MIDDLETOWN: GEORGE BOWDEN DIES
George Bowden, right, with Historic Preservation Commission members Charles Nickerson and Michaela Ferrigine in 2016. Below, Bowden spearheaded the borough’s centennial celebration and parade in 2009.(Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
George Bowden, once dubbed “the Energizer bunny” of historic preservation in Red Bank, died at home in Middletown Sunday. He was 92 years old.
Galvanized into action in 2001, after the borough allowed the demolition of an old house on West Front Street, Bowden became a champion for old and neglected structures in town.
Not least of those was the T. Thomas Fortune House, which was resurrected from near-oblivion earlier this year, more than a decade after Bowden and others launched a campaign to save it.
Red Bank’s volunteer firefighters will get to keep their free memberships to the local YMCA, the organization announced Wednesday.
A discarded cigarette or match appears to have ignited a blaze that sent two people to the hospital and left 12 families without a home Sunday morning, officials said.
Fire officials were investigating the cause of small electrical fire in a home on Seven Bridges Road in Little Silver Tuesday afternoon.
The Red Bank council’s filled-to-bursting 
Fire destroyed a vacant Red Bank house under renovation Wednesday morning.
