Beach day or not, the 13th annual Doc Holiday Classic Car Show, hosted in Red Bank’s White Street parking lot by the Liberty Hose fire company as a scholarship fundraiser, was a big draw in Sunday. redbankgreen cruised the circuit, camera at the ready. Click the “read more” and check out dozens more snapshots of gleaming grills and smiling faces. (Photos by Susan Ericson)
Born in the final year of the Baby Boom, the Antique Center of Red Bank, said to be the oldest continually operating antiques cooperative in America, turns 50 this month.
The late Nan Johnson, an antiques lover who found herself with too much stuff after redecorating her Lincroft home, launched the venture with 12 dealers in an old Red Bank clothing factory in 1964, and it eventually grew to comprise three massive buildings anchoring the borough’s Antiques District.
Now scaled back to two spaces run by her son, Guy Johnson, above, the center plans a celebration this Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with refreshments and bargains at 195 and 226 West Front Street. Dozens more photos can be seen at redbankgreen‘s Flickr page. (Click to enlarge)
Red Bank resident (and redbankgreen webmaster) Kenny Katzgrau went exploring for history under his house and, with the help of his wife, Katie, fished an old bottle from a hard-to access void in the foundation Sunday.
The house, on South Street, was the longtime home of Henry Gunther Degenring, who owned the HG Degenring soft-drink and beer bottling company at the rear of 16 West Front Street for more than 50 years and served as a borough councilman before his death, in 1958. The ad at right ran in the old Red Bank Register; Degenring’s father owned the Germania Hotel, also at 16 West Front. (Click to enlarge)
A couple of Corvairs, a fleet of Corvettes and acres of chrome were among the 328 cars gleaming under the hot summer sun in Red Bank’s White Street parking lot Sunday. The occasion? The 11th annual Doc Holiday Classic Car Show, hosted by the Liberty Hose fire company as a scholarship fundraiser. redbankgreen was there, cameras at the ready. (Click to enlarge)
A working nickelodeon, below, and old seltzer bottles are among the thousands of items that lure shoppers back in time at the Antique Center of Red Bank. Dozens more photos can be seen at redbankgreen‘s Flickr page. (Photo by Alexis Orlacchio. Click to enlarge)
By ALEXIS ORLACCHIO
Looking at it, shoppers at the Antique Center of Red Bank might not guess the glossy oak casing of the 117-year-old Regina Upright Nickelodeon was once caked with numerous layers of paint that had chipped and peeled over its lifetime. Standing near the front of the dimly lit emporium, light gleams off its intricate carvings.
The restored music box again flawlessly performs the task it was built for: insert a nickel into the side slot, and watch a music disc slowly rotate behind a glass pane, producing a melody of delicate chimes. Taped to its window is a small, handwritten note that reads, Not for sale.
Its too special, said store owner Guy Johnson, who found the player at a garage sale in Shrewsbury. It had been sitting in the owners basement before they decided to sell it, and thank God they did, he said.
But while Johnson may have saved the Regina, whether Red Bank’s vaunted antiques district can be saved is an open question. About a year ago, the home of Monmouth Antiques Shoppes, across West Front Street from the Antique Center, was knocked down to make room for the MW West Side Lofts, a residential and retail project now under construction. That left a huge hole not only in the space it had long occupied, but in an antiques district that vendors have struggled to keep going.
More than 300 eye-catching cars, and a handful of motorcycles, shone under the summer sun on White Street in Red Bank Sunday as the Liberty Hose fire company held its tenth annual Robert ‘Doc’ Holiday Car Show.
The event is a fundraiser for annual college scholarships in the name of the late firefighter name and for the volunteer company itself. (Click to enlarge)
With dealers scattering to new locations, redbankgreen took a final spin through the Monmouth Antique Shoppes Tuesday. (Click embiggen symbol to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The building appears to sigh and lean, as though aware of its fate. Inside, nooks and corners that once teemed with the cast-offs of the decades have begun to empty out.
It’s a sad time at Monmouth Antique Shoppes, one of the anchors of Red Bank’s vaunted Arts & Antiques District. Eviction notice in hand, owner John Gribbin has informed his 23 remaining dealers that they, like he, must be out by the end of the month, ending a 29-year run.
“It’s not the best time for me to talk,” Gribbin told redbankgreen Tuesday, as he had also last week. “I’m trying to find a home for me and my dealers, and it’s not easy going.”
