Inspired by “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Red Bank resident and TV News12 reporter Brian Donohue has kicked off a series in which he hopes to become better acquainted with people who live and work near his Bank Street home.
By KENNY KATZGRAU
Dear Red Bank and the Greater Green,
If it’s any indication of the sincerity of what you’re about to read, I’ve significantly suppressed that initial pop-up on our website. Subscribers are exceptionally important to redbankgreen, but I also know that as a long-time subscriber myself, it was kind of annoying to ask on every page load.
My name is Kenny Katzgrau — resident of South Street since 2011, and wannabe resident since my first parentally-unauthorized bike ride to Broad Street in middle school: a hair-raising adventure down Newman Springs Road.
A screen grab from the first edition of the borough’s new newsletter. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With the recent launch of newsletters, Red Bank residents have two additional ways to keep abreast of civic events and downtown goings-on.
A scene from the Little Shakespeare staging of ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ (Photo by Steve Rogers. Click to enlarge.)
Press release from ‘Here’s the Story‘
“A Little Shakespeare” at the Two River Theater in Red Bank introduces the work of the Bard to young actors. The program produces one of his plays with a full cast and crew of teens directed by a seasoned professional.
The result is anything but unripened. The process and production is extensive, inspiring and life-changing for the participants and the audiences for the play.
Led by video documentarian Steve Rogers, ‘Here’s the Story‘ explores the programs’s creation of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ in a film to be premiered by NJ PBS August 10.
The Red Bank Public Library has added Chromebooks to the information technology available for borrowing by patrons.
Kristin Gentile’s ‘Red Bank Riviera’ who won the Places category prize in the library’s 2021 contest. (Click to enlarge.)
The Red Bank Public Library has begun accepting submissions for its third annual “Red Bank: Always Beautiful” photo and video contest.
Starting July 4, redbankgreen has a new commenting policy to go along with the Disqus commenting system in place for the past two months.
Fortune Center Executive Director Gilda Rogers in the newly designated Parker Family Legacy Room. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A new, permanent exhibit opening this month at the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center in Red Bank pays tribute to three African-American men of medicine who played vital roles in the community.
The unveiling also marks another milestone for the three-year-old center, housed in the onetime home of an influential journalist and civil rights advocate.
By JOHN T. WARD
Collectible toy dealer Robert Bruce was not living in the storage unit where he was found dead Friday, as reported by police and the media, family members contend.
The owner of the storage facility supported the family’s contention.
Robert Bruce on Broad Street during taping of the ‘Comic Book Men’ series in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank man was found dead in a storage facility Friday evening, police said.
Robert Bruce was known to fans of the Kevin Smith reality show ‘Comic Book Men‘ as a dealer of rare toys and other pop culture artifacts.
Press release by the the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center
On January 24, 2022, HBO Max will start streaming a new series,“The Gilded
Age.” The show will feature the character of T. Thomas Fortune, played by actor Sullivan Jones.
It takes place in New York in 1882 during the American Gilded Age, a time of economic change and conflict between the old world and the new world.
James Donachy’s black-and-white image of the Red Bank train station was the overall winner in the second annual ‘Red Bank Always Beautiful Photo Contest,’ the borough library announced Tuesday.
Scenes from the recent installation of enhanced wifi at the library. (Click to enlarge.)
Press release from the Red Bank Public Library
The Red Bank Public Library has been selected as one of 27 libraries and was recently awarded $10,000 of grant funding by The NJ State Library to
support the CARES ACT Mini-Grant for Public Libraries.
The grant award supplemented the cost of an improved WiFi system that is now strong enough to provide service to anyone on the library grounds, inside or outside the building.
Suubi Mondesir with Fortune Foundation co-chair Gilda Rogers last month. Below, Mondesir, second from right, on a 2016 tour of the Fortune house led by builder Roger Mumford. (Photos by Chris Ern, above, and John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By CHRIS ERN
In the summer of 2016, Suubi Mondesir was a rising junior at Red Bank Regional High School when she participated in a tour of a crumbling Red Bank house.
At the time, preservationists envisioned the building on Drs. James Parker Boulevard as a cultural center in honor of its onetime owner, the civil rights journalist T. Thomas Fortune, and Mondesir was present as a participant in the Hugh N. Boyd Journalism Diversity Workshop at Rutgers University.
Flash forward to 2021: The house has been fully restored as the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center, and Suubi (pronounced SOO-vee) manages its media outreach efforts as an intern. But it’s not just a job. Her work at the center aligns with a personal passion for social justice, inspired by Fortune’s work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she told redbankgreen in an interview last month.
“What he did is what I am hoping to do as well: to inspire people with my writing, and to speak truth to power,” Mondesir said.
State Senator Declan O’Scanlon in Red Bank in May. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
New Jersey state Senator Declan O’Scanlon accused Twitter of “Orwellian” behavior after the social media giant banned him over a three-week-old tweet Saturday.
Susan Ericson, notepad in hand, at New Corner Pizza in Red Bank in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Food writer Susan Ericson of Red Bank died Friday at home under hospice care after a lengthy illness. She was 66 years old.
Make an appointment, show up and ring the doorbell for admission. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Easing its way out of the pandemic of 2020-2021, the Red Bank Public Library began allowing visitors into the West Front Street institution for the first time in more than a year Monday.
The new reality, however, requires appointments, masks, limits on usage and self-checkouts, among other limitations.
Late getting that book or DVD back to the Red Bank Public Library? Not to worry. Fines for overdue materials are now a relic of the past.
Bruce Springsteen outside the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Could Bruce Springsteen be in need of a presidential pardon soon?
The rock star was arrested for DWI and other charges at Sandy Hook in November, federal officials confirmed Wednesday.
John F. Burton at the Red Bank Mayor’s Ball in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
John F. Burton, a longtime chronicler of Red Bank-area people, government and more, died Sunday.
The senior reporter for the weekly Two River Times had battled illness for the past three years.
An increase in violent crime in 2020 mirrors a national trend, said Chief Darren McConnell. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s crime rates continued a long trend of gradual decline in 2020, police Chief Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
One glaring exception: an increase in reported rapes.
The business has operated at 35 Broad Street since 1997. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, filmmaker Kevin Smith‘s comic books and collectibles store in downtown Red Bank, plans to move to another not-so-secret Broad Street location, he announced Wednesday.
Closed to public access by the COVID-19 pandemic since March, the Red Bank Public Library plans partial reopening starting Monday, September 28.
Dear redbankgreen reader:
You are no doubt aware that the local-news industry is collapsing, and understand what that might mean for the future of an informed public and for democracy itself.
And yet, redbankgreen has somehow managed to provide original and intensely local coverage of the Red Bank area for 14 years, at no charge.
Yeah, so how’s that work?
Among the entries in the Red Bank Public Library’s “Red Bank: Always Beautiful” photo contest is this one, titled “Empty Bleachers,” taken at Count Basie Fields by an unidentified photographer.