When Steve Rogers’ landlord told him the rent on the Bridge Avenue home he had called home for two decades was going up by $1,000 a month, he knew his days in Red Bank were over.
“It was a bridge too far,” he said, “It just didn’t make sense anymore.”
Rogers reluctantly moved last month to southern Ocean County, where he grew up, and where the rent is more affordable.
“Surreal is the best word for it,” he says of the move. “When you lived in a place as long as I did, we did.. It is just..It is your life, you know? “
A longtime freelance videographer and filmmaker, Rogers is the longtime producer of the PBS show “Here’s the Story” which features stories about and interviews with everyday people across New Jersey.
In other words, he’s part of a creative class whose members often aren’t exactly rolling in dough.
And one whose members are finding it harder and harder to live in a town where a one-bedroom apartment can rent for more than $4,000 a month.
Steve Rogers and his daughter Willow inside their former home on Bridge Avenue and, below, the apartment cleaned and empty on the day he moved out. (Photos by Steve Rogers)
“My plight became a topic of conversation among a lot of other Red Bankers that I’ve been talking to,” he said.
“I have seen multiple creatives leave Red Bank,” he continued. “You know, intimates that I do work with on my show. Two of my musician composers left before me for exactly the same reasons.”
“They both left reluctantly as well. And, you know, we all kind of lived within walking distance. And to me, wow, what a charming, inspiring thing, that, in a town like Red Bank, that creatives can walk to each other’s homes and turn on that dial of inspiration and be each other’s muses, and you’re that close.”
“So that was one of the things that I really loved about Red Bank that is changing,” Rogers continued. “I’ve seen it and heard it before, where a town becomes reinvigorated, and because of the artists that are creating and showing their work and then it makes the place much more desirable. And then the first ones that get pushed down are the artists that made it an intriguing, desirable place to want to be. That’s a sad truism for a town.”
Along with the furniture, belongings, and two decades of memories he packed up in the Bridge Avenue apartment, Rogers found old hard drives with footage he shot on the streets of Red Bank fifteen years ago.
He granted redbankgreen access to the video files – the filmmaker equivalent of a person moving away who puts some wonderful cherished item on the curb with a sign reading “free stuff.”
So here they are. We’ve scattered a few of the videos throughout this post for you to enjoy.
They’re only 15 years old, but given the changes to the town and the country in that time, somehow feel like they’re from deeper in the past.
There’s random memories and scenes like Gilda Rogers talking about her first crush, whose name she still remembers. There’s now Councilman Ben Forest waxing philosophical and wondering what his family will cook for dinner. There’s footage of some unforgettable Red Bankers who are no longer with us.
And it’s just the kind of thing that makes you realize what a place loses when a guy like Steve Rogers has to pack up and move out.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.
Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
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