Do you know where in Red Bank the above photo was taken?
Send your answer (or best guess) to [email protected] by noon, Thursday, June 26. We’ll reveal the location the next day.
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Here’s the answer to last week’s “Where.”
Last week’s photo was a close-up of the west side of an old warehouse building at 51-53 Mechanic Street that is owned by Riverview Medical Center. The building is listed in a tax appeal settlement (in which the hospital agreed to start paying property taxes on the building) as “warehouse/office space.”
“Where” responders knew some of the history behind the place. The Colmorgen Kids identified it as “Anderson Brothers’ old warehouse and office.”
Stanley Sickels identified it and said he believes it’s used for storage. And Errico Vescio also mentioned the connection to the Anderson Brothers, a familiar name in Red Bank history and real estate.
We poked around on the history of the place, and things got a little murky.
A front page story in the March 4, 1925, Red Bank Register refers to the sale of a warehouse at 49 Mechanic Street, which matches the description and names associated with the property, but not the address. Perhaps 49 became 51 Mechanic? Or perhaps the parking lot at 49 was once home to another, very similar warehouse owned by the same family?
An earlier 1912 edition of the Register carried an ad for the grand opening of the warehouse at 49 Mechanic.
Here’s where the Andersons come in.
In March 1925, the paper reported the Reilly warehouse was sold to the then-six-year-old Anderson Brothers company of Red Bank, owned by James and Walter Anderson, “who are engaged in the trucking, furniture moving, and general heavy hauling business.”
Also, the paper found it worth noting that “Neither of them has lost a day from work by sickness during the past six years.”
A 1915 edition of the Register carried an ad for an auction of furniture from a storm-destroyed home in Sea Bright.
The purchase, the paper said, “will be an innovation for them, as they do not have sufficient space at their present place on Monmouth street, opposite the station, to operate a storage furniture room,” the paper reported.
Unlike this building, the one on Monmouth (now part of a complex home to Booskerdoo, Lambs & Wolves Salon, and a planned food market) is still commonly referred to as the Anderson building.
The Hospital bought it between 1995 and 1996 from a James Anderson, according to Monmouth County Property Records.
Thanks to those who wrote in.
William and Judy Fraser, The Colmorgen Kids, Evie Kelly, Josef Vocaturo, Chuck Stern, Stanley Sickels, Jim Cummings, Errico Vescio, Boris Kofman.
I hope I got everyone. Please email or text me immediately if we missed you at [email protected] or 848-331-8331. Your sharp eyes and hustle should be properly rewarded.
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