MIDDLETOWN: GLADYS BOWDEN DIES
Gladys Bowden, a longtime Red Bank resident and volunteer injured in a December 15 fire at her home in Middletown, died early Saturday.
MIDDLETOWN: FUNDRAISER FOR BOWDENS
Family and friends have raised more than $12,000 to help two former Red Bank volunteers injured by a fire in their Middletown home earlier this month.
George Bowden, 91, and his wife, Gladys Bowden, 88, were both injured when their condo in the Shadow Lake Village complex in the River Plaza section of the township was heavily damaged by an electrical fire on December 15.
RED BANK: FIRE BLAMED ON RIGGED HEATER
The portable heater and duct, visible at center, were removed from the porch before firefighters arrived, officials said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The fire that destroyed a Red Bank house Wednesday was blamed on a portable heater, according to the borough’s top fire inspector.
The heater had been rigged to keep contractors warm while the house was undergoing illegal renovation work, redbankgreen has learned.
RED BANK: FIRE DESTROYS VACANT HOME
Volunteer firefighters on Ladder 91 returning after cutting into the roof shortly before an evacuation alarm was sounded. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fire destroyed a vacant Red Bank house under renovation Wednesday morning.
The rush-hour blaze at 28 Rector Place sent a blanket of white smoke over the downtown and points east for about two hours.
RED BANK: APARTMENT PLAN WITHDRAWN
A rendering of the apartment house proposed for 316 Shrewsbury Avenue. Below, the existing house during the fire in July. (Drawing by Michael Monroe; photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A plan to replace a fire-damaged single-family home in Red Bank with a three-family apartment house was withdrawn amid neighborhood opposition Thursday night.
RED BANK: HUNT FOR GRANTS CONTINUES
A grant seeking $821,000 for improvements to Broad Street is among the nearly three dozen applications pending, according to a report. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Six months after hiring a professional contractor to seek out grant funds, the Red Bank council is hopeful that a cash pump has been primed.
Business Administrator Ziad Shehady told the council last week that while no grants have yet been secured under the contract with Millennium Strategies, there is now “several million dollars” worth of potential funding “in the pipeline.”
RED BANK: DOG AND CAT INJURED IN FIRE
First Aiders tending to dog in the front yard of 316 Shrewsbury Avenue. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fire in the basement of a Red Bank home left a dog and a cat injured Wednesday evening.
RED BANK: FIRE VICTIMS SEEK HELP
Owen Duncan and Mildred Johnson, below, speaking with acting Fire Marshal Tommy Welsh as firefighters battled the blaze in their home on May 27. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Two Red Bank siblings who lost their lifelong home in a fire last month are seeking the public’s help as they watch their funds dwindle.
Mildred Johnson and Owen Duncan escaped their burning house on Washington Street on May 27.
RED BANK: ‘GOING HOME’ FOR FIREFIGHTER
Engine 96 of the Westside Hose Company, bearing the casket of slain Red Bank volunteer firefighter Andrew Hill, leads a procession past the Leighton Avenue firehouse Tuesday. A contingent of pipes and drums, with representatives from Monmouth, Middlesex, Essex and Hudson counties, played ‘Going Home’ as the cortege passed, en route to a cemetery in Tinton Falls. (Video by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: HONORS FOR SLAIN FIREFIGHTER
Firefighters gathered at Calvary Baptist Church for a special service in memory of Andrew Hill prior to his funeral. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank firefighters gave a formal sendoff Tuesday to one of their own, a 26-year-old volunteer slain just blocks away from the firehouse where he found his purpose in life, in the words of Mayor Pasquale Menna.
In an open casket at the Calvary Baptist Church on Bridge Avenue, Andrew Hill‘s remains were dressed in the formal blue firefighters’ uniform he’d recently finished paying for.
Outside, the fire engine on which he’d answered numerous alarms waited to carry his casket to a cemetery.
RED BANK: STREET VIGIL HONORS FIREFIGHTER
Lit by candles and streetlights, participants shared memories of Andrew Hill at the event. Below, Hill in a selfie posted to his Facebook page last November. (Above photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
On the Red Bank corner where he suffered a fatal stab wound, dozens of mourners gathered for a hushed vigil in memory of 26-year-old firefighter Andrew Hill Saturday night.
Many wore t-shirts bearing the emblem of the firehouse where he served, located just four blocks away. And everyone, it seemed, had been affected by Hill’s irrepressible positive attitude.
RED BANK: FIREFIGHTER’S FUNERAL SET
A tribute marks the place on Tilton Avenue where Andrew Hill was found stabbed early Sunday. He died a short while later at Riverview Medical Center. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank emergency personnel are planning a white-glove sendoff for one of their own next week.
Volunteer firefighter and first-aider Andrew Hill, 26, died early Sunday, shortly after he was stabbed on Tilton Avenue at the corner of Bank Street, according to the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s office.
RED BANK: MURDERED FIREFIGHTER RECALLED
Andrew Hill in a 2015 Facebook photo. Below, fire Chief Stu Jensen’s badge bore a black band in memory of Hill and others. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
He had just made the last payment on his dress blues, the uniform that Red Bank volunteer firefighters wear to ceremonial occasions like the Memorial Day remembrance of colleagues who have died in the previous year.
But 26-year-old Andrew Hill was absent from Monday’s ceremony. Instead, he was among those being honored less than 36 hours after he was murdered just four blocks from the firehouse he loved.
RED BANK: BLAZE DAMAGES EAST SIDE HOME
Firefighters preparing to enter the burning house from atop the enclosed front porch. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
On a day they lost one of their own to murder, Red Bank volunteer firefighters battled a house blaze on the East Side early Sunday afternoon.
RED BANK: RIVERFRONT POOL CONDEMNED
The pool and dock at Riverview Towers are off-limits after the pool tore loose on Tuesday, officials said. (Photo by Google Satellite. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials have condemned the swimming pool at a residential high-rise on the Navesink River after it was displaced Tuesday.
The Riverside Towers pool, built over the river, rose several feet, apparently on incoming tide, upheaving the surrounding deck, officials said. Read More
RED BANK: OLDEST FIRE COMPANY RETIRED
Relief Engine Company retains the second-floor meeting space in its longtime home on Drummond Place. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Making Red Bank history, one of the borough’s six volunteer fire companies is being retired from active duty.
Under a consolidation plan in the works for three years, the Relief Engine Company, stranded for the past two years without a firetruck, will become a keeper of borough firefighting history, Chief Stu Jensen announced Wednesday.
RED BANK: FIRST SNOW OF 2018 BLOWS IN
An overnight snowstorm that left about three inches by daybreak may have prompted widespread school closings, but it was just another workday for a man delivering goods to Playa Bowls, above, and a Starbucks barista getting ready for the day’s customers in downtown Red Bank early Thursday.
What comes next will be anything but ordinary, however, according to forecasters.
RED BANK: FREEZE BRINGS BURST PIPES
Riverview Towers, a high-rise residential building at 28 Riverside Avenue in Red Bank, is being monitored 24/7 by volunteer firefighters due to burst pipes in the sprinkler system discovered Tuesday morning, Fire Chief Stu Jensen tells redbankgreen. Read More
RED BANK: NEW EMT SERVICE TAKES OVER
Alert Ambulance’s rig will replace MONOC’s at the former Relief Engine firehouse on Drummond Place starting Monday. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Beginning January 1, Red Bank 911 calls for on-scene emergency medical care will be answered by a different ambulance service.
RED BANK: GAS LEAK DELAYS OPENING
Red Bank volunteer firefighters responded to a report of a gas leak that was expected to delay the opening of the Monmouth Day Care Center Monday morning.
RED BANK: SICKELS LAUDED FOR ‘COMMITMENT’
Stanley Sickels at Wednesday night’s council meeting, above, and on the scene of a fire in September, 2014, below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s mayor and council gave a warm, low-key sendoff to the the borough government’s top unelected official Wednesday night.
Over a career in municipal operations that began in 1979 and spanned numerous paid and volunteer roles, Administrator Stanley Sickels was a “consummate professional” who earned a reputation that went “way beyond the reach of Red Bank,” Mayor Pasquale Menna told the audience at the governing body’s semimonthly meeting.
RED BANK: JENSEN ELECTED FIRE CHIEF
Chief-elect Stu Jensen arrives at the Navesink Hook & Ladder house on Mechanic Street following his election Tuesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Amid flashing red lights and sounding horns, Red Bank’s volunteer firefighters marked the election of Stu Jensen as 2018 borough fire chief with a celebration Tuesday night.
SEA BRIGHT: RIVER WATER IN THE AIR
Volunteer firefighters from Little Silver and Rumson and Ocean joined their counterparts in Sea Bright for training in the use of a jet siphon Saturday morning.
The equipment enables firefighters to draw from a body of water. A little added pressure turned the flow from the hoses into pretty arcs over the Shrewsbury River at Imbrie Place. (Photos by Sea Bright Fire Rescue, above, and Bill Bergin, right. Click to enlarge.)
LITTLE SILVER: WIRING BLAMED IN ATTIC FIRE
Volunteer firefighters in Little Silver quickly extinguished a fire in the attic of a home Sunday evening, Chief Nick Hubbard Jr. said Monday.
Emergency responders found black smoke emanating from the attic when they arrived on the scene at 13 Alden Terrace following the 5 p.m. alarm, he said.
RED BANK: FIRE DAMAGES RECTOR PLACE HOME
Firefighters battling the blaze on the home’s north side . (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank woman escaped a fire in her Rector Place home early Friday morning, authorities said.