Monmouth County Real Estate

It is without question that Asbury Park, NJ is catching on! When you walk down the rehibilitated areas, you see top notch dining, amazing yet querky bars & grills, yoga studios, artist’s shops, and musical events.

Asbury Park has come back as one of the most progressive and open-minded small cities in the country! Asbury Park has maybe even surpassed the “competition” such as Burlington, Vermont and it is being seen that the artsy and hipster types (20, early 30-something types) are relocating from Brooklyn!

The triCity News reports that if Asbury Park is left to prosper without the expectation to conform to the likes of other suburban Monmouth and Ocean County towns, then Asbury will continue to build up an alternatibe and urban-centric community of those who love diveristy of a progressive city. Asbury Park has worked hard against suburban conformity. “The suburban population in New Jersey certainly did not get Asbury Park back to where it is now. In fact, they held the city down for decades as the readership of the Asbury Park Press rejected Asbury Park, and harshly trashed it. That same narrow-mindedness could now destroy all that’s been achieved,” reports the triCity News.

Asbury Park is seeing creative young people (from Brooklyn specifically) loking for hte next big AFFORDABLE thing, just like when everyone started to leave Manhattan for Brooklyn 20 years ago. They are starting to move in and other friends from Brooklyn are coming down to visit. The consensus is that this could trigger something big. If Asbury catches on as the affordable alternative to Brooklyn, it’s all over… That population is a bigger pool of people willing to live here and visit than those from the suburbs of Monmouth and Ocean County. This young demographic can easily take over large swaths of Asbury, just like they did in sections of Brooklyn.

Local realtors, such as myself, are seeing an influx with renters and first-time homebuyers from Brooklyn who are about 30 years old. We are seeing musicians, artists, and teachers relocating and it is basic economics driving the trend. Asbury Park is cheaper than Brooklyn, and it doesn’t hurt that Asbury has it own unique cool dynamic as it emerges in a new form. Realtors are running out of rental inventory for the Brooklynites even!

According to the triCity News, Bond Street Bar just opened a couple of months ago and it’s become a center for the alternative and creative community. It’s the perfect place to spot the Brooklyn trend. They are starting to call it Little Brooklyn. At Bond Street, there are so many people coming from there. That is all they are seeing on their IDs. And, the age range is 21-30. “The young crown will keep coming back. They’re not scared to jump on a train and travel down just for the day or for the weekend. What they spend here in a weekend, they’re spending in a half a day in Brooklyn. It will be interesting to see this trend rise!

I stumbled upon this article about my stomping ground. Down in Charlotte, NC, readers of the Charlotte Observer are reading about Asbury Park, NJ! Check out what that writer has to say…

“If you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan, have we got a trip for you.

Even if your reaction to that famous salutation is “Hi!” “Hey!” or “Huh?” the folks in Asbury Park will be equally happy to meet you.

This seaside community, indelibly linked to Springsteen’s 1973 debut album, “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.,” has plenty to offer – whether you’re among the fans making pilgrimages or just want to have fun, relax and enjoy the beach.

Just ask the E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons.

“It’s the most beautiful beach and the most beautiful boardwalk,” Clemons said in a recent interview.

Jersey Shore author-historian Stan Goldstein says the boardwalk is the “best it’s been in more than 30 years.”

Goldstein remembers the giant Exxon sign that brought this city its light and the now-razed Flamingo motel, whose name may have inspired the fictitious Flamingo Lane of Springsteen’s song “Jungleland.”

Clemons fondly recalls a carousel with handcrafted horses and driving around an informal route known as “the circuit,” referred to in Springsteen’s “Night” and “4th of July, Asbury Park.”

That was before Asbury Park became a city of ruins.

Race riots in 1970 “sucked all the life right out of Asbury Park,” says Clemons. Its swan song “was really, really sad.”

“For at least 20 years, it was a ghost town,” says Goldstein.

The city has undergone a recent renaissance. Upscale development has snowballed.

“It’s all coming back now; that’s exciting,” says Clemons, though he impishly denounces the city’s recent rejection of a topless beach proposal.

The pristine sand, trendy but relaxed bars and cafes, the Silverball pinball museum (1000 Ocean Ave.) and an adorable boardwalk water park for kids are hallmarks of the resurrection.

Springsteen recently appeared at the Stone Pony (913 Ocean Ave.) with Alejandro Escovedo. The Paramount and Convention Hall (both at 1300 Ocean Ave.) are also thriving.

The former Upstage Club (702 Cookman Ave.) is now in the hands of a music lover who wants to bring it to life again. Memorabilia is stuck, shrine-like, over its storefront glass. The oasis nurtured a long-haired, scrawny young Springsteen as well as E Streeters Steven Van Zandt, Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, David Sancious and Garry Tallent.

The former Student Prince (911 Kingsley St.) recently reopened as a gay bar named Swell.

Clemons’ book, “Big Man,” recounts how he dropped by the Student Prince during a break from his appearance at the Wonder Bar (still lively, at Fifth and Ocean). As he strode in and asked to play with Springsteen for the very first time, a wind gust blew the door off.

There’s a song, historical or photographic tie-in at every turn.

For total immersion, make an appointment to see the public library’s Springsteen Special Collection. It contains “more stuff on myself and the band than every place except my mother’s basement,” Springsteen once said.

Or just hit some haunts:

The Palace, an indoor amusement park mentioned in Springsteen lyrics, is gone but not forgotten. Located at Kingsley Street, between Lake and Cookman avenues, its exterior bore the words “Skooter” and “Tunnel of Love.”

“The boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers along the shore, chasin’ all them silly New York girls…” The casino’s art-adorned passageway links Asbury’s southern boardwalk to Ocean Grove. That’s the hometown of Southside Johnny Lyon, who still whips fans into a frenzy with his Asbury Jukes.

“Rock & Roll Tour of the Jersey Shore,” a book by Goldstein and Jean Mikle ($23), describes a jillion sights all over the area, including Springsteen’s original hometown, Freehold, 18 miles inland.

Tourists also flock about six miles south to Belmar, posing for photos at a worn, white cement street marker for “E St.” Sancious, the original keyboard player, lived in the neighborhood when the E Street Band got its name.

Even without a confirmed sighting in the area, Springsteen is omnipresent. (He definitely drops by, though maybe not quite as often as eager-to-please locals might claim.)

Springsteen, with and without E Street, has performed many times at the Convention Hall and its smaller sibling, the Paramount.

The theaters – connected by a charming, indoor retail and restaurant promenade – are just steps away from the cute shack where a relative of the late Madam Marie holds court. (“Well the cops finally busted Madam Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do,” as Bruce’s lyrics put it.)”

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08…

When Robin Parness Lipson walks along the boardwalk what she sees are bustling restaurants and gift shops and the energy of a bright future being shaped. And as part of that future, she sees her baby, her dream, the New Jersey Museum of Contemporary Art: a glittering monument to the idea that New Jersey is not just the home of Snooki and the Situation, or feuding housewives, or the Bada Bing Club, but a place where cultured, philanthropic people can build something that makes a difference.

“We’re creating a cultural brand, and it’s going to rebrand the state,” said Ms. Lipson, the wife of a parking garage developer, who came from humble beginnings and discovered a love of contemporary art only in the last few years.

Ms. Lipson has not yet raised any of the $5 million it is projected that she will need to open the museum, nor does she have a lock on the boardwalk real estate she covets, or a team of slick consultants armed with surveys and statistics. But she is a bona fide expert at using charm, guileless candor, boundless energy and terms of endearment to bring home what she wants: a new museum on the Jersey Shore devoted to emerging artists.

“I’m blessed with this life right now,” she said recently. “And I have a choice,” she went on. “I could go to lunch and go shopping and, you know, do those things, or I can do something that might make somebody else’s life a little richer.”

New museums are not born every day, and when they are, they are usually founded either by major art patrons — Whitneys, Guggenheims, de Menils — or, as in the case of the New Museum, by a visionary curator. Ms. Lipson is neither. But she does have the support of wealthy friends with a major art collection: Michael and Susan Hort. The Horts, who appear annually on ARTnews’s list of the world’s 200 top collectors, host a popular art party, a brunch at their Tribeca loft, during the annual Armory Show.

Ms. Lipson also has a dozen young artists, curators, event planners and others who are part of her dream. These volunteers have done everything from build a Web site, njmoca.org, to plan an inaugural exhibition and gala on Oct. 23.

“It’s just so different,” Haley Mellin, a painter who is organizing the inaugural exhibition, said of Ms. Lipson’s ideas for the museum, including pop-up exhibits around the state. “I was really attracted to that vision.”

The building of her dreams is a 1920s power plant, designed by Warren & Wetmore, whose work includes Grand Central Terminal. Abandoned for 30 years, the plant is owned by the development company Madison Marquette, which owns much of the property on the boardwalk here.

Ms. Lipson tried to get a meeting with Madison Marquette’s president, Gary Mottola, for weeks to make her pitch. She finally got it on a recent morning in a sunbaked conference room. Ms. Lipson was in a black skirt and sleeveless top and big sunglasses, Mr. Mottola in a Stone PonyT-shirt; a reporter attended.

Ms. Lipson noted that while New Jersey had many regional museums, it had nothing that drew international tourism.

“Except Madam Marie,” Mr. Mottola interjected, referring to the stand of a former boardwalk fortuneteller made famous by Bruce Springsteen in his “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).”

Ms. Lipson said the museum would be an economic catalyst in the way that Mass MoCA, a contemporary art museum that opened in 1999, has been in North Adams, Mass. “It was blighted; there was a high crime rate,” she said.

Mr. Mottola appeared to take umbrage. Asbury Park, he said, was “the biggest music destination in the world.” The D.J. Tiësto had recently played at the Convention Center. And celebrity glamour? What about the New Jersey Hall of Fame, which has Jack Nicholson’s second-grade report card and Susan Sarandon’s cheerleading jacket in its temporary space on the boardwalk?

He might be interested in having an art museum, he said, but “not in the context of ‘We’re blighted, this is going to make us unblighted,’ ” he said. “We’re already way past that.”

She was able to interest Mr. Mottola in hosting the inaugural gala in another one of the company’s buildings, the Paramount Theater, and she saw that as progress.

“I just have to bring him into our world,” she said.

The museum will depend on loans rather than having a collection, allowing it to operate more efficiently and avoid “the crunch situations that major museums get into,” Ms. Lipson said. As for the Horts’ collection, “If a curator comes and wants access to the collection, they can have it,” she said.

The Horts, who have a home in Monmouth Beach, are planning to support the museum, and say they feel others will too. They haven’t previously been major donors to existing museums. For Ms. Lipson, who keeps in daily touch with her young volunteers by phone, e-mail and Facebook, the museum is already bearing fruit as a community-builder.

“I’m so enriched by meeting everybody, and I’m having so much fun with this,” she said, her voice bubbling with enthusiasm. “I’m loving it.”

Information provided by Kate Taylor of the New York Times.

I would like to take a moment or should I say, take a blog, to announce that I am now with Better Homes Realty in Keyport. I decided to make the switch to Better Homes for a number of reasons. One being that Tradition, Distinction, and Innovation have distinguished Better Homes Realty as a leading real estate company, and these values continue to drive the service you will receive from my agency and me by innovative thinking, creative marketing and leadership. Another factor in making my decision to switch has to do with the fact that while Better Homes Realty remains a locally owned and operated company -a rarity in the real estate world – we nonetheless have a global reach, introducing home to buyers throughout the world.

And, most importantly, all of Better Homes’ services are conducted in-house with the Better Homes Realty professionalism that is known and recognized around the world. Whatever your needs, whatever your lifestyle, Better Homes Realty is the better way to buy or sell your home!

As a way to kickoff my career with Better Homes Realty, I am having an open house this weekend at 4 Tradewinds Lane in Seabright, NJ. This home is stunning and the views are exquisite! Stop by this home Sunday, between 1-4 and experience Jersey Shore living at its finest, and while you are there, grab my new card!!

Sunday, Aug. 15
1-4pm
4 Tradewinds Lane, Seabright
Directions: Highway 36E (Ocean Avenue) to Left on Tradewinds

Local charity Move For Hunger presents its 2nd annual Surfside Food Drive this August, to benefit the Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties in Neptune. Patrons of participating beach clubs and local businesses from Sandy Hook to Seaside are asked to donate unopened, non-perishable food items to be distributed to food-insecure families in need throughout our community.

“More than 125,000 people in Monmouth and Ocean Counties alone are at risk of going hungry every month – forty-percent being children,” says Adam Lowy, executive director of Move For Hunger. “We really need events like this that bring the food drive to the people. Even the smallest donations go a long way. ”

As the summer closes, we ask that instead of throwing away your unwanted food items, “please think of all those in need, and place it in a Move For Hunger box,” Lowy says.

Beginning August 15, collection boxes will be conveniently located at each donation location, courtesy of Lowy’s Moving Service, which will also deliver the donations to the food bank. “We love to be a part of these community events,” states Chris Quinlivan, manager of Surf Taco in Belmar. “It’s something we strive to do all year round, and this food drive is a really brilliant idea”.

This 3-week food drive will wrap up with a live-music event, located on the Asbury Park Boardwalk this Labor Day Weekend (Sept. 4-6). For a complete list of donation locations and details, please surf our site at www.MoveForHunger.org or contact info@MoveForHunger.

Move For Hunger is an organization that works with moving companies across the United States to collect unwanted, non-perishable food from those who are relocating and deliver it to local food banks. Founded by the Lowy family of Lowy’s Moving Service in Neptune, this one-year-old non-profit has already collected nearly 40,000 pounds of food nationwide. To date, Move For Hunger works with over 90 moving companies in 30 states, relieving those most desperate for help.

Oil from the Gulf oil spill is unlikely to reach the Jersey Shore, experts on the New Jersey Gulf Spill Task Force told an environmental summit on July 26.

Bob Connell of the Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring, N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), shared positive news with the audience gathered at Monmouth University for an environmental summit organized by Sen. Sean Kean (R-13th District).

“The take-home message is: it would take a series of unlikely events for us to see a Gulf oil impact on the Jersey shoreline,” he said.

“Having said that,” he continued. “we already saw a couple of unlikely events happen; no one back in April thought that this spill would have gone on as long as it did.”

Connell said that no oil has yet been detected passing through the Florida straits or entering the Gulf Stream.

“If it does get through the Florida Straits and into the Gulf Stream,” Connell said, “these are some of the fastest surface ocean currents in the world. It could be at Cape Hatteras, [N.C.] in about two weeks.

“The good news is that when it gets to Cape Hatteras, the Gulf Stream heads east into the ocean and it would take most of the Gulf oil with it.”

Connell elaborated on the next unlikely event that would be required to get oil to the Shore.

“If, in that Gulf Stream flow, an eddy pinches off and that eddy also contains some of the oil, those eddies tend to head back toward the mid-Atlantic states so they could bring the oil with them.”

According Josh Kohut, professor and oceanographer with Rutgers University, the oil would encounter yet another hurdle.

Kohut said that the ocean is 6,000 feet deep where the eddies form and the continental shelf along the Jersey Shore is only 300 feet deep.

“These eddies are way deeper than 300 feet, so it would be like if I was an eddy and I’m just bumping up against a table; I can’t get onto the table, but there are pieces of me that could,” he said.

As Kohut summarized, “First of all, the oil has to get out into the Gulf Stream, then it has to get into one of these eddies, then that eddy has to move [toward the coast] and spill some of its water onto the shelf.”

Connell said that October would be the earliest any oil could reach the Jersey coast.

“The tar balls are what we would most likely see, if anything, up in the Jersey area. We will not be seeing the slicks like you see in the south,” he added.

Kohut said that as fall approaches, the strongest currents flow away from shore and to the south.

“The encouraging thing is right now, especially with the eddies [in the Gulf] pushing further to the west, the chances are getting smaller and smaller each day,” he said.

“As unlikely as it is, we still want to be prepared for that unlikely event,” Kohut said.B

ob Van Fossen, Emergency Management, NJDEP, said that state, county and municipal entities have prepared a comprehensive reaction plan should any oil approach the coastline.

Report by BY ANDREW DAVISON, Atlanticville

When you have and a limited budget, a family dinner out isn’t all that common. And if you’re not partial to fast food, getting by without spending a lot is even more rare.

Freddie’s in Long Branch has been serving outstanding thin-crust pizza for over 65 years. It has always been a family-friendly place. The service has always been welcoming and efficient and the waitresses seemed to like to give our group extra special attention.

Today, Freddie’s is always the first place that comes to my mind when I decide it’s too hot to cook or that I just would like a low-key night out. And I’m happy to report that it’s still the same—good food, great service, and The Best Pizza in the World.

Freddie’s Restaurant & Pizzeria – 563 Broadway, Long Branch, NJ, 732-222-0931. Owner, The Brockriede family.

New Jersey is an expensive place to live, but with its competitive public school system and access to health programs for working poor families, it’s also a good place to raise and educate children, according to the latest Kids Count nationwide survey of child health, wealth and well-being.

According to the annual survey, scheduled for release today, New Jersey ranks seventh overall in terms of child health, an improvement from the last year’s study when the state placed ninth.

New Hampshire ranked first in the latest study while Mississippi was last.

Part of the reason for New Jersey’s improved ranking, according to the report, is the fact fewer babies are dying before their first birthday and fewer teenage girls gave birth in 2007. In addition, New Jersey had the fourth lowest high school dropout rate in the country in 2008, according to the report, which included data from 2007 and 2008.

“New Jersey’s investment in children pays off,” said Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the Association for Children of New Jersey, an advocacy group that jointly released the study with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “In these tough fiscal times, we need to remember that investments in successful programs help give New Jersey children the chance to grow up safe, healthy and educated.”

Info provided by Susan K. Livio/Statehouse Bureau

This weekend’s heat wave may be too hot to go outside, making it a perfect weekend for a movie! Haven’t seen the latest box office blockbuster? This Sunday, July 25, AMC Lowes is giving movie fans a break at the concession stand. You can buy any size fountain drink and popcorn for just one dollar each. Just click on the “claim coupon” button  http://wildfireapp.com/website/6/contest…), enter your information and print your individual coupons for soda and popcorn, which can be used together, but not with any other offers. The coupons are valid for one moviegoer only, so if you’re going with a group, make sure to pass this deal on to them before you meet up. There is an AMC Movie Theater at the Monmouth Mall for all my Monmouth County neighbors!

The sidewalks of downtown Red Bank come alive Saturday nights during the summer months with a variety of performers during “StreetLife.” Starting back in June, and continuing on every Saturday night until the end of August, StreetLife has being livening up downtown Red Bank since 2000. Each Saturday night an eclectic mix of acts will perform throughout the downtown area from 6pm-9pm. This year they have also added daytime performances from 12pm-3pm. Musicians, magicians, dancers and more, put on their best acts in the StreetLife series. StreetLife is partially funded by a grant awarded to River Center by the Monmouth County Arts Council. Funk and Standard Variety Store and Count Basie Theatre and also contributing sponsors.

StreetLife is another one of Red Bank’s great forms of free entertainment throughout the summer. The StreetLife series uses local performers picked by Red Bank RiverCenter (a not-for-profit organization of downtown businesses, property owners and residents, who work to promote economic strength and vigor in Red Bank). It is a great opportunity for local talent to been seen in an unconventional venue. It gives both the performer and the audience a chance to experience a more personal performance. Last year, there were also acts such as the Barber Shop Quartet, which strolled throughout the entire town. It is also a great opportunity to take in a variety of different entertainment all in one location.

StreetLife has performers, such as mimes and jugglers, stationed throughout downtown in front of many businesses from Broad Street to the Galleria. People can leisurely walk through the streets enjoying the performances and then stop in at any of the number of stores and restaurants that stay open late to accommodate the crowds. An important aspect of the StreetLife series is that is also helps boost the evening economy of downtown Red Bank and puts the focus on local businesses and shop owners. StreetLife adds character to the town and helps draw people in from all over, and it is a hit with the locals as well.

Saturday, July 24**
Don Lee-River’s Edge Cafe, 35 Broad Street
Chris Turner and The Steel Rail Blues-Dublin House, 30 Monmouth Street
Chip Robertson-Ten Thousand Villages, 69 Broad Street
Kelly Cosentino-Rare Breed Shoes, 16 White Street
Matt Wade–Red Bank Train Station

Saturday, July 31**
Jerry Woods-River’s Edge Cafe, 35 Broad Street
Tri City Jazz-Dublin House, 30 Monmouth Street
Sibling Rivalryz-Ten Thousand Villages, 69 Broad Street
Bob Jacques-Rare Breed Shoes, 16 White Street
Robert Francis, Dork of Deception–White Street Bumpout