John F. Burton at the Red Bank Mayor’s Ball in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
John F. Burton, a longtime chronicler of Red Bank-area people, government and more, died Sunday.
The senior reporter for the weekly Two River Times had battled illness for the past three years.
State Senator Joe Kyrillos at the opening of the new bridge in May, 2015. Freehold John Curley is at left. Below, a Google Satellite view of the bridge. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
For who knows how long, the West Front Front Street bridge connecting Red Bank and Middletown has been colloquially known as “Hubbard’s Bridge.” To Monmouth County, which owns the span and replaced it three years ago, it’s “S-17.”
As of Thursday, though, the 488-foot connector over the upper Navesink River has a new name: the “Senator Joseph M. Kyrillos Bridge.”
Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, seen here at Rumson’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade last March, announced plans Friday to run for the 13th-District state Senate seat being vacated by Joe Kyrillos.
O’Scanlon’s announcement sets up a Republican primary battle with his 13th-District colleague and fellow Republican Assemblywoman Amy Handlin of Lincroft, who told the Asbury Park Press on Thursday that she is seeking Kyrillo’s spot.
The Sandlass House, reimagined as a museum, above, and as seen in July, 2015, below. (Rendering by Anderson Campanella Archictects. Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See update below]
By JOHN T. WARD
A group of preservationists trying to save the last remnants of a long-forgotten Sandy Hook beach resort from the wrecking ball.
Dubbed the Jersey Coast Heritage Museum at Sandlass House, the group has begun circulating a petition calling on the National Park Service, which owns the house as part of Gateway National Recreation Area, not to knock it down, and allow them to turn it into a museum.
State Senator Joe Kyrillos at the opening of the new Hubbard’s Bridge between Middletown and Red Bank in May, 2015. Freeholder John Curley is at left. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After 28 years in the New Jersey legislature, Senator Joe Kyrillos of Middletown won’t seek re-election in 2017, according to media reports.
In an email to supporters Tuesday, the nine-term Republican senator cited “the constraints and frustrations of serving in the minority” and the legislative “process” as factors in his decision.
The Sandlass House, at the entrance to Sandy Hook, is the subject of a campaign by a new preservation group, whose logo is shown below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The last remnant of a Sandy Hook beach club that was the subject of a Fair Haven man’s nostalgic documentary earlier this year now has a support group.
Chris Brenner tells redbankgreen that his video gave rise to an effort to save the Sandlass House, which overlooks the Shrewsbury River from the site of a long-demolished resort called Highland Beach and is slated for demolition.
Supporters plan to press their case for preserving the structure this Friday in Shrewsbury.
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Chris Brenner, below, made the above video to shed light on a vanishing piece of Sandy Hook history. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven resident Chris Brenner was fishing the Shrewsbury River one day last summer when low tide exposed the vestiges of a pier on the western side of Sandy Hook.
Brenner knew what the pier had been: part of a sprawling resort called Highland Beach that thrived for some 80 years years at that location. His mother, Jill, and late father, Ted, had even met there in the 1940s, at a popular bar called the Bamboo Room.
But looking to his right, as a stream of cars brought visitors across the Route 36 Azzolina Bridge to a park that’s now part of the federal Gateway National Recreation Area, Brenner wondered to himself: How many of those people even know what was once here?