RED BANK: HISPANIC HERITAGE CELEBRATED

Sep 19, 2023

Dreamers Club executive committee members Selena Martinez-Santiago, Madelyn Sanchez-Berra and Bethzy Vera Varela looked on as president Edith Lozano Zane addressed the RBR board on September 11. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

UPDATE: Because of rain in the forecast, this Saturday’s Hispanic Heritage Celebration in Riverside Gardens Park has been rescheduled for September 30.

By JOHN T. WARD

Kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month, Red Bank’s mayor and council trained a spotlight on four young Latina students at Red Bank Regional High School last week.

The self-styled “Dream 4” were fresh off an emotional revival of a school club that advocates for Hispanic and Latinx students.

September 19, 2023 - 8:56 am |

LITTLE SILVER: RBR DREAMERS REGAIN STATUS

Sep 12, 2023

Dreamers Club executive committee member Selena Martinez-Santiago delivers a petition in support of the group to RBR board president Patrick Noble. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

Reversing an action that sparked a civil rights complaint and community outrage, Red Bank Regional High School’s board of ed restored funding for an immigrants’ advocacy student group Monday night.

At special session in the Little Silver school’s cafeteria that drew a large crowd – including Red Bank’s entire governing body – speakers voiced support for the Dreamers Club while denouncing a lone board member’s vote that they said imperiled years of progress.

September 12, 2023 - 11:20 am |

LITTLE SILVER: DREAMERS FILE BIAS CLAIM

Sep 11, 2023

Three of the four members of the Dreamers Club executive committee volunteering at Dog Days on Saturday: from left, Madelyn Sanchez-Berra, Selena Martinez-Santiago and Bethzy Vera-Varela. Below, club president Edith Lozano Zane. (Top photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

The Dreamers Club at Red Bank Regional High School has filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights alleging it has been “singled out for nine years” of discrimination, the group announced Friday.

The allegations of bias are expected to be in the spotlight when the RBR board of education meets in a special session Monday night. Meantime, Superintendent Lou Moore said he’s “hopeful” the board will reinstate the club by reappointing its advisor.

September 11, 2023 - 8:37 am |

RED BANK: MAKING SPACE FOR MAKERS

Feb 24, 2023

Debbie Eisenstein at the Red Bank Artisan Collective earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

Five years ago, Debbie Eisentein opened the Red Bank Artisan Collective at 43 Broad Street, following her parents into the world of retailing downtown.

Though her family is an owner of the building, Eisenstein said she pays market rent, which is covered by subrents and consignment fees from the artists and craftspeople selling their works in the space.

redbankgreen visited Eisenstein recently for chat that revives the long dormant Human Bites feature.

February 24, 2023 - 8:00 am |

LITTLE SILVER: FEMINISTS SEEK CLUB STATUS

Jun 21, 2022

Members of the Young Feminists outside Red Bank Regional High in February. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

Frustrated by bureaucracy, representatives of a new Young Feminists group pressed the Red Bank Regional High School board of education for clarity on how to achieve club status last week night.

June 21, 2022 - 7:40 am |

RED BANK: KKK FLIERS CROP UP AGAIN

Aug 15, 2018

By JOHN T. WARD

For the second time in recent years, the Ku Klux Klan appears to be coming out from beneath its rock in Red Bank.

A Hudson Avenue resident tells redbankgreen he found KKK literature in a plastic bag weighted with candy outside his Hudson Avenue home Tuesday evening.

August 15, 2018 - 12:00 pm |

RED BANK: A VIGIL FOR VICTIMS, AND PEACE

Jul 11, 2016

Children carried three bouquets of flowers — one for the five police officers slain in Dallas last week, one for victims of senseless violence, and one for “peace in our hearts and our country,” in the words of Mayor Pasquale Menna — at a vigil in Red Bank Sunday night.

About 40 residents, local clergy and a contingent of borough police officers participated in the brief ceremony, held at the Veterans Memorial on Monmouth Street at Drummond Place.

Additional photos are below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge) More →

July 11, 2016 - 6:19 am |

RED BANK: MENNA CALLS FOR TOWN VIGIL

Jul 9, 2016

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna is calling on area residents to participate in a silent vigil Sunday evening for the five law enforcement officers slain in Dallas Thursday “and for civilian victims of violence in our country,” he said in an alert distributed Saturday.

Participants are asked to gather at 7 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial, at the corner of Monmouth Street and Drummond Place. Three wreaths will be on display, Menna said: one for the officers killed, one for victims of senseless violence, and one for “peace in our hearts and our country.”

Attendees may leave flowers at the site. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

July 9, 2016 - 5:47 pm |

RED BANK: SECOND VIGIL HONORS VICTIMS

Jun 17, 2016

As participants present lit a candle from a single flame at a vigil in Red Bank Thursday night, Pastor Terrence K. Porter of Pilgrim Baptist Church urged each of them to think of a single victim of Sunday’s Orlando nightclub attack, America’s bloodiest-ever mass shooting.

“The candle you light is a reflection of that image in your mind,” he said.

The memorial service, held at Johnny Jazz Park on Drs. Parker Boulevard, was the second such service in town in two nights, and was organized by the West Side Ministerial Alliance and other other religious groups. Additional photos are below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

June 17, 2016 - 5:44 am |

RED BANK: VIGIL CALLS FOR LOVE, GUN LAWS

Jun 16, 2016

Dozens of Red Bank area residents gathered for a candlelight vigil in memory of the victims the nightclub attack that took place in Orlando, Florida early Sunday morning, in which 49 were killed and 53 wounded in America’s bloodiest-ever mass shooting.

Several speakers, including Rabbi Marc Kline, of the Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, called for tighter gun laws. “We need to do more than mourn and grieve,” he told the gathering, held outside Red Bank’s borough hall on Monmouth Street. A later reference to a Senate filibuster then underway for gun-law reform drew strong applause.

Additional photos may be seen below.

A second vigil, organized by the West Side Ministerial Alliance and other other religious groups, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. today at Johnny Jazz Park, corner of Drs. Parker Boulevard and Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank. For further information, call 732-747-2343. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

June 16, 2016 - 5:45 am |

RED BANK: VIGIL FOR PULSE VICTIMS PLANNED

Jun 13, 2016

As they did in response to the murders of nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina last year, Red Bank residents and others will gather again this week to mourn.

Mayor Pasquale Menna has called for a community-wide candlelight vigil “in remembrance of the victims in the senseless nightclub attack” that took place in Orlando, Florida early Sunday morning, in which 49 were killed and 53 wounded in America’s bloodiest-ever mass shooting.

June 13, 2016 - 11:22 am |

RED BANK: KKK FLIERS LEFT ON LAWNS

Jan 18, 2016

One of the fliers found on McLaren Street Monday morning. (Click to enlarge)

[See update below]

By JOHN T. WARD

Residents of Red Bank and Fair Haven awoke Monday morning — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — to find fliers purporting to be from the Ku Klux Klan on their lawns, police said.

The fliers, enclosed in ziploc bags and weighted with small stones, disparage King as a “communist pervert.”

January 18, 2016 - 11:00 am |

RED BANK: LIGHTING THE NIGHT AGAINST HATE

Jun 25, 2015

Several hundred participants gathered on Red Bank’s West Side Wednesday night for a vigil in response to the murders of nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina last week.

Beginning with a march from Pilgrim Baptist Church to Ralph ‘Johnny Jazz’ Park, participants sang and heard calls for an end to violence from a handful of local church leaders. And in the final moments, they shared the flame of a “unity candle.”

Click “read more” below for full photo coverage. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

June 25, 2015 - 5:34 am |

RED BANK: ANTIHATE MARCH & VIGIL PLANNED

Jun 22, 2015

In response to the murders of nine churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina last week, Red Bank’s Pilgrim Baptist Church is organizing an anti-hate, anti-violence march and candlelight vigil Tuesday night.

The march will begin at 8 p.m. at the church, at 172 Shrewsbury Avenue, and head to Ralph ‘Johnny Jazz’ Park at the corner of Drs. James Parker Boulevard for the vigil. In the event of rain, the vigil will be held in the church sanctuary. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)

June 22, 2015 - 9:44 am |

SHARED KITCHEN EASES STORM’S AFTERMATH

Aug 21, 2014

Lynn McKittrick and Linda Walton utilizing the kitchen of Via45 for their catering business, the Whistling Onion. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)

By SUSAN ERICSON

“What are we going to do? Where do we go from here?” Linda Walton asked her partner, Lynn McKittrick, after their Sea Bright restaurant, the Riverfront Café, was decimated by Hurricane Sandy.

“Together, we ran the business.” Walton said. “Lynn ran the restaurant while I ran a catering business,” the Whistling Onion, which had started in 1991 with McKittrick working out of a private kitchen, catering rooftop parties in New York.

Later, the Riverfront Café served as home to both the restaurant and private catering businesses.

After the storm, “the realization set in that I still had my business, while Lynn had nothing,” Walton said. “The right thing to do was making her a partner in the catering business.”

But where?

August 21, 2014 - 8:51 am |

RED BANK: GENERATIONS OF MEATY WISDOM

May 29, 2013

Fourth-generation butcher Ralph Citarella, right, and long-time employee Kyle Powell carry on more than 113 years of meat-cutting tradition. (Photo by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)

By JIM WILLIS

Just as in the Middle Ages, when last names like Baker, Taylor and Miller connoted the trade or profession of the family breadwinner, if “Citarella” were an occupation, it would now mean dude who knows meat.

In the late 1800s, Andrew Ralph Citarella left Naples, Italy, to settle in Red Bank, and soon began selling meat off of his front porch.

He learned to cut meat by just doing it, says Ralph Citarella, fourth-generation butcher and current owner of Citarella’s Market, on Prospect Avenue. Then he sent my great-grandmother [Carmela] to the meat houses [in Long Branch]. She learned the proper way, and then she taught him.

“So she taught my great-grandfather, and he taught my grandfather, and my grandfather taught my father, who taught me. Its like an apprenticeship. Its just years of a cutting apprenticeship.

From the front porch, the first Citarellas moved to a store on Bridge Avenue in Red Bank. Sometime later, the shop relocated to Sea Bright, where Ralphs grandfather and father, Andy, ran the business. The 1962 flood brought another relocation, to the Little Silver Shopping Center, where Andy ran the store. But in 1979, he had to get out of there, because at that time it was really run-down, and the rent was going up, so he moved the store” to its current location, said Ralph. “He moved a mile north, as he used to put it.

redbankgreen sat down with Ralph at a picnic table beside the store recently to talk about meat, sauce and what makes a 100- plus-year-old family business tick.

May 29, 2013 - 8:40 am |

RED BANK: MING CHEN FLIES WITHOUT A CAPE

Apr 4, 2013

Ming Chen, right, talking smod with Michael Zapcic at Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash last month. (Photos by Dan Natale. Click to enlarge)

By DAN NATALE

AMCs Comic Book Men, a reality TV show set at Red Bank’s Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash that airs its season finale tonight, features a cast renowned for snide and jaded banter on the world of comic books, movies, and television.

Throughout their playful, occasionally ball-busting discussions conducted online on ‘smodcasts‘ that anchor the show, store employee Ming Chen tends to be the brunt of the jokes due to his laid-back, friendly and unassuming disposition.

Chen, 38, started on his path to comic book heaven in 1996, while attending the University of Michigan. There, he studied everything from economics to organic chemistry, until he found himself skipping class to follow his true passion: web design. Chen says he fell backwards into his life as a professional nerd after he created a fan website for Kevin Smiths movie ‘Clerks,’ which prompted Smith to offer him an internship. Since then, Chen has formed lifelong friendships with Smith and the cast, which includes Bryan Johnson, Michael Zapcic, Walt Flanagan, and Steve-Dave.” This chemistry, Chen says, is what creates the show’s natural feel.

redbankgreen sat down with Chen, who also hosts the show Puck Nuts and is often featured on the podcast Tell em Steve-Dave,” for an installment of our infrequent Human Bites feature, which focuses on people and their passions.

April 4, 2013 - 12:16 pm |

IN FAIR HAVEN, A FANTASY WORLD ON RAILS

Sep 18, 2012

Railroad gardener Michael Humphreys could easily crush a dozen buildings if he were to lie across his “grown-ups’ playground.” (Photos by Stacie Fanelli. Click to enlarge.)

By STACIE FANELLI

In Michael Humphreys’ backyard are a covered wagon, a water tower, a livery stable, a totem pole, a sawmill and hundreds more relics of American history. Running through a miniature, imaginary town are his pride and joy: working locomotives built to scale.

Humphreys’ toy train collection, 20 years in the making, came to fruition eight years ago when he moved his family to Fair Haven, fenced in his yard, leveled the ground and built a railroad garden running half the length of his 60 x 35 foot yard.

“Basically, I’m a designer,” he said. “I’m making a theatrical effect.”

September 18, 2012 - 7:39 am |

IN DETAIL: ‘BLOWN AWAY’ BY A SHINY CAR

Jul 21, 2011

Shawn Gatta applies some elbow grease to a car at Detail Doctor in Shrewsbury. (Photo by Stacie Fanelli. Click to enlarge)

By EVAN SOLTAS

Shawn Gatta has spent more than half of his life in the auto-detailing business. The owner and manager of the Detail Doctor on Broad Street in Shrewsbury, Gatta, 42, has been bringing out the best in the cars of his customers since he was a teenager in Neptune.

Since then, it’s kept him so busy that when he’s tried to pursue other fields — real estate, for one — he’s found himself lured back by the “first love” he found in detailing.

“There are other things I would like to do,” said Gatta, “but I’m so consumed by this business.” He’s had a real estate license since he was 19, but he’s never found a spare moment to make a single sale or listing.

Earlier this week, redbankgreen stole some time with Gatta’s lunch break he works 66 hours a week, by his count for some insights into the life of a clean-car obsessive.

July 21, 2011 - 11:49 am |

‘IT’S ALL ABOUT COSTUMING’

Oct 29, 2010

blaise3_ir

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

At about six feet tall, with his always-on mascara and mop of jet black hair tousled just-ever-so, Blaise Lucarelli was made to stand out in a crowd.

“My parents named me Blaise, so I was destined to be different,” he tells redbankgreen‘s Human Bites.

Different? How? Well, it can hardly be reduced to words. One must experience Blaise, a larger-than-life Red Bank native and aspiring fashionista now working and, he’s the first to tell you, performing at Dor L’Dor, a womenswear shop on Broad Street.

On hiatus from the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising to gain experience in the fashion industry, the Red Bank Catholic alum returned to the borough after taking a couple years to live in New York, where he says he really started to feel comfortable with who he was. While there, he had a beauty mark tattooed next to his right eye.

“My mother always told me, ‘know your audience,’ ” he says. “I’m never going to change who I am, but I can change the level or degree of who I am.”

October 29, 2010 - 10:45 am |

REFLECTIONS ON 30 YEARS AT THE SLICER

Jul 16, 2010

Warren Abrahamson with his daughter, Corinne, and some neighborhood clients at Fairwinds Deli in Fair Haven. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

For 30 years, Fairwinds Deli has been serving up belly-busting lunches in Fair Haven. By the end of the summer, the aprons and slicers will be boxed up and moved out. But this is nothing to lose your lunch over. Really. Owner Warren Abrahamson is riding a zephyr, not a squall, out of 770 River Road. Abrahamson tells redbankgreen he’s renovating property just a short walk away, at 698 798 River Road, and will open a new and improved Fairwinds Deli.

“It’ll be bigger. It’ll be my own,” said Abrahamson, 46.

In this edition of Human Bites, redbankgreen sits down with Abrahamson, of Middletown, to feed him some questions.

July 16, 2010 - 5:40 am |

STEW MEAT: ‘IT’S NOT GOING TO BITE YOU’

May 13, 2009

Lenny, er, Stew Goldstein of Monmouth Meats.

There are only so many old-style, independent butchers left in Red Bank.

There’s Ralph ‘Johnny Jazz‘ Gatta on Shrewsbury Avenue, of course, working the chopping block for some 60 years. The guys at Citarella’s Meats & Deli on Prospect Avenue. And smack in between them, Stew Goldstein of Monmouth Meats, on Monmouth Street opposite the Count Basie Theatre.

A Brooklyn native who now lives in East Brunswick, Goldstein, 53, has been in the trade since he was a teenager. And to revive its long-dormant Human Bites feature, redbankgreen took a few minutes recently to ask Goldstein about a lifetime of swing a meat cleaver.

Did you always know this is what you wanted to do for a living?

Yes. I never had any other jobs. This is what I enjoy. My father had a small family-style neighborhood store in downtown Brooklyn. He was in business for about 45 years.

Do you remember your first interaction with a side of beef?

My first interaction was when I was maybe eight, nine years old. I went to the wholesale market with my father.

What was that experience like for a kid?
You walk into a huge, refrigerated warehouse. The floor was wet and dirty things weren’t as clean as they are now. You had the carcasses, you got the smells. It was something I said I would never do. But I did. I knew nothing else.

May 13, 2009 - 10:45 am |

HITTING THE POCKET WELL

Mar 9, 2007

Earlier this year, 39-year-old Billy K. Sims became the 50th bowler elected to the Monmouth County USBC Bowling Association Hall of Fame, a 73-year-old organization. A six-foot-five lefty who lives in the Oak Hill section of Middletown, Sims was county Bowler of the Year in 2001. He’s rolled 35 perfect games, 24 series of 800, and tallied 11-strikes-in-a-row 10 times.

We met up with Sims recently at Memory Lanes in Red Bank and watched him knock down our ten Human Bites questions without breaking a sweat.

March 9, 2007 - 7:06 am |

WARNING: COURTSIDE GLASS

Mar 2, 2007

Kglass

Keith Glass is a 56-year-old Red Bank-based pro basketball agent who’s got some withering views about the state of the NBA, its players, and even the role played by people who do what he does for a living.

He lays it all out in Taking Shots: Tall Tales, Bizarre Battles and the Incredible Truth about the NBA, published this week by HC, an imprint of HarperCollins. (Glass will be at the Barnes & Noble in Holmdel signing copies on Monday. See below for details.)

redbankgreen caught up earlier this week with Glass at his Rumson home, which he shares with his wife, former Turkish pro hoopster and sportscaster Aylin Guney Glass. We put him through the ten-question Human Bites drill.

March 2, 2007 - 7:03 am |

IT HELPS IF THE LANDLORD’S AN ‘UNCLE’

Dec 14, 2006

Vacuum

Ten questions for John and Rachel Decker, owners of Graman’s Vacuum & Appliance Parts Co. on Monmouth Street, at the corner of West Street. They live in Tinton Falls.

How long have you owned this business, and who had it before you?
John: Weve been here for four years. I bought it from Gene GramanUncle Gene, though hes no blood relation whatsoever. When I was growing up in River Plaza, Gene was the older guy in the neighborhood who never got married and had all the toys and all the fun: boats, motorcycles, Jet skis, snowmobiles, wave runners. My parents knew him before I was even born.

His shop was in Red Bank for 47 years, and in this location since 1964. He was previously closer to Broad on Monmouth Street. And surprisingly, there was a parking problem then, too.

December 14, 2006 - 1:39 am |

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