Beachwood Memorial Day 2009 – Parade and Service

We created a cool scrolling collage of the entire parade running through downtown Beachwood and memorial service at Neilson Park. Unfortunately, due to technical restrictions on our hosting engine, we are unable to post it directly here, but regardless wanted to share it with everyone. Click the image below to see the show.

Enjoy!

We Remember – Memorial Day 2009

The Beachwood Historical Alliance wishes to honor our past and present residents and all others who serve and have served our country and given the ultimate sacrifice while fighting to keep our country free.

As such, we have posted below a photo essay, including photos of borough servicemen from World War II that once hung proudly in the Beachwood Circle Shop (currently Carpet Land), a 1976 article on the shop and its importance to these men and our borough that originally ran in the Asbury Park Press, and a series depicting monuments from Neilson Park honoring local and national American servicemen from all conflicts.

Beachwood Circle Shop Evokes Poignant Memories

By Ray Ollwether – Press Staff Writer

BEACHWOOD – The soda fountain and juke box are long gone, and the circle in the roadway was removed 20 years ago.
But a set of yellowed photographs, recently found in a basement, has aroused nostalgia for the days when the Beachwood Circle Shop was the favorite gathering place for teen-agers in central Ocean County.
The shop is only a memory now, replaced by a carpet store at the intersection of Beachwood Boulevard and Route 9.

BEFORE World War II, when the small borough had less than a fifth of its present 5,100 population, that intersection was the hub of town.
The Circle Shop was the hangout for young people, and those who remember it say there is nothing like it today.
“The kids just had fun, without getting into any trouble,” says Albert Erath of Berkeley Township, whose family owned the building in which the Circle Shop was situated.
There was a soda fountain with 10 stools, several booths, nickel pinball machine, and – through a large archway – a dance floor with a jukebox that played jitterbug tunes.

“THERE were very few cars, and not much money,” Erath says of those days. “The only movie theaters were in Toms River, Lakewood and Seaside, and really there was nowhere else to go.”
“Where else could you spend an evening for a quarter?” adds Tom Gibson, who works as a butcher across the street from the former sweet shop.
“The shop was open till 11, which was when most kids had to be home,” Gibson said. “The shop sold newspapers and ice cream, but their biggest business was the kids.”

THOSE who remember the Circle Shop agree on the importance of its most well-liked managers, the late Florence and Steve Demor. The couple ran the shop from the early 30’s until the late 40’s when things began to change.
“Steve was their adviser, and would help them with their homework,” says Mrs. Salena Lundin, who still lives in Beachwood.
Mrs. Lundin’s daughter, Jean, worked behind the fountain, and Mrs. Lundin says “all the kids would pitch in and help down there, even when they wouldn’t work for their parents at home.”
“I never worried about my kids going down to the Circle Shop,” Mrs. Lundin said, adding that many local marriages were rooted in romances that began over a soda.

WHILE many of the teen-agers did not have their own cars, several drove old jalopies and the shop would draw from as far as Lakewood, Seaside and Lacey Township.
“There was only one high school for all those towns, and all the kids knew each other,” said Mrs. Lundin’s husband Arthur. “And there was no television then – all they had was radio.”
Most of the regular customers enlisted to fight in World War II, and as they left they gave their smiling picture in uniform to the Demors.
Eventually 90 photos were placed in frames on the wall behind the soda fountain. Among those pictures, as the months of the war passed, were Steve Demor and Mayor Joseph Jerue.
The shop kept going during the war, but afterwards many of the young men did not return to Beachwood. The photos were retired to the basement, and later placed in a garage when the building was sold.

BUT Joe Fuccile, a barber who has worked for 35 years on the corner across from the Circle Shop, remembered the photos and the boys, who used to hang around the shop and sweep up while waiting for Sunday afternoon softball games.
Erath found the photos, and Fuccile borrowed them for display in his shop windows to try to determine what happened to all those smiling men as they grew older.

Danny Gibson, Joe Fuccile, and Tommy Gibson examine one of the found photo boards in front of the Circle Shop Building, August 1976.

“It was a different character of children then,” says Fuccile. “They always helped one another, and most of them were very good boys.”
“But today kids have money and they drive around, and a sweet shop isn’t good enough for them,” he says. “I think kids today are getting too much – everything is more available. But I guess that’s progress.”
JOE the barber thinks the days of the sweet shop are over.
But Mrs. Ruth Perry, who helped run the Sweet Shop during the war, isn’t so sure.
“If your rules are relaxed enough to invite the kids and strict enough to see the kids don’t override you, there will be a mutual concern,” she says.
“With the right people, something like the Circle Shop might very well work again.”

Beachwood Circle Shop building, long a popular hangout of original residents and servicemen, now under threat of demolition, along with multiple original borough buildings behind it, by the Rite Aid Corporation.

We invite any borough servicemen or their families of any conflict or general service to our country to forward photos and stories of their or their loved one’s experiences to our main email address, beachwoodhistoricalalliance@gmail.com. As with all other borough history-related items, we are capable of digitizing and quickly returning any items lent to us.

********

The Beachwood Historical Alliance will have a table at the borough’s Memorial Day Picnic, scheduled from 11am to 4pm this Monday May 25th at Mayo Park.

Come out for a wide array of borough history handouts, including a Memorial Day 2009 exclusive packet of original New York Tribune newspaper articles from Beachwood’s official opening weekend – Memorial Day, 1915. This is not available online or anywhere short of a Manhattan research library. Own a piece of Beachwood’s past. Quantities are slightly limited so come out early to get yours.

We will also be selling copies of William Mill Butler’s “Beachwood Directory and Who’s Who 1924″, a hardcover publication containing many original photographs and info on the borough’s first ten years, for a special Memorial Day discount.

Case Study: Long Branch Seeks Better Future through Historic Preservation

As Beachwood Borough researches the development of a historic preservation ordinance and commission, we are going to begin tracking how one municipality to our north, the city of Long Branch, begins the process of introducing a long-sought after preservation ordinance of their own. It is our hope that by reading about their drive to sustained devlopment through preservation, our residents and borough officials will be aided by example.

L.B. Council Introduces Preservation Ordinance

Public hearing set for May 26 council meeting

Kenny Walter
Staff Writer
Atlanticville
Greater Media Newspapers

LONG BRANCH — The City Council has finally introduced a historical preservation ordinance after almost two years of delays.

The council unanimously voted 5-0 to introduce the ordinance at the May 12 meeting and scheduled a public hearing and final vote for the next meeting on May 26.

Long Branch Councilman Brian Unger has been pushing for approval of the ordinance since August 2007 and said he is confident that the council will endorse the ordinance.

“I believe it will be approved,” Unger said.

The ordinance aims to protect historical structures in the city by creating a Historic Preservation Advisory Commission that would review the potential effect of development and permit applications on designated historical sites.

The commission would review the potential effect of development and permit applications on designated historical sites and work with and advise the Planning and Zoning boards and individual property owners.

The ordinance will regulate only designated sites that require a permit and application for development.

The ordinance has the endorsement of the local historical society.

Beth Woolley, a trustee for the Long Branch Historical Society, said, “The only way to really protect private historical buildings is to have a local historical preservation ordinance.

“Most may not know this, but Long Branch is an extremely historic town,” Woolley added. “Long Branch has the potential to look like other towns that have embraced their historical buildings.”

The ordinance was expected to be on the agenda for the April 28 meeting but was ultimately pushed back until May 12 when the council agreed they needed more time to work on it

At the April 28 workshop, the council decided to push back the ordinance to clarify some of the language in it. According to Unger, there are no changes in the version of the ordinance introduced last week.

Dr. Frank Esposito, Kean University distinguished professor, suggested at the April 28 workshop that some of the ordinance should be rewritten.

“It is a step in the right direction, but it needs some revision,” Esposito said, “including downsizing and elimination of reference to a historic district. At this point, it may attempt to do too much.”

Esposito added that much of the ordinance is useful and that he supports the creation of a commission.

“The creation of the commission would keep a watchful eye on this issue,” Esposito said. The ordinance was expected to be introduced back on Feb. 24, but Unger requested that certain sections be rewritten to strengthen the role of the Historic Preservation Advisory Commission.

“Someone … put in language taking away from the Historic Preservation Advisory Commission the ability to adopt and utilize their own best-practice professional guidelines for designation of historic properties,” Unger said at the time.

The commission would compile an inventory of historical sites and structures in the city that could qualify for historical preservation. The commission will consist of seven members and two alternate members, with alternates appointed by the mayor.

Of the seven members, three must be either knowledgeable in building design and construction or architectural history or have a demonstrated interest in local history.

The remaining four members will be residentswho do not hold any other municipal office, position or employment but may be members of the Planning or Zoning boards.

The ordinance defines the goals of the advisory committee.

“Maintaining, preserving, and rehabilitating these visual links to the past is an important function of government, not only to provide a sense of stability and continuity for future generations, but to provide impetus for the revitalization of the city’s economic base and for the resulting increase in property values,” the ordinance reads.

The ordinance lists specific goals, which include safeguarding the heritage of Long Branch, encouraging the continued use of historical landmarks, and maintaining and developing a “harmonious setting” for the historical and architecturally significant buildings.

Other goals listed are: to stabilize and improve property values, to promote appreciation of historical landmarks, to encourage the beautification of and reinvestment in historical sites, and to discourage demolition of historical resources.

The responsibilities of the commission include preparing and maintaining preservation guidelines, reviewing applications that affect the historical properties, recommendations on designs, and preparing an inventory of historical sites and landmarks.

It also states that new construction on or near a historical site should not necessarily duplicate the exact style of the site but should not detract from the historical site.

According to Woolley, one of the obstacles to preserving historical structures in Long Branch is that until now, the city has had total autonomy of control over historical landmarks.

“Historical preservation only encourages owners to keep their land,” Woolley said. “You can’t do anything to protect the buildings without a local preservation ordinance. Even if it’s listed by the state as a historic structure, it can be knocked down if it is privately owned,” she added.

Agenda for Thursday Night Berkeley/Beachwood Border Development Hearing

OFFICE OF SMART GROWTH
BERKELEY TOWNSHIP PUBLIC HEARING
Chaired by Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, Office of Smart Growth

Berkeley Township Municipal Building
Pinewald-Keswick Road
Bayville, NJ 08721
Thursday, May 21, 2009
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

---

6:00          Welcome and Introductions
The Honorable Jason Varano, Mayor of Berkeley Township

6:05          Introduction of State Officials
Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, Office of Smart Growth

6:10           Overview of Plan Endorsement Process
Lorissa Whitaker, Principal Planner, Office of Smart Growth

6:20           State Agency Remarks
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)
New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT)
New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA)

6:30           Berkeley Township Plan Endorsement Petition Presentation
Dave Roberts, AICP/PP, RLA, Planning Consultant, CMX

6:45            Public Comment

8:00           Adjourn

Public Comment Guidelines
Comments may be provided orally or in written form at the meeting or in written form afterwards.

Oral Comments:

• If you would like to provide comments orally at the meeting, please see staff. You will be assigned a number indicating when it will be your turn to speak.
• Please speak clearly into the microphone so that your comments may be recorded.
• Please limit your comments to three minutes.

Written Comments:

• The public may comment orally, and in written form, at the hearing or may submit written comments to the Office of Smart Growth via email to osgmail@dca.state.nj.us, or to Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, NJDCA Office of Smart Growth, P.O. Box 204, Trenton, NJ 08625-0204, up to 30 days after the public hearing. Public comments may also be directed via email to the Executive Director at bspinelli@dca.state.nj.us up to the time the Commission takes action on the petition for Plan Endorsement.

If you would like to register with the Office of Smart Growth to receive notifications of State Planning Commission meetings or hearings regarding plan endorsement petitions, provide your contact information, including your name, organization, address and email address to osgmail@dca.state.nj.us. For more information about the Office of Smart Growth and the Plan Endorsement process, log-on to: www.njsmartgrowth.com.

Berkeley/Beachwood Border Development Plan Public Hearing Thursday

As previously mentioned here, Berkeley Township is forming plans to develop the open land that borders Beachwood to the southeast, including redeveloping the dilapidated Route 9 Beachwood Plaza [note: the Beachwood Plaza is actually in Berkeley Township, but according to an archival news article, Jimmy Johnson, who built the plaza in 1959, named it for our borough as a way to spite Berkeley Township officials at the time due to ongoing conflicts he had with them].

Interest in these plans here and through other organizations and individuals have caused the state’s Office of Smart Growth to conduct a public hearing on Berkeley Township’s petition for a state plan endorsement of this site. This specific area can be seen to the right in the 2002 aerial photograph of the Beachwood/Berkeley border. Here you can see the area commonly known in the borough as “Johnson’s Pit” to the south, the location of the original Central Railroad of New Jersey line that will be developed as a portion of the Barnegat to Toms River Rail Trail, and the Beachwood Plaza area to the north of that.

Beachwood Borough officials and residents should take interest in Berkeley Township’s upcoming plans and attend this meeting given the proximity of the site to our border and questions we may have regarding it.

Meeting specifics are as follows:

WHAT: Berkeley Township Plan Endorsement Public Hearing

WHEN: Thursday, May 21, 2009

TIME: 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

WHERE: Berkeley Township Municipal Building

Township Committee Meeting Room

Pinewald-Keswick Road

1st Floor

Bayville, New Jersey 08721

Map showing the current hydrologic features of the area along the Beachwood/Berkeley border.

The public may comment orally, and in written form, at the hearing or may submit written comments to the Office of Smart Growth via email to osgmail@dca.state.nj.us, or to Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, NJDCA Office of Smart Growth, P.O. Box 204, Trenton, NJ 08625-0204, up to 30 days after the public hearing.  Public comments may also be directed via email to the Executive Director at bspinelli@dca.state.nj.us up to the time the Commission takes action on the petition for Plan Endorsement.

If you would like to register with the Office of Smart Growth to receive notifications of State Planning Commission meetings or hearings regarding plan endorsement petitions, provide your contact information, including your name, organization, address and email address to osgmail@dca.state.nj.us.  For more information about the Office of Smart Growth and the Plan Endorsement process, log-on to: www.njsmartgrowth.com.

Case Study: Rite Aid Closings Sweeping Nation

Today we’re going to look at two news stories on the recent wave of Rite Aid closings currently rippling through the nation, and one news analysis on the overall state of the retail pharmacy chain. Many of the sites being closed are less than a few years old, and stand at what used to be downtown centers that once held locally important heritage structures.

As our own borough town center faces the continued threat of demolition for the self-interest of this corporation, we should ask ourselves as a community if we’re willing to trade our unique and irreplaceable past for a structure predesigned and built in repetition across America, by an irresponsible non-local company that is currently issuing waves of layoffs and closings that very directly impact the lives of local residents who depend on it.

It certainly appears that Rite Aid, which overextended itself by greedily grabbing up and demolishing culturally and historically significant sites across the nation during economic boom years, is turning into its own ugly moniker, Blight Aid, as many of these sites now go dark, leaving a wasteful legacy behind in local communities left holding undesirable and oversized chunks of abandoned commercial real estate where links to their past once stood.

Snapshot: A Beachwood Bungalow, 1916 and Today

Today we have the pleasure of presenting to you the image of an original Beachwood bungalow, found on a postcard sent in 1916, and how that same model looks today.

This postcard appears one in a series printed to promote our early resort community. Of interest is that the back of the card states our name to be “Beachwood Club”, matching the name of the resort B.C. Mayo developed right before Beachwood, “Lakewood Club” (Michigan). Both Beachwood Club and Lakewood Club dropped their ’surnames’ in subsequent years.

Enjoy!

Back of the original postcard, sent 1916.

July 3 – 1916

Dear Ma,

Thought you would enjoy seeing the style of bungalow they are building in Beachwood. The Bauers’ is similar to the one in the picture. Mother and I have been enjoying it for a couple of weeks. We will be home Saturday.

Lovingly, Aimee

[side note - any help deciphering the handwriting in any of these postcards is very appreciated]

Addressed to:

Mrs. Wm. Verrinder
102 Clinton Ave.
Clifton, N.J.

Local Founders Profile: John Jacob and Martha Ellen Nolze

From the pages of his own 1924 Beachwood Directory and Who’s Who, here is what William Mill Butler wrote about original residents Mr. and Mrs. John J. Nolze. Click on all the embedded links for a broader understanding of their lives and background:

Circa 1924.

Nolze, John Jacob, west side Longboat Ave., near Atlantic City Boulevard. All-year resident of Beachwood. Born in Texas. Business, contractor and builder; also member Goodrich, Weeks & Nolze, real estate and insurance. Was elected a borough commissioner of Beachwood in 1920, and is director of streets and public improvements, parks and public property.

John Nolze, Beachwood Fire Co. No. 1, circa 1924.

Wife, Martha Ellen Nolze; children, Florence M., Anna M., Dorothy G., Edythe H., John E., and Charles H. Nolze. Member Polyhue Yacht Club, and Volunteer Fire Company No. 1.

From 1924.

Snapshot of the Past – Bathing Beach, Circa 1927 and 1960

Today we’re going to take a look at Beachwood Beach from two points in time, around 1927 and 1960.

Beachwood Beach, postmarked 1927.

In the above image, you can see the original boardwalk, which extended the length of the beach. Taken from the end of the original pier at Spiles Point, much of where these swimmers stand is largely filled with sand today.

Dear Nel
????? place for you to spend vacation.
Uncle Carl has a fine boat.
They will be here probably three weeks more
Love from
?Dina
9/1/27

Addressed to:
Mr. Nelson Dense
61 Park Ave.
Baldwin, N.Y.
September 1, 1927 – Beachwood

Beachwood Beach, circa 1960, unused/unsent. Note the boardwalk from the 1927 postcard is missing in this later photograph.

Small Scale New Urbanism – The Future of Beachwood?

In today’s entry we’re going to begin to examine the concept of New Urbanism and how it can relate to the future of our borough. This will be the first part in a series studying how, with Beachwood nearly 100 percent built out to its borders, our borough officials and property owners can begin focusing their energy to meet the needs and goals of the coming years.

A.D. Nickerson home, today.

PART I: BACKGROUND

What is New Urbanism?

“New Urbanism is an urban design movement that arose in the United States in the early 1980s. Its goal is to reform many aspects of real estate development and urban planning, from urban retrofits to suburban infill. New urbanist neighborhoods are designed to contain a diverse range of housing and jobs, and to be walkable.

New Urbanism can include (neo)traditional neighborhood design, transit-oriented development, and New Pedestrianism. New Urbanism is the re-invention of the old urbanism, commonly seen before the advent of the automobile age, while New Pedestrianism is a further elaboration of less common, pedestrian-oriented, urban design experiments that date to the early 20th century.”*

As New Urbanists can trace the history of this contemporary movement back to early 20th Century development, so can we in our own borough.

Beachwood 1930.

Beachwood, begun in 1914 as a newspaper subscription promotion, was cut from a tract originally part of Berkeley Township and focused almost entirely on our waterfront, criss-crossing train lines and their station point, with a downtown constructed connecting the two. Starting out as a resort community for the upper working class of New York City, its early homes consisted largely of summer bungalows and evolving to more year-round cape-style homes through World War II. Original residents relied mainly on the trains to take them to and from their regular neighborhoods in the New York City area, and the waterfront for recreation and the nautical access of the bustling county seat, Toms River. Cars, while prevalent in some of the more well off family homes, were largely absent or left behind at home in the bedroom communities of northern New Jersey, New York State and Long Island.

Beachwood’s population in those early years hovered well under one thousand, and the southern ‘heights’ portion of the borough was an undeveloped pine forest. Boy Scout troops, including Beachwood’s own Pack 14 (now 114), would camp out where today there are many modern homes and paved streets.

Our center of town handled much of early pedestrian residents’ needs: an A&P, American Store and Disbrow’s Market for groceries; an independent butcher shop and a butcher counter in Disbrow’s for meats; Greene’s Economy Store for hardware, gifts and sundries; the Beachwood Library for borrowing reading material; and the Beachwood Circle Shop, for socializing, dancing and fast dining that catered to residents not just of Beachwood but also the greater Toms River and Berkeley Township area.

All of this changed with the advent of World War II and the coming of both the baby boom and automobile age. The latter cut a physical presence in the borough, as the Garden State Parkway, built in the early 1950s, sliced off the tail end of Beachwood from the rest. The combination of Americans living high on one income through the post-war economic boom with the advent of a clean, fast highway linking northern New Jersey to south drove families by the thousands down to Ocean County and Beachwood.

The borough population and the number of homes built near-doubled every decade from 1940 to 1980. This booming growth quickly usurped the previous small sleepy shore town atmosphere and replaced it with a thriving community sprawling out from the old town center before encroaching the parkway boundary itself, once thought a feat unimaginable. With Americans’ new thirst for the convenience of the automobile over what they perceived to be the slow, turgid crawl of a train, passenger service through the borough quickly ended and residents had no other choice but to fill their streets, side yards, front yards and newly built detached garages with cars of their own. While one car was at first considered the norm, multiple cars soon appeared on the curbs and drives around the borough as children became teenagers and multiple incomes became necessary, and garages and carports developed into a regular sight incorporated in the postwar ranch-style home designs.

As the borough grew, so did residents’ accessibility to resources beyond its borders. Grocery stores, general stores, butchers and consumer-friendly luxury goods retail establishments began filling strip malls, such as the Beachwood Plaza, built in 1959 (it resides in Berkeley Township; period newspapers reported owner Jimmy Johnson named it after our borough to spite Berkeley officials whom he said were giving him headaches over his various projects).

Beachwood 2002.

The past thirty years only increased the desirability of our area, a result of both buildable open space having become near non-existent in communities to the north, and the growing faction of amenity-driven building and location seekers, peaking with the advent of the “McMansion” over the past dozen or so years. Developers snapped up many of the remaining lots in the borough and filled them with large-style homes maxing out almost to the property line on most sides, pushing trees and green space out while adding more cars to the tinier front and side setbacks and streets. Similarly, our town center transformed from the actual center of residents’ activity to that of a periphery entity often viewed from the safety of a car with curiosity or disdain at its fraying, old-style buildings and general lack of sprawling parking. Beachwood residents no longer had the train-downtown-waterfront connection their predecessors enjoyed; the very concept which united the borough and fostered its community spirit blurred into the background. As if symbolizing the final pullout from our downtown area after years of diminishing pedestrian traffic, the original borough hall/firehouse, located right at the heart of town, was demolished and its property sold for the construction of a new, larger borough hall at the southernmost – and almost exclusively automobile accessible – parkway end of town, in the mid to late 1990s.

“Although conventional suburban development has been popular, it carries a significant price. Lacking a town center or pedestrian scale, conventional suburban development spreads out to consume large areas of countryside even as population grows relatively slowly. Automobile use per capita has soared, because a motor vehicle is required for the great majority of household and commuter trips.

Those who cannot drive are significantly restricted in their mobility. The working poor living in suburbia spend a large portion of their incomes on cars. Meanwhile, the American landscape where most people live and work is dominated by strip malls, auto-oriented civic and commercial buildings, and subdivisions without much individuality or character.”**

Utilizing the New Urbanism approach by latching onto the approaching county rail trail connection as a downtown and waterfront stimulus project, the Borough of Beachwood could become both a thriving auto-accessed suburb and pedestrian-friendly economic attraction, restoring its founders’ downtown structures, raising borough revenue through increased sales in beach access badges and general heightened property value and prosperity via regular downtown solicitation, enticing the proliferation of health-conscious activities among residents, and overall improving life in the borough through sustainable development:

“There are some common elements of new urbanist design. New urbanist neighborhoods are walkable, and are designed to contain a diverse range of housing and jobs. New urbanists support regional planning for open space, appropriate architecture and planning, and the balanced development of jobs and housing. They believe these strategies are the best way to reduce the time people spend in traffic, to increase the supply of affordable housing, and to rein in urban sprawl. Many other issues, such as historic preservation, safe streets, green building, and the renovation of brownfield land are also covered in the Charter of the New Urbanism, the movement’s seminal document. Because new urbanist designs include many of the features (like mixed use and emphasis on walkability) which characterized urban areas in the pre-automobile age, the movement is sometimes known as Traditional neighborhood design.”**

NEXT IN THE SERIES: TRENDS & DEFINING ELEMENTS

* = Taken from Wikipedia entry on New Urbanism

** – Courtesy the New Urban Trust