Swaying perilously in the wind and rain with lines that cross the NJ Transit rail at the Red Bank station, a damaged utility pole forced the closure of Chestnut Street around 9 a.m. Thursday. Emergency personnel were on the scene. (Video by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
The existing path, above, links the Red Bank Primary School to Locust Avenue via a wooded area. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A long-sought emergency roadway to the Red Bank Primary School is nearing reality, borough officials said last week.
Sal Cannizzaro outside the latest addition to his newest Immediate Care walk-in health center chain in Red Bank. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The new Immediate Care urgent-care center in Red Bank has all the markings of a healthcare industry play, suggesting teams of doctors pooling their resources to exploit an opening in the era of Obamacare.
But the brains behind the operation is actually a former print-shop owner who’s now on his third career, none of which required studying cadavers or using stethoscopes.
Sea Bright is among the towns that have already established voluntary registries for residents with special needs. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Press release Wednesday by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office:
A comprehensive and voluntary program dedicated to serving citizens with special needs was launched today.
Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni was joined by Sheriff Shaun Golden and the Monmouth County Chiefs of Police to introduce the Monmouth County Special Needs Registry.
Bucky Moran at home earlier this week. Below, Moran gets a hug from one of his saviors, Paramedic Lori Corson. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The last thing Richard ‘Bucky’ Moran remembers prior to his heart attack last month was asking a motorist to move his car from the City Centre Shopping Center in Red Bank, where he works part-time.
So he knew nothing of the Edison Township fireman who, while driving by, saw Moran crash to the pavement and pulled over to start doing CPR. He didn’t know about the Red Bank policeman who happened to be coming out of a store at the mall, and had a defibrillator in his patrol car. He was unaware of the deputy fire chief who also pulled over and contributed the CPR effort, during which Moran was revived but “coded” again at least three times. And he’s a complete blank about the EMTs and paramedics who intubated him and blasted him with twice the standard amount of juice to get his ticker working again.
But on Wednesday night, the retired mail carrier and current school crossing guard got to meet, and hug, many of his Good Samaritans, at a packed-room meeting of the borough council.
Locust Place, as seen in 2012, above, links Locust Avenue with the Red Bank Primary School, as seen in the aerial below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
For years, a narrow dirt path through a stretch of woods has been the best option for many Red Bank children trying to avoid a long walk to the primary school.
The path, snaking alongside the Navesink River from Locust Avenue to the school, has also been eyed by emergency responders as an alternative access route for firetrucks and ambulances, should something go wrong at the school.
“It’s been on the drawing board for 20 years,” said Mayor Pasquale Menna.
Now, the borough hopes to secure funding to make the $207,000 path a reality.
Developer Bob Silver, below, hugs congregants of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, above, after gaining approval to convert the 62-year-old structure to offices. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The proposed conversion of First Church of Christ, Scientist in Red Bank into an office complex was praised to the heavens Thursday night, even by a couple of neighbors who’d previously expressed wariness about it.
Developer Bob Silver, who previously converted a Christian Scientist church in Montclair into offices, won kudos for preserving one of Broad Street’s architectural gems while yielding to concerns about traffic. His project, dubbed “Two Eleven Broad,” was also lauded for “saving the home” of a shrunken congregation, which will continue to use a portion of the building, and for touches including electric-car rechargers and bike racks.
Silver is “the best possible neighbor that the neighbors could want,” said abutting property owner William Hartigan of Hudson Avenue, whose concerns about the plan were spotlighted by redbankgreen earlier this week.
William Hartigan notes the proximity of a church garage to his family’s outdoor dining area. Below, the church as seen from Broad Street; the wing at the left would get a second story. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
It’s a story as old as the concept of property rights: a couple settles into their dream home, and then the folks next door do something on their patch of heaven to disturb the idyll.
When William and Kathryn Hartigan moved to Red Bank from Jersey City four years ago, they never imagined that the church that abuts their Hudson Avenue property would be anything other than a house of worship, quiet and unnoticed except for the bells pealing in the steeple on Sunday mornings.
But the proposed conversion of First Church of Christ, Scientist on Broad Street into an office complex has Hudson Avenue neighbors alarmed about traffic, and the Hartigans about the impact on their dream.
Jay Campbell, center, chats with MONOC paramedics Mike Welsh, left, and Marcelo Aguirre during his visit to the Fair Haven First Aid Squad Thursday night. Below, Campbell poses with his family and the emergency responders who teamed up to save him from cardiac arrest earlier this year. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The bug had been making its way through the Campbell residence in Fair Haven when Jay Campbell told his wife he wasn’t feeling well and was heading to bed early that Sunday evening in January.
So a short time later, when Leslie Campbell heard a gurgling sound, she raced to grab the pail she’d used to get her son through the illness. But the instant she reached the bedroom and saw her husband lying with his mouth agape and his eyes rolled upward, she knew something far more terrible than the flu had gotten hold of him.
Minutes later, 59-year-old Jay Campbell was, by the metrics of medicine, dead. But two young cops – responding to an “open-line” call in which the 911 dispatcher could only hear the sound of a woman shouting the name ‘Jay’ – began what became a rapid-response team effort to bring him back to life.
Hudson Avenue resident William Hartigan discusses the church’s plan for fencing at Thursday night’s planning board meeting with neighbor Kevin Moss. Below, a rendering of the proposal. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The proposed conversion of a steepled Red Bank church into an office complex – with provision for a dramatically shrunken Sunday worship space – drew a full house to the planning board Thursday night.
Nearly all the concerns and objections to the plan for the First Church of Christ, Scientist house of worship on Broad Street were focused on one element: a gate on the Hudson Avenue side of the property.
Allowing for the gate, instead of sealing off access to Hudson, would surely result in more traffic on the residential street, neighbors said.
Oxford House on South Ward Avenue at about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A medical emergency at Oxford House, the controversial addiction recovery residence that opened in Rumson without public notice in August, had neighbors buzzing about a possible second overdose there Tuesday.
Police Chief Scot Patterson tells redbankgreen that paramedics were called to the house on South Ward Avenue sometime after 5:30 a.m. on a report of an unresponsive person inside. Paterson said he did not know the nature of the emergency.
“All I know is that when the person left, he was alive and being treated by paramedics,” Paterson said.
A view of the damaged pipes from Swimming River Road in Lincroft Saturday morning, and the map showing the towns included in the boil-water advisory. (Photo by Bill Heine. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
An outdoor water-use ban remained in effect throughout Monmouth County Saturday, even as officials limited a boil-water advisory to 22 towns in the aftermath of Friday’s supply failure at the New Jersey American Water plant.
The boil-water advisory remains in effect for all towns on the Green except Red Bank, which obtains water this time of year from its own wells. Tens of thousands of homes, and hundreds of restaurants and other businesses dependent on large volumes of water are affected.
NJAW customers and even those in Red Bank are asked to restrict indoor water use, while outdoor uses such as watering of lawns and car washing are prohibited.
As of noon Saturday, NJAW had given no indication of when service might be restored to normal.
Meantime, local fire officials are on heightened alert with provisions for backup support in the event of a fire.
Red Bank police and other emergency personnel are warning of a false emergency text message received Monday by numerous cellphone users.
The text messages warn of a civil defense emergency and advise recipients to “take shelter,” said police Captain Darren McConnell.
Buses and ambulances on the scene at Chapin Hill at Red Bank nursing home preparing to move 113 patients, many of them wheelchair-bound. (Photo by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)
Authorities ordered the evacuation of the low-lying Chapin Hill at Red Bank nursing home Saturday as Hurricane Irene neared, packing winds of 90 miles per hour in North Carolina yet leaving the anxious Jersey Shore eerily calm.
Also affected by an evacuation order was the 40-unit Locust Landing apartment complex on Locust Avenue, Tommy Welsh, coordinator of Red Bank’s Emergency Management Committee, tells redbankgreen.
A 1 p.m., two buses and an ambulance were on the scene of the nursing home, on Chapin Avenue near the Newman Springs Road bridge over the Swimming River, preparing to relocate 113 patients.
Soon to be churning up the waters of the Navesink: a former U.S. Coast Guard vessel, now getting a sprucing-up at the Red Bank public works garage. (Click to enlarge)
Red Bank’s fleet of emergency vehicles is about to get an addition.
Borough officials earlier this week took possession of a 22-foot SeaArk Marine boat with twin 130-horsepower Honda engines. And they got it for free.
Fair Haven Fire Chief Jim Cerutti is pressing town officials to end an emergency dispatch arrangement with Monmouth County because of what he says are chronic delays in relaying service calls, according to the Asbury Park Press.
One year after starting the arrangement with the county Sheriff’s office, Cerutti says that lags in patching calls through to borough fire and fire aid average three minutes, and some have taken as long as 11 minutes.
“A lot can happen in three minutes,” Cerutti is quoted as saying.
Police Chief Darryl Breckenridge, however, says that there have been “no problems” with delays in the relay of calls to his department.
Red Bank residents took a walk through town and then gathered at borough hall for a barbecue hosted by PBA Local 39 Tuesday as part of National Night Out, an effort to promote community ties to police.
The event also featured demonstrations of fire and EMT equipment and tours of the police station. redbankgreen photographer Peter Lindner was there and prepared this slide show.
To enlarge the photo display, start it, then click the embiggen symbol in the lower right corner. To get back to redbankgreen, hit your escape key.
Police and fire dispatch duties will be shifted to the Monmouth County Sheriff’s office, borough officials said.
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Abandoning a plan hatched in controversy, Fair Haven won’t be teaming up with Little Silver to share dispatch services after all, borough officials said Monday night.
Instead, the borough will outsource its emergency call operations to Freehold.
After more than eight months of research and discussion with its neighbor to the south, Fair Haven officials decided to terminate an agreement entered in March to share dispatch services with Little Silver because the radio technology wasn’t working in Fair Haven. Those issues have since been rectified, Mayor Michael Halfacre said, but the council wasn’t fully satisfied.
“The problems have been resolved, but it’s not the type of dispatch that Fair Haven bought into back in February/March,” Halfacre said. “We’re at a juncture now where we have a decision to make.”
