web analytics

JerseySmarts.com

More Information on Long Branch’s Redevelopment

Posted on by

This week’s Atlanticville ran a story talking about one of the remaining holdouts in the Long Branch Broadway Arts redevelopment project. What I found upsetting about the article (and thus my impetus to write this post) is what the Atlanticville either forgot or chose not to add in this article. From the article:

A city minister will have until July to find a new place to call home and a new building where he can practice his ministry.

State Superior Court Judge Lawrence M. Lawson denied Broadway resident Kevin Brown a stay of the city’s use of eminent domain to take the building where he lives to make way for the Broadway redevelopment project.

Brown has also been trying to establish a place of worship in the building at 162 Broadway for more than a decade. The building is owned by The Lighthouse Mission and is located in the Broadway Corridor redevelopment zone.

This little blurb provides a decent background on the situation in Long Branch. And what an outrage it seems, right? Here is a Pastor who is trying to establish a place of worship for his congregation and attem — wait. There IS a congregation that is being displaced, right? Back to the article…

Brown has been battling the city for more than 10 years to open the Lighthouse Mission Church at the Broadway location.

So there isn’t an actual mission located at this location? There isn’t an actual place of worship that is waiting to open its doors? Hmmm… When I mix that up with other information that the Asbury Park Press has run on this story and you’re talking about a different story entirely.

Instead of a Pastor, his congregation, and his mission being ousted from their only home we have a Pastor with no congregation and no mission being removed from this building. And what of this building? A recent Asbury Park Press article talked about how this building was vacant on the first floor (the proposed location of the mission) and how the Pastor lived upstairs.

Folks, there are a conglomeration of financial institutions who WANT to infuse this area of Long Branch with money, economic advancement opportunities for residents (i.e. jobs), affordable housing options, and artistic/entertainment space. And this plan has not been able to go through because of a non-existent mission and a liquor store?! This is why it takes decades for any real change to happen in our communities.

I’m as much against eminent domain as the next guy. I think it’s vulgar that in the great American political experiment we’ve allowed a pro forma increase in tax revenues to replace existing taxpayers and homeowners. We’re not supposed to operate that way in this country. Yet, this is also a country where we try to work in the best interests of each other. When an entire area is asking for redevelopment, asking for an infusion of private, non-taxpayer money, and asking for their community to get a face-lift, then we should be for that change. In other words, just as strongly as we defend our rights to own our property without eminent domain, we should be fighting just as strongly against lone holdouts in these projects who have questionable ideas on the possibility for their future development.

The Broadway Arts Center project needs to get moving and it needs to get moving immediately. I wish Godspeed to Pastor Brown in finding a place to live in this crazy market (though $450,000 will find you a great place in a nice area of Long Branch) and I admire Pastor Brown’s use of the legal system to plead his case at any and all levels of the judiciary, but now is the time to move forward.

The Ocean Fitness Center Closes Up Shop

Posted on by

According to the Asbury Park Press, the Ocean Fitness Company closed their doors on October 3rd. This was news to some of the gym-goers (and to me) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is their 20 years of continuous operations and the recent multi-million dollar renovations at the site. From the Asbury Park Press:

Ocean Fitness Center, a health club on Route 35 at Deal Road, has closed its doors.

The club’s owner, The Fitness Company, posted the news in a letter on the door. It thanked patrons for 20 years of membership.

“We apologize for the sudden announcement and the closing of the club,” the note states.

This is weird for so many reasons. First of all, the Ocean Fitness Center was located in a great building and was the only gym in the area that had a full-size pool and jacuzzi. Believe it or not there are a bunch of us who live less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean and still demanded to have a pool at our health club! Probably has something to do with those bitter freezing months each year…

I was a member of The Fitness Company from November 2003 through May 2006. I quit the gym at that time because the renovation of the swimming pool was supposed to be a quick, 3-month project in the summer of 2005 and it actually wound up taking until last February to complete. I did, however, rejoin the gym for the summer of 2007 and got some good use out of the pool before my membership expired in September. I chose not to renew.

This is striking news because I was just planning on going back to the gym this week and setting up a time to restart my membership (likely in the middle of December after I’m done teaching for the semester and I get back from a trip to Miami). It’s weird that they’re closed.

There are other gyms in the area to choose from including Workout World, Newberry Fitness, Jersey Shore Fitness, Gold’s Gym, Pearl Street Gym, and Edge Health and Fitness Academy (among many others). None of them really strike me as a place that I’d want to join right away, though I used to be a member at Gold’s Gym and if their prices are still as high as they were last year, then there’s no way I’d go back there again.

In a best case scenario, another gym would step in and take over the vacant building where the Ocean Fitness Center once occupied (and maybe change the dreary interior from that urine yellow to a bright white). Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye out for gym membership deals in the next few months – let me know if you find any!

Sigma Pi Gets Front Page Recognition

Posted on by

Today, the brothers at the Delta-Beta Chapter of Sigma Pi Fraternity garnered a front page headline in the local paper, the Asbury Park Press. Though the link below will not show you the picture of Joe Mullan or Bob Wankel, it does include the entire, full-text of the story (at least for the next week it will). A picture of Bob and Joe holding the ACE Project banner appears on the front page of this newspaper, if you’re in the Monmouth County area and want to see two GOOD college students:

COLLEGIANS: WE’RE NOT ALL ROWDIES

As any fraternity leader can tell you, press like this is very exciting in the Monmouth University area. I understand that most college areas are against students from the very start, but the “witch hunt” that goes on around Monmouth University is extremely frightening at times. Not only are the civil liberties of our these young men trampled on a weekly basis, but the local governments back the actions that you’ll read about in the article. And remember, I’m a guy who routinely had police just walk into his house at all hours of the night after the majority of the roommates were asleep. They were “just checking” – sound a little fascist to anyone?

I’m extremely proud of the Sigma Pi guys at Monmouth University. It’s not easy to put yourself out there like these guys have. I remember getting all different types of great responses to my student loan article last year, but I also remember getting some really vicious, unintelligent responses, too. I applaud the effort that these guys are putting into making the reality of their situation work.