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BALLEW BUILDING GOES FOR $1.5M

ballewThe three-story structure changed hands on July 1, records show. (Click to enlarge)

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

The former home of Ballew Jewelers at has been sold, officially severing a relationship with Red Bank that lasted 124 years but sputtered to an anticlimactic end earlier this year.

Through an entity called LLC 36 Broad Street, Rumson resident Michael Morgan paid $1.5 million on July 1 for the three-story building at 36 Broad, according to Monmouth County property records.

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RED BANK VANDALS CAUGHT ON VIDEO

picture1Still images of two vandals were release by Red Bank police Friday. (Image courtesy of Red Bank police; click to enlarge)

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

graffitiRecognize either of these guys marking up the wall behind A.H. Fisher Diamonds in Red Bank? Or perhaps their handiwork, at right?

If so, and grafitti rankles you, dial up the cops.

The department is on the lookout for two young men they say vandalized the jewelry shop and nearby salon Chelsea Morning early Thursday, and may have been involved in another graffiti act.

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DONE GOOD: ALL THIS AND BROWNIE MOO

brownie-mooOrphaned street dog (turned guest of honor) Brownie Moo joins Project Animal Worldwide in welcoming you to a Doggie Date Island Style night this Friday, at D’Jeet? in The Grove. (Photo by Kim Levin)

Done2The attire ranges from black tie and tails to, well, tails — and admission ranges from a raising of the auction paddle, to simply raising your paw and volunteering. This week’s DONE GOOD roundup presents a typically eclectic smorgasbord of ways in which to help, and have a Done Good Time doing it.

For Alan Fisher of A.H. Fisher Diamonds — a native Red Banker who’s “enjoyed watching the fireworks for over 50 years” — doing a decent for the community can mean plastering his Broad Street storefront with signage that decrees a Cash for Gold (and silver, platinum, diamonds) event, proceeds from which will be donated to the presentation of this year’s Kaboomfest Fireworks on the Navesink event. As Fisher points out, the three-day extravaganza (scheduled for July 1-3) utilizes no taxpayer money, and has relied upon ever more innovative fundraising vehicles in an era when event costs have skyrocketed in sync with the fest’s centerpiece display. Fisher’s cash-on-spot KaBoom KaChing runs from this Friday, June 10 through July 9 — just in time for the KaMittee to get busy planning next year’s skysplash.

There’s more Done Good under the June moon, and it’s on view with the flip of a paperless page.

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TO DIAMOND MAN, BROAD ST. STILL SHINES

Displaced from his longtime storefront, Alan Fisher plans to take over the space now occupied by Papyrus in the red brick structure visible over his left shoulder.

Alan Fisher got his walking papers in late January.

After 25 years operating A.H. Fisher Diamonds at 10 Broad Street, Fisher was notified with just five days remaining on his lease that it wouldn’t be renewed.

Turns out his landlord, Keith Alliotts of Broad Street Realty Associates, has a client on the line who not only wants the storefront at 2 Broad, at the corner of Broad and West Front streets, but the entire 10,000-square-foot structure that stretches several addresses south on Broad.

Alliotts’ client is widely rumored to be Urban Outfitters, though neither the clothing retailer nor Alliotts responded to redbankgreen messages seeking comment.

Fisher says he knows nothing more than the rest of us about who the tenant will be. But the fact that his landlord told him the mystery tenant wants not just 2 and 8 Broad, but Fisher’s space and the private breezeway it abuts will only heighten interest in the prospective deal.

But that’s a story for another day. Today, our topic is Fisher’s decision, in spite of all the mutterings about Red Bank’s purported slide back to the days of ‘Dead Bank,’ to stick with Broad Street.

“I grew up here in town, so yes, this is a vote of confidence in Red Bank,” says Fisher, who in high school and college had a job that required him to wind the clock atop the former borough hall and police station at 51 Monmouth Street.

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