM ON HIGH, ACROSS THE DECADES
Roofers on the Azalea Red Bank top off the project in the shadow of a sculpture depicting another generation of construction workers who toi ...
BRICK FACELIFT CONTINUES ON MONMOUTH STREET
A million-dollar brick sidwalk makeover of Monmouth Street in Red Bank continues.
JAY AND SILENT EAGLE
A very loud blue jay squawks at an indiferent bald eagle in a treetop alongside the Swimming River in Red Bank this week. (Partyline photo b ...
PIZZA LOVING SQUIRREL SPOTTED IN RED BANK
Pizza squirrel spotted in Red Bank. (click to read)
GET YOUR MA SOMETHIN’ NICE AT THE RED BANK FARMERS MARKET
It’s a beautiful and sunny Mother’s Day for the first instance of the farmer’s market, held every Sunday, beginning in May ...
SIGN? WHAT SIGN?
Folks in Red Bank Wednesday exercising their riparian rights to access tidal waters first encoded into Roman law in 500 AD and later adopted ...
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Partyline contributor captures photo of backyard fox.
STRIPER RUN AT MARINE PARK
An angler pulls in a striped bass from the Marine Park bulkhead Tuesday evening. (photo by Partyline contributor Boris Kofman)  
COLD AS CANADA? CHECK.
A pair of goose sculptures propped atop an air conditioning unit on River Street in Red Bank.
SUNRISE OVER A GLASSY NAVESINK
Sunrise over the Navesink River, seen from NJ Transit Train 3320. (photo by Partyline contributor Karly Swaim)  
A BLAST FROM THE PAST
NJ Transit "heritage" locomotive makes an appearance at the Red Bank station.
RBFD SNUFFS OUT SMALL APARTMENT FIRE
A small fire that started in a light fixture at the Colony House apartments in Red Bank was quickly put out by members of the Red Band Volun ...