Do you know where in Red Bank the above photo was taken?
Send your answer (or best guess) to [email protected] by noon, Thursday, November 6. 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 of a plaque at the top of the facade at 16 Monmouth Street marking the building as a Lode No. 39 of the International Order of Odd Fellows, one of the oldest fraternal organizations in the nation. Such organizations were a mainstay of life in the first half of the 20th century. Some dusty-looking web sites have Navesink Lodge No. 39 listed as a still active chapter. Is anyone out there a member?
It’s not quite clear from our little bit of sleuthing when the building started as a lodge. The dates on the plaque are a mystery to us, too, reading 1846-1909.
We found references to events at the Odd Fellows Hall on Monmouth Street in the archives of the Red Bank Register as early as 1914. There are also multiple references an Odd Fellows lodge for “colored” people throughout the 1920’s and 1920’s on Beech Street, now Drs. James Parker Boulevard. That’s likely a result of the IOOF’s refusal to allow the opening of a lodge by African Americans in 1843, which led to a system of two racially segregated orders.
A year ago, redbankgreen reported on the eye-popping sum paid for the building by an investor landlord. The tenants said their rent was increased and now the storefront sits vacant, Exhibit A in the testimony of downtown business owners lamenting the effects of skyrocketing rents on the borough’s downtown. Maybe if the rent comes down, the Odd Fellows would want to move back in. 
The Wheremaster is a tad surprised to not have gotten more correct replies this week seeing as the challenge was right on plain sight on the front of a building. Never forget to look up!
Thanks to those who wrote in.
Judy and Bill Fraser, Alice McKeon, The Colmorgen Kids, Chuck Stern.
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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