RED BANK: STREETSCAPE PROJECT BEGINS
Heavy construction equipment began tearing up one end of White Street in Red Bank Monday morning. What’s Going On Here? Read on.
RED BANK: FOOD FEST CANCELLED
The International Beer, Wine & Food Fest scheduled for Sunday in Red Bank has been cancelled in the face of a forecast of heavy rain in the afternoon. There’s no rain date.
RED BANK: DEVELOPMENT ISSUES AT THE FORE
Red Bank RiverCenter’s new strategic plan for the central business district is scheduled for unveiling Monday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Three issues that could alter the look and feel of Red Bank for generations arrive at key inflection points Monday night.
RED BANK: WHITE STREET FIXES OUTLINED
The makeover plan would affect English Plaza and the stretch of White Street from English Plaza to Broad Street, above. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s chaotic English Plaza and White Street area may become a part-time oasis under a concept plan unveiled Wednesday night.
Working with a $500,000 zero-interest loan from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Red Bank RiverCenter also aims to make the space safer for pedestrians an motorists, officials told the borough council.
RED BANK: INDIE FILMS TO LIGHT UP SCREENS
The trailer for ‘I Am Another You,’ a documentary about a young man who chooses to live on the streets, screens as a free, community-welcome entry at this week’s Indie Street Film Festival. Below, artist Ron Haywood Jones‘s mural for the festival at 97 Broad Street remained unfinished Tuesday morning because of rain interruptions. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Its community mural may still need some finishing touches, thanks to uncooperative weather. Still, the third annual Indie Street Film Festival kicks off in Red Bank Wednesday evening, ushering in a five-day rush of innovative cinema, movie talk and parties.
A project of the filmmaker cooperative Indie Street (working in partnership with Red Bank RiverCenter), the festival spreads decidedly non-Hollywood magic across the borough’s theaters, restaurants, night spots, and even the middle school auditorium. And there’s a free, community-welcome screening mixed in among the orange-pass-only fare.
Check out the festival schedule below; information about passes and tickets can be found here.
RED BANK: WORDS AND MUSIC IN THE PARK
Five thousand strong, music lovers found a few hours of respite from everyday noise when the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra played an open-air concert in Red Bank’s Marine Park last summer.
This Sunday, the NJSO returns to the park with another free show, where those in attendance will also get a chance to connect to the borough’s history via the written word.
RED BANK: WANT FREE CONCERTS? VOTE HERE.
Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park could be the site of a new, free concert series in 2018 if Red Bank RiverCenter is successful in landing a grant it’s in the running for.
And the downtown promotion agency is asking for the public’s help in the form of an online vote.
RED BANK: OYSTERFEST IS PARTY TIME
The soulful vocals of Remember Jones, below, add to to the vibe when Guinness Oysterfest returns for an eighth annual stand Sunday.
While efforts are underway to restore oyster populations in the local waterways that once boasted them in abundance, Red Bank celebrates the opening of oyster season by, well, opening a few thousand oysters — not to mention a beverage or two.
ON THE GREEN: CATCH THESE OUTSIDE
The reverb-drenched surf rock sounds of the Sharkskins close out the concert season on the Fair Haven Municipal Dock Thursday night.
From star-kissed surf and free-range country to plein-air pickin’ and fresh-air film, the season of outdoor diversions remains very much in effect on the Greater Red Bank Green. We’ve got the roundup of public-welcome events under the summer sky — and over the next seven days and nights — all of them free as a breeze.
It all starts tonight, weather permitting, with the latest installment of the Summer 2017 Movies in Riverside Gardens Park series, sponsored by Red Bank Parks and Recreation and brought to you by Shore Flicks.
RED BANK: NEW CHAIR FOR VISITORS CENTER
Two River Theater marketing director Courtney Schroeder is the new chair of the board for the Red Bank Visitors Center. (Photo by Danny Sanchez)
Press release from Red Bank Visitors Center
In a recent press release, the Red Bank Visitors Center announced the appointment of Courtney Schroeder as the Chair of the Board, for the nonprofit organization founded in 2002.
A magna cum laude graduate of Wagner College, with a BS in Arts Administration and a double minor in Dance and Spanish, Schroeder has for the past six years held the position of Director of Marketing at Two River Theater. Prior to landing at Two River, she worked in the development wing for Ballet Hispanico in New York City.
RED BANK: SIDEWALK SALE RETURNS
The dress code is casual and parking is free as the annual bargain bonanza returns to downtown Red Bank starting Friday. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
In fast-moving, forever evolving, Retail Churn-ing Red Bank, well-entrenched local traditions are increasingly rare. So when it comes to a decades-spanning institution like the Red Bank Sidewalk Sale, the benefit can be as much about providing continuity for longtime locals as it is about the thrill of discovery for relative newcomers.
RED BANK: INDIE FILM FEST GETS UNDERWAY
Lead festival organizer Jay Webb, right, with guests at Wednesday night’s opening reception on the patio of the Count Basie Theatre. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
With a display of carved-surfboard art, a New Jersey premiere screening of Dave Made a Maze and a DJ’d after-party at three separate venues, the second annual Indie Street Film Festival officially got underway in Red Bank Wednesday evening, ushering in a four-days-and-nights slate of screenings, panels, workshops and get-togethers with an admirable “Cannes-do” spirit.
A project of the fillmajer cooperative Indie Street (working in partnership with Red Bank RiverCenter), the sequel to last year’s inaugural event looks to make a long-running “tentpole franchise” of the venture. It’s a multi-venue happening that offers plenty of reasons to visit the borough’s theaters, restaurants and nightspots — or even its best-kept-secret middle school auditorium — during that time of year when the beaches make their biggest bid for buzz.
Take it here for info on individual event tickets and festival passes — and read on, for a rundown of goings-on between through Sunday. Read More
IN THE AIR: FREE MUSIC, MOVIES AND MORE
Week two of this summer’s Movies in the Park series in Red Bank features an entry from the ‘Star Wars’ catalog. Below, Layonne Holmes fronts the Motor City Revue in a return to Sandy Hook Wednesday.
There’s a chance to imagine yourself as part of the biggest franchise in film fantasy history. Some power pop on the dock. A heat-blast of Latin-flavored jazz in the park. A little beach-music soul on the sands. And one of the world’s most beloved plays on yonder grassy knoll.
It’s all going on beneath the setting sun and stars of the Greater Red Bank Green — and all fabulously free of charge in the evenings to come.
RED BANK: FOODIES WALK THE WALK
Some 30 Red Bank restaurants, shops and eateries — including Playa Bowls, above— will take part in a new summer schedule of Food and Wine Walk events beginning Sunday afternoon. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Between the weekend barbecues, the tented food fests and other open-air opportunities for grabbing a bite, it can be a bit difficult to digest all the options available to the free-ranging foodie here in the good old summertime.
If the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter have their way, however, we can simply let our feet carry us about the borough’s sidewalks and storefronts during the latest in a summer series of Food & Wine Walk events.
RED BANK: FESTIVAL BENEFITS TWO CHARITIES
The most recent Red Bank International Beer, Wine and Food Fest, held in April, raised $15,000 for two charities: borough-based Parker Family Health Center and Shrewsbury-based Holiday Express. Jim Scavone, executive director of event host Red Bank RiverCenter, presented checks of $7,500 to each organization at Wednesday’s borough council meeting.
Holiday Express founder Tim McLoone, above, played at the festival with his side project, The Shirleys. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
RED BANK: STREETLIFE BUSKS OUT ALL OVER
Luminous hula-hoop artist Eryka Andrex in performance during a past edition of Red Bank StreetLife, the weekly summer sidewalk concert series that returns to town Saturday.
If it’s the start of June, it must be time for the return of Red Bank StreetLife, the summertime Saturday series of live entertainment that commandeers the sidewalks, storefronts and bumpouts of the borough’s business district beginning — and, for the first time in its 17-year history — on the third Thursday of June and July.
RED BANK: FOOD FEST DRAWS A CROWD
The sky was mostly gray, but the White Street parking lot popped with color, sound and enticing aromas as the Red Bank International Beer, Wine and Food Fest held court Sunday.
Were you there? Check out our photo feast, below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: FOOD FEST TO PACK PARKING LOT
More than 20 local food purveyors will be present when the 2017 edition of the Red Bank International Beer, Wine and Food Fest commandeers the White Street municipal parking lot this Sunday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
While the recent cancellation of Riverfest has left a hole in Red Bank’s yearly segue into summer, fans of strolling smorgasbords and top-down tunes needn’t wait too long to get their festival fix — as this Sunday, the White Street municipal parking lot will be the scene for the 2017 edition of the Red Bank International Beer, Wine and Food Fest.
RED BANK: WEDDING WALK RENEWS ITS VOWS
Dozens of local vendors make for a well-rounded Wedding Walk experience when the annual spring event returns to town this Sunday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Stressed out over planning and preparation of an impending Big Day? Red Bank RiverCenter has some advice — and that’s to “walk it off,” when the annual springtime Wedding Walk returns to the borough’s walkable downtown and waterfront this Sunday.
Nearly 40 local businesses — ranging from dressmakers, cake bakers and picture takers to jewelers, florists, caterers and more — are signed up for the 2017 edition of the townwide promotion, which is designed to introduce brides, grooms, partners, wedding attendants and their families to Red Bank as a one-stop shopping destination for all things wedding-related.
RED BANK: DOWNTOWN READY TO JINGLE
The clip-clop of classic horse and wagon rides is just one of the seasonal signifiers making an annual return Saturday.
Just as the open-air Red Bank Town Lighting ceremony of Black Friday gives an electrified jolt to the turkey-fed torpor of Thanksgiving Thursday, so does Small Business Saturday sound the first real ka-ching of the primetime shopping season.
And when the shop-local showcase returns Saturday, it will herald a day of special holiday-themed features that continue every weekend through Christmas Eve, a slate of Santa sightings, holiday hunts, horse-drawn carriage rides, harmonizing performers, mobile mannequins and more — all designed to enhance the hustle and bustle of the shopping experience here in the the area’s undisputed Capital of Christmastime.
RED BANK: LOCAL ARTS ORGS GET 2017 GRANTS
The Art Alliance on Monmouth Street is one of 15 Red Bank area nonprofit entities named as grantees in the Monmouth Arts 2017 ArtHelps program.
Press release from Monmouth County Arts Council
Some two dozen arts groups in Monmouth County — 15 of them based in Red Bank and surrounding communities — have been named by Monmouth Arts as the recipients of their ArtHelps Local Arts Program Grant Awards for Fiscal Year 2017.
Designed to help Monmouth Arts meet its mission to enrich the community by inspiring and fostering the arts, the grants will result in over 3,000 high quality, low cost art events (art exhibitions, concerts, dance, theater, film and festivals) estimated to reach over 800,000 people. The 24 awarded grants totaled $94,500, including $3,500 in mini-grants that will be awarded during the year for smaller arts projects by organizations including new and emerging groups.
The awards were presented at a networking meeting held at House of Independents in Asbury Park on September 21, an event during which Monmouth Arts premiered their new website, and special guest Michael Pilla of Pilla Creative Marketing spoke on building your audience with email marketing and Facebook ads.
RED BANK: OYSTERFEST IS A PEARL OF A PARTY
The Guinness Oyster Festival returns Sunday for a “shuck and awe” day of food, beverage and entertainment that includes Tinton Falls pop singer Taylor Tote and band, below. (Top photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
As open-air diversions go in Red Bank, it’s the undisputed pearl of the season. And making its seventh annual stand, the Red Bank Guinness Oyster Festival returns to the White Street municipal parking lot Sunday for an event that, as the name suggests, pairs the fabled allure of the briny bivalve and dozens of other culinary seductions with the “Irish aphrodisiac” known as Guinness.
RED BANK: SIDEWALK SALE TURNS 62
The Sidewalk Sale returns to Red Bank this weekend for its 62nd annual edition.
Regular readers of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn feature can vouch that things often move at a brisk clip in the business district of a town that the New York Times recently touted for its “urban vibe.”
But one thing that’s remained a model of consistency amid the churn is the Red Bank Sidewalk Sale, the 62nd annual edition of which returns Friday and runs through Sunday.
RED BANK: GO FOR POKÉMON GO? GO NUTS
The Pokémon Go craze that’s gripped America this month continues to bring legions of visitors to Red Bank. Necks craned toward their cellphones, players can be seen wandering downtown in a virtual hunt for cartoon critters at 30 Pokéstops and five Battle Gyms.
RED BANK: POKÉMON GO’S NIGHT OUT
A week’s worth of Pokémon Go gets underway in downtown Red Bank Monday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
If you’re not one of the millions of multi-generational players who’ve bonded in recent days over the phenomenon that is Pokémon Go, feel free to go about your business. But if the pursuit of Pikachu, Pidgey, and Bellsprout has found you exploring your surroundings like never before, then the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter have a little promotion that might pump up your Pokédex. Read More