On an autumn afternoon of cool temperatures, the 75th annual Red Bank Halloween Parade drew hundreds of costumed celebrants for its 75th smile-provoking tromp march down Broad Street Sunday.
Check out redbankgreen‘s photos from the parade, and one longtime celebrant’s memories, below.
The weather outlook appears ideal for Sunday’s 75th annual Halloween Parade, a delightfully frightful stroll through downtown Red Bank. More →
Cyclists gathered at Canal Street and Hudson Avenue, above, and pedaling along East Bergen Place, at right, during the Red Bank Porchfest townwide music festival Sunday.
In addition to numerous pedestrians moving from stage to stage, the event appeared to bring out several hundred cyclists, many of whom used temporary bike lanes set up with assistance from the transportation nonprofit EZ Ride to get around town.
Earlier this week, redbankgreen did an email Q&A about the experiment with Councilwoman Nancy Facey-Blackwood, who helped coordinate the temporary lanes. Below are excerpts.
For the second year in a row, the sun shone Red Bank’s Porchfest townwide music festival Sunday.
The five-hour event, a fundraiser for the housing nonprofit HABcore, offered peripatetic audiences opportunities to hear classical music, bluegrass, hard rock and more by 90-something acts (including a spotted lanternfly) performing on 25 porches, driveways, in back yards and at least one gazebo.
Among the throngs were numerous bicyclists, taking advantage of temporary bike lanes set up for the event.
redbankgreen stopped in at all 25 venues. Here’s some of what we saw; click photos to enlarge.
Delayed a week by rain, and nearly drenched by more precipitation on its-rain-or-shine backup date, Red Bank Oktoberfest teemed with good cheer Saturday afternoon.
The first-time event went off just as skies cleared from a morning of rain, drawing some 2,000 attendees to sip locally made beer and liquor and enjoy food and music in Edmund Wilson Plaza, between Triumph Brewing Company and the Two River Theater. Volunteer firefighters were among the volunteers helping keep sample cups filled.
Based on the “incredible turnout,” Oktoberfest will be back in 2024, said Bob Zuckerman, executive director of organizer Red Bank RiverCenter.
Check out redbankgreen‘s photos from the event below.
Chamber music, metal, “stoner folk,” jazz, a bit of standup comedy and more: Red Bank’s second annual Porchfest townwide music festival promises a cornucopia of melody Sunday.
But who’s playing, when and where? Here’s a handy guide to help you plan an itinerary.
Xol Azul Band, seen here playing last year’s Porchfest at the Fortune Cultural Center, is scheduled to reprise the gig Sunday, one day after a scheduled headline appearance at the Hispanic Heritage Celebration in Riverside Gardens Park. (redbankgreen photo. Click to enlarge.)
It’s eyes-on-the-sky time as four outdoor events dominate Red Bank’s dance card this weekend.
For two, it’s a matter of avoiding a second straight rainout Saturday, while the outlook is clearer, and sunnier, for two others slated for Sunday.
Red Bank’s second annual Porchfest townwide music festival is shaping up to be bigger than the first, organizers said last week.
To encourage attendees to bike between the more two dozen “stages,” this year’s event will feature temporary bike lanes.
Oktoberfest is slated to take place in Edmund Wilson Plaza, between Triumph Brewing Company and the Two River Theater. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
A forecast of rain has prompted reschedulings for two outdoor Red Bank festivals slated for the upcoming weekend.
The change means that – weather permitting – the town could have both a beer-and-spirits tasting event and a Hispanic Heritage Celebration running simultaneously the following Saturday.
The event will take place in Edmund Wilson Plaza, between Triumph Brewing Company and the Two River Theater. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
After a year without an outdoor food festival, Red Bank RiverCenter plans to debut a new one next month: Red Bank Oktoberfest.
To be held in Edmund Wilson Plaza between Triumph Brewing Company and the Two River Theater on Bridge Avenue, the September 24 event will spotlight product samples from Monmouth County breweries, wineries and distilleries.
Sunny skies and cool temperatures provided ideal conditions for more than 1,100 runners, walkers and wheelchair racers who participated in the fourth edition annual Red Bank Classic 5K Saturday.
Check out redbankgreen’s favorite photos from the event below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
The annual Red Bank Classic 5K is scheduled to return Saturday with a new course, and, possibly, rain and puddles.
Kissed by sunshine and warm weather, the 74th annual Red Bank Halloween Parade drew hundreds of costumed celebrants for a joyful march down Broad Street Sunday.
Check out redbankgreen‘s photos from the parade below.
The 74th annual Red Bank Halloween Parade, scheduled for Sunday, has been postponed because of rain in the forecast, the Parks and Rec Department announced Friday afternoon.
Sunshine, cool weather, beach chairs, bikes and guitars… Red Bank’s first-ever Porchfest music festival “went off as flawlessly as it could” Sunday, said lone mayoral candidate Billy Portman.
The five-hour festival, which Portman organized with HABcore executive Marta Quinn as a fundraiser for the housing nonprofit, put more than 80 musical acts on 22 porches, lawns and driveways across the borough. Each drew an audience, some in the hundreds.
Traveling around to the various porches, yards and driveways, “I just watched it grow as the hours got later,” Portman told redbankgreen.
The event was nonpolitical, Portman said, though “it is completely aligned with what I hope to do more of as a mayor, and that is bring people together, and focus more on our similarities, and less on our differences.” He also hopes to make Porchfest as an annual occurrence, he said.
redbankgreen stopped in at all 22 venues. Here’s some of what we saw; click photos to enlarge.
An interactive map for the event displays the lineup of acts at each location; click on circled numbers to view. Below, Carlotta Schmidt is among the scheduled artists. (Photo from YouTube. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It was not that long ago that Red Bank was a place of large-scale, outdoor music festivals. One needn’t be ancient to recall the sprawling, weekend-long Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Festival in Marine Park each summer, or the spring-and-fall festivals in the White Street parking lot, both of which went dark this year.
But this Sunday, live, open-air concerts come roaring back to the borough in a new, decentralized model that’s been road-tested elsewhere: Porchfest, a five-hour eargasm of 70 acts spread across town on 21 residential porches, plus 11 more acts at a previously scheduled music fest behind a dentist’s office.
Film-production trucks lined West Front Street along Riverside Gardens Park in Red Bank Monday morning.
The return the Red Bank Classic 5K after a two-year pandemic hiatus brought out a motley mix of nearly 1,100 runners, wheelchair racers, walkers, muscle flexers and two jogglers Saturday.
Check out redbankgreen’s photos below to see if you recognize any.
Bob Zuckerman has run business-promotion organizations in South Orange, where he’s now an elected official, and Westfield. (Photo by Matt Glass. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A downtown-management professional with extensive experience in New York and New Jersey has been tapped to run Red Bank RiverCenter, the organization announced Thursday.
Bob Zuckerman replaces Glenn Carter, the onetime borough planning director who served as RiverCenter’s executive for less than a year prior to his retirement earlier this year.
A shot from the 2015 edition of the event. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See UPDATE below]
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank won’t be hosting the annual International Beer, Wine & Food Festival scheduled for May 15 because of “left-over Covid issues,” the event’s organizer said Tuesday.
After being mothballed for two years by the COVID-19 pandemic, two events that bring in thousands of visitors to Red Bank are slated to return this summer.
The Red Bank Classic 5K and the New Jersey Symphony concert in Marine Park are among events filling up a calendar wiped clean in 2020 and only partly refilled in 2021.
Sunny and cool weather provided ideal conditions for the return of the Red Bank RiverCenter-hosted Guinness Oyster Festival Sunday.
After a missed year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s 11th edition saw fewer local restaurants owing to staffing shortages. But thousands of attendees packed the White Street parking lot, waited patiently in lines for food and drinks, and partied with friends in front of two stages as in the past.
Were you there? Look for yourself and your friends in redbankgreen‘s beaucoup photos below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Likely to be the biggest bash Red Bank has seen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guinness Oyster Festival is set to return for a skipped-year 11th edition Sunday.
Here’s some helpful information for those planning to attend, including a lookahead at the forecast.
Sunday’s Street Fair in downtown Red Bank, a fundraiser for the borough’s volunteer fire department, drew thousands of attendees to Monmouth and Broad streets.
Samantha Bowers-Crader with her father, John Bowers, at the Mayor’s Ball in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank RiverCenter‘s new chairperson is filling a seat held three decades ago by her father.