The tooth-shaped sign is used as a reference by locals when giving out driving directions. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
In less than half the time recommended for a good brushing, Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission OK’d the replacement of a dentist’s tooth-shaped sign Wednesday night.
A rendering shows the window clings that will cover one side of the vestibule of the new Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. (Image by South Shore Sign Company. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With filmmaker Kevin Smith deploying some characteristically colorful language, Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission endorsed splashy signage at the new home of Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash Wednesday night.
The stainless steel chimney installed at 46-48 Washington Street will be replaced with one the owner says won’t be visible from the street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It won’t be ready in time for Santa and his reindeer. But an “eyesore” metal pipe chimney on a home in Red Bank’s historic district is slated for replacement following review by the Historic Preservation Commission Tuesday night.
The case illustrated frustrations common among homeowners who live in the district about their absentee counterparts, the HPC’s chairwoman said.
George Bowden, right, with Historic Preservation Commission members Charles Nickerson and Michaela Ferrigine in 2016. Below, Bowden spearheaded the borough’s centennial celebration and parade in 2009.(Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
George Bowden, once dubbed “the Energizer bunny” of historic preservation in Red Bank, died at home in Middletown Sunday. He was 92 years old.
Galvanized into action in 2001, after the borough allowed the demolition of an old house on West Front Street, Bowden became a champion for old and neglected structures in town.
Not least of those was the T. Thomas Fortune House, which was resurrected from near-oblivion earlier this year, more than a decade after Bowden and others launched a campaign to save it.
The Victorian structure, now said to have been built before 1868, is slated for demolition. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five months after Red Bank’s planning board approved the demolition of a Victorian house owned by Riverview Medical Center, the borough Historic Preservation Commission is hoping to save it.
Relying on newly assembled information showing the house at 95 East Front Street was older than previously believed — and may have belonged to descendants of a prominent industrialist — the HPC plans to ask the hospital to turn it into a “medical bed & breakfast.”
Government consultant Ken DeRoberts will manage the agency. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council approved two of its own members and five other residents to constitute a new borough redevelopment agency Wednesday night.
Architect Brian Tracy shows the Historic Preservation Commission a revised proposal for a medical office building Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A modernist office building topped by what looked like an overturned laundry basket won’t be built in Red Bank’s Washington Street Historic District as proposed, an architect said Wednesday night.
But neither, it appears, will his replacement design, which Historic Preservation Commission members still found unacceptable.
The two buildings on the northeast corner of West Front Street and Maple Avenue would be replaced under Mark Forman’s plan. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s planning board asked the developer of proposed commercial and residential building at a key corner downtown to make it smaller Wednesday night.
The building at the corner of West Front Street and Maple Avenue, and the one next door would be razed for redevelopment. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A developer has plans to transform a high-profile corner on the edge of downtown Red Bank into ground-floor offices topped by luxury housing, redbankgreen has learned.
Dubbed ‘Rivermark,’ the project would replace two vacant and crumbling buildings that builder Mark Forman said make for a “really terrible” gateway into the the business district.
A website posting by the prospective buyer of two Red Bank buildings listed on an inventory of historic properties hints at big changes to come. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank preservationists expressed concern in recent days over the pending sale of two downtown buildings they believe have historic significance.
Developer Roger Mumford with an architect’s rendering of the T. Thomas Fortune house as it would appear after restoration. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A decade-long effort to save an endangered artifact of African-American history cleared a major milestone Thursday night when the Red Bank zoning board approved a developer’s plan to rebuild the T. Thomas Fortune house and create 31 apartments on its one-acre property.
Borough-based homebuilder Roger Mumford, who vowed to restore and donate the house for use as a cultural center before he would seek certificates of occupancy for the apartments, was hailed as the last-chance savior of a vital relic of the civil rights movement that its current owners want to raze. Residents told the board before its vote that Mumford deserved the tradeoff of more than a dozen variances, most of them arising from the apartment plan.
“If a development project has ever given back to the community, it’s this one,” said Kalman Pipo, a member of the borough’s Historic Preservation Commission. “If this project doesn’t go through, we are going to lose this house” to the wrecking ball, he said.
The home of Paul and Nancy Cagno, at the corner of Wallace and Mount streets, above, and the circa 1903 mansion that’s now the office of Smallwood Wealth Management, at 199 Broad Street, below, were among the four structures cited. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Three Broad Street buildings and a home in the historic district won kudos from the Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission at a ceremony Tuesday night.
Kicking off what members hope to become an annual series, the commission honored property owners in four categories for “adding to the value of Red Bank by adding to the character” of the town, in the words of Chairwoman Michaela Ferrigine.
The foyer of the former If the Shoe Fits store is the last remaining example of Art Deco design downtown, say preservationists. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
[UPDATE: The zoning board meeting on the 18 Broad Street proposal was cancelled. The application was rescheduled for June 18.]
A proposal to turn a former downtown Red Bank shoe store into a restaurant and replace its distinctive curved-glass entryway is slated for review at Thursday night’s zoning board meeting.
Preservationists have raised concerns about the plan for 18 Broad Street, which is located in the historic district, because, they say, it would eliminate the last remaining example of Art Deco design in the commercial district.
The proposed three-story structure, shown above in an architect’s rendering, would be built on a vacant lot between a two-story apartment building and a restaurant on Shrewsbury Avenue, below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A plan for a small, independently owned pharmacy that doesn’t sell junk food got a warm welcome from the Red Bank Planning Board Monday night.
But the building it would come packaged in, and its impact on area parking, got a chillier reception.
NJTransit’s plan includes removal of gingerbread trimming, which historians say is inauthentic. (Click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
It looks as though the Red Bank train station will finally get those long-awaited repairs Historic Preservation Commission members have been clamoring for, and then some.
Commission members, along with Mayor Pasquale Menna, met with New Jersey Transit officials Thursday to go over a multiphased plan that will overhaul the deteriorating Victorian-style station and restore it to its former glory.
Historic Preservation Commission members Ed Zipprich, Michaela Ferrigine and George Bowden outside a old house on Washington Street. (Click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
It took a couple of years of legwork and hustle, but the efforts of the Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission paid off in June when the Borough Council passed an ordinance designating the Washington Street District as the borough’s first residential historic zone.
What they’ll receive on behalf of the borough tonight is like, well, the slate roof on a gingerbread Victorian.
Commission chairman George Bowden, Councilman Ed Zipprich and others are scheduled to appear at the Monmouth County Planning Board‘s annual awards ceremony at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel tonight.
They’ll be there to collect a Planning Merit Award, an honor given to towns that the board feels have made significant and positive impacts to their respective communities, said Laura Kirby, assistant planner for the county.
Peeling paint and rotting wood at the Red Bank train station have preservationists worried about “demolition by neglect.” (Click to enlarge)
Red Bank’s Historic Preservation Commission has gone on the offensive against New Jersey Transit, owner of the borough train station, for what it calls apparently “intentional” lack of maintenance.
The agency’s failure to replace a failing asphalt shingle roof or do basic painting on the circa 1875 structure constitutes “demolition by neglect,” leaving the building in “such a deteriorated state that Transit will insist they have no other option other than to demolish the structure,” the commission says in a letter presented to the borough council Monday night.
The planning board approved the demolition of 95 East Front Street in July, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Turning aside pleas by historic preservationists, Riverview Medical Center demolished a 19th-century Red Bank mansion Monday.
Meantime, the hospital is planning to gobble up more real estate, redbankgreen has learned: a vacant lot directly across East Front Street from the mansion.
The planning board approved the demolition of 95 East Front Street in July, 2019, but the building remains vacant and intact. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
Pent-up frustration over the apparent fate of a former Red Bank mansion erupted at the first pandemic-era meeting of the Red Bank Historic Preservation Commission Wednesday night.
Commission member Kal Pipo ripped the planning board for allowing the the demolition of a Victorian mansion two doors away from Riverview Medical Center – and said Mayor Pasquale Menna “sounded like he was the lawyer for” the hospital at that hearing where that decision was made.