Carpetland/Circle Shop building featured on National Trust for Historic Preservation Newssite

Downtown Beachwood and the Carpetland/Circle Shop building got a bit of national press this week from the National Trust for Historic Preservation website:

After Fire, New Jersey Inn’s Future Remains Uncertain

By Margaret Foster | Online Only | July 16, 2009

A month after a devastating fire, the owner of the most visible historic building in Beachwood, N.J., is considering tearing it down. But at least one resident wants to find a new buyer for the curved structure that has anchored the town’s main intersection since the 1920s.

On June 12, a fire gutted the second floor of the former Beachwood Circle Inn, used most recently as a carpet store and apartment house.

“It was an accidental fire. We attributed it to careless cooking,” says Robert Cook, deputy fire marshal of Ocean County, N.J. One firefighter suffered minor injuries in the blaze, he says.

The fire left the exterior and first floor intact. This month, the carpet store on the first floor is open for business—but for how long? “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might even tear it down,” says building owner Bruce Barrett.

The Beachwood Historical Alliance wants to reshape the future of the Circle Inn building, the “main cultural social gathering for our entire area,” according to director Erik Weber.

He hopes to help Barrett find an investor to buy the building and restore it as a meeting place. “The timing could not be better, as our downtown is about to be reconnected with the rest of the county to a 17-mile uninterrupted rail trail,” he says. “It could be a smash hit.”

Would Barrett be willing to sell the building? “Once they got the money, sure,” he says.

Last year the Circle Inn building was slated to be torn down for a Rite Aid pharmacy, but plans remain on hold because the developer has not paid a required application fee. “They would need to post the fees to continue,” says Jeanette Larrison, secretary of Beachwood’s planning board. “Their application hasn’t even been close to being completed.”

Rite Aid Corporate spokeswoman Cheryl Slavinsky emphasizes that Rite Aid is not the developer of the site. (The developer did not return phone calls from Preservation.) The Rite Aid store was originally scheduled to open in November 2010. “We do not control matters of the developers. We honestly can’t tell you the status of the project.”

Beachwood Carpet Land / Circle Shop Fire: Before and After

Posted below you’ll find photos our organization took prior to the fire at the Carpet Land / Circle Shop building, alongside similarly positioned ones afterward. Following that is today’s Asbury Park Press article on the fire. The BHA will keep you posted on any new developments and information on how our residents can help the property owners and tenants recover from this unfortunate event.

Beachwood Fire Being Probed

Chelsea Michels
Toms River Bureau
Asbury Park Press – June 15, 2009

BEACHWOOD — Authorities are investigating the cause of a fire that damaged a historical landmark on Route 9 Saturday night.

The Beachwood Volunteer Fire Department responded to the blaze at Carpetland shortly after 9 p.m., according to Chief David Petracca.

The fire spread through the top floor, which contains apartments, fire officials said. Two families were displaced, according to Petracca, who said he believed the the business, on the bottom floor, is currently closed.

Petracca said the cause of the fire is under investigation by the Ocean County Fire Marshal, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Beachwood Police Department.

“Everybody did an excellent job and the damage was kept to a minimum,” he said, adding that one firefighter suffered minor injuries but the residents were unharmed.

He said due to the type of occupancy, several fire companies from the surrounding area responded to the fire.

According to members of the Beachwood Historical Alliance, the structure was built in the late 1920s and was originally the Beachwood Circle Inn, which formed a circular intersection with the other buildings on each corner.

It became the Beachwood Circle Shop in the 1930s, and “enjoyed prominence as the cultural hub of the local community, from Berkeley to Beachwood to Toms River,” according to the Alliance.

During World War II, many servicemen gave their military photographs to then-proprietors, F. Steven and Florence Demor, who hung them in the window for passing residents to see.

The Circle Shop changed hands in the 1950s, and continued operation until the late 1960s when it became Carpetland.

On Dec. 26, Rite Aid had submitted a proposal to the borough Planning Board to build a Rite Aid Pharmacy over the Beachwood Circle Shop/Carpetland site and surrounding area. According to the historical alliance, application fees were never paid by Rite Aid, causing speculation that the corporation has discontinued their interest in the site.

Beachwood Carpet Land / Circle Shop Fire

It is our sad duty to bring you news which many already know - Saturday night, June 13th, the Beachwood Carpet Land / Circle Shop building, located at the corner of Beachwood and Atlantic City boulevards, caught fire around 9 p.m. According to witnesses, it appeared to have started in a second floor apartment and traveled through parts of that area before being controlled and extinguished by local fire companies. Further information is not available at this time, except to say the Ocean County Fire Marshal’s Office was investigating early Sunday morning, June 14th. Any new information learned will be posted here.

The Beachwood Historical Alliance would like to join the rest of the local community in extending its sympathy and support to Carpetland’s residents and its owners, the Barrett family and Viking Management. Messages have been coming into the BHA’s various online addresses with concern and questions of how to contribute aid. We hope restoration work is possible and that they will be able to recover quickly from this unfortunate event, both for the future of their business and the health of our downtown overall, and we will keep everyone posted on potential future programs and events to support this site, its owners and residents.

We also would like to thank our local fire and first aid companies for their diligence and success in getting everyone out of the building safely and treated properly while still managing to control the fire from spreading through more of this important community business and cultural landmark.

Photos of the fire and following morning are posted below. Anyone wishing to share further photos of the fire for our archives may write to beachwoodhistoricalalliance@gmail.com, either to attach them in an email or inform us as to how or where we can receive them.

The following morning.

MORE PHOTOS CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING HERE.

Case Study: Monmouth County Historic Sites Receive Preservation Funds

Today we’re going to look into a current account of how a number of cultural/historic sites in Monmouth County are due to receive state grants. It is possible that someday the Beachwood Circle Shop building may be brought onto local and state historic registries – a result of its diverse past as a cultural hub of central Ocean County in the mid-twentieth century – and receive various state and organizational grants that will combine with local volunteers and active historic and preservation groups for its rehabilitation and reemergence as a cultural center for Beachwood and the area once again.

This may combine with other locally listed historic structures as part of a sweeping downtown revival that, in conjunction with the county rail trail connection, will produce a flow of foot traffic and shop, park and waterfront patrons that could give Beachwood’s businesses and property owners a much-needed financial shot in the arm.

Read on and imagine a future Beachwood that could include an historic downtown with wider sidewalks, benches, streetlights, native trees and a bike path leading straight off the county rail trail from a rebuilt borough train depot/rail trail visitor center to the waterfront docks, beach and Mayo Park. It’s a future we can all wake up to, a future that - combined with our upcoming centennial and potential celebration plans – will lend added recognition and interest in the borough, increase beach badge sales and patronage, open up the desirability of our town center (and overall properties within the borough), and generally improve the quality of life for the entire town.

Beachwood Train Depot, July 21, 1950, by Edward Weber.

Local Sites Slated for Preservation Funds

Woman’s Club, Parker Homestead, Church of Presidents on state grant list

Erin O. Stattel
Staff Writer
The News Transcript
Greater Media Newspapers

Two local sites and a third in Long Branch appear on the state historic trust’s preservation grant list and local legislators have pledged their support of the bill.

The Parker-Sickles Homestead in Little Silver and the Anthony B. Reckless Estate, now the Woman’s Club of Red Bank, both appear on the New Jersey Historic Trust’s 2008 list of preservation grants.

Women's Club of Red Bank

Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-12th District), who sits on the Senate Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee, said the legislation passed out of committee May 7 and was expected to come before the full Senate for a vote May 21.

“Historic preservation is of true importance to the cultural future of our state,” said Beck. “We have such a rich history in this area, and I am always proud when I can work to help maintain it. I fully expect the Senate to support this funding as the committee worked to spread the funding in an equitable way throughout the state.”

The Woman’s Club of Red Bank, also known as the Anthony B. Reckless Estate, was built in 1874, according to Mary Gilligan, one of the chairs for the club’s preservation committee.

“Anthony B. Reckless was one of the businessmen in Red Bank who brought gas stations in and different businesses to town,” Gilligan said of the former president of the N.J. State Senate. “He built the club after the Civil War, and one of the issues was that they had to wait until the war was over in order to get the materials to build the house.”

The house, which now sits at 164 Broad St. in Red Bank, originally sat toward what is now Reckless Place, Gilligan said.

“With the money from the trust grants, we will be able to restore the driveway side of the building,” she said. “There is a lot of repair work that needs to be done. The building also needs to be painted; all of the colors are original but we are on a 20-year plan to paint the building.”

Beachwood Circle Shop/Carpet Land building, Memorial Day 2009.

The Woman’s Club of Red Bank has about 60 active members. Gilligan said the club has been an active organization since 1917 and purchased the building in 1921. The club actually began as the Round Table Coterie, a literary society, in 1896, she added

“The club served dinners to local servicemen during both World War I and II,” Gilligan said. “And on the second-floor bathroom there is even a little note that says the club served 450 dinners to area servicemen one Christmas Eve during World War II. Bandages were rolled here and a women and children’s clinic was also housed here. Every once in a while I hear someone say, ‘Oh yeah, I got my vaccines there.’ “

The top floor of the building also served as a long- and short-term home for single women and now serves as a true community resource, Gilligan said.

“It is a meeting place for a lot of local organizations,” she said. “The Jazz and Blues Foundation holds meetings and fundraisers here, and we get a lot of interesting requests, and I think that is why we were awarded this grant this time because we are now able to truly demonstrate what a community resource the building truly is.”

According to the club’s history, the building is in the American Bracketed Villa style, and the estate is symmetrical and more formal than the equally popular Italianate Villa style.

The Anthony B. Reckless Estate is expected to receive about $30,000 through the N.J. Historic Trust preservation grant program.

According to the borough of Little Silver, the Parker Homestead, located near Sickles Market and the municipal recreation complex on Harrison Avenue, is the former home of the Parker family and the oldest home in town.

“We have had dating done on some of the main wood beams and it dates back to 1721,” explained Borough Administrator Michael Biehl. “Julia Parker, who we inherited the property from, claimed it dated back to 1665, but we haven’t been able to prove that yet.”

Photos of WWII Servicemen, originally hung in the Circle Shop windows, where they were regular patrons.

The borough of Little Silver is expected to receive approximately $44,000 for the Parker Homestead through the N.J. Historic Trust preservation grant program.

“We acquired the property around the winter of 1994, and structural work has been done to the building such as the installation of a new roof, new utilities and indoor plumbing,” Biehl said. “It was preserved for historical and educational purposes, and with the money we are to receive from the state, we hope to preserve the remaining outbuildings.”

Biehl said that there are about three barns on the property, which the borough hopes to preserve from further deterioration. A use for the barns has not been confirmed yet, he said.

“The property is on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places but it is not on the National Register of Historic Places,” Biehl said. “So the money we are receiving is earmarked to help get the property onto the national register.”

Church of the Seven Presidents, Long Branch.

According to Biehl, Parker was a direct descendent of the family that settled the Borough of Little Silver.

“The story always was that the family acquired the land from the [Native Americans] and the house has been in the Parker family since it was built,” Biehl said.

Moving down the shoreline, the Church of the Presidents in Long Branch is also listed as receiving preservation funds from the state.

According to its website, the Church of the Presidents, known as a place of worship for seven U.S. presidents during the late 1800s into the turn of the century, was built and designed by New York architects Potter and Robertson in 1879. The church also appears on the State of New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.

Presidents to worship at the church, also known as St. James Chapel, include Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson.

The current restoration of the building has been undertaken by the Long Branch Historical Museum Association.

“In the late 1990s the building had become so unstable that we had everything removed so the building could be stabilized,” said Joan Schnorbus, a member of the Long Branch Historical Museum Association board of trustees. “Everything was removed, the pews, light fixtures, even the windows. One of the windows we believe is Tiffany glass.”

Schnorbus said that the church was founded as an alternative location for Long Branch’s elite to attend services in the 1880s.

A comprehensive downtown plan, coupled with the rail trail connection, would likely place storefronts currently vacant, such as the former Disbrow Market building, in high demand.

“It was built in 1879 with funding from local families who were closer to Ocean Avenue than the center of town,” Schnorbus said. “It quickly became the focal point of town and many presidents frequented the church, and even as President James Garfield lay dying a short distance away, he could hear the church bells tolling for his recovery.”

But the church’s survival as a religious institution would not reflect its strong inception.

“The congregation began falling off as the fortunes of Long Branch waned, and finally, it was closed in the 1950s,” Schnorbus said. “And then the building became slated for demolition, but a gentleman by the name of Edgar Dinkelspiel and an attorney, Bernard Sandler, discovered a clause in the original deed to save the church. It stipulated that if the building were no longer used as a church, ownership reverted back to the original benefactors, which were the Pullman, Childs and Drexel families.

“Dinkelspiel and Sandler found the heirs and obtained ownership of the church in 1953 as the nonprofit Long Branch Historical Museum Association.”

According to the N.J. Historic Trust’s website, the trust recommended the church receive $467,296 in preservation grants.

For more information and a full listing of grant recipients, visit http://www.njht.org.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.”**

* = Taken from Wikipedia entry on New Urbanism

** – Courtesy the New Urban Trust

Rail Trails Provide Local Economic Engine

Beachwood Train Depot, July 21, 1950 by Edward Weber

In today’s entry, we’re going to take a look at two railroad right of ways that have been successfully converted into rail trails, how town officials prepared for the arrival of thousands of pedestrians and cyclists, and the subsequent positive impact on local businesses adjacent to the trail.

These examples are very important to our borough, as our own Central Railroad of New Jersey right-of-way will be connected to the greater Ocean County - Barnegat to Toms River Rail Trail in the very near future, providing our downtown businesses the potential for an economic and cultural revival not seen since early 20th Century residents relied primarily on pedestrian-friendly businesses.

This resurgence of the downtown corridor’s economy will come not only from the 16 miles of communities suddenly within easy and safe recreational access to downtown Beachwood, but also through the hundreds and thousands of other visitors and tourists the trail will attract and drive through town. Our borough in particular has the potential to shine as a knockout trail patron destination, as it is currently the only municipality that can offer a town center with its original structures intact, public docks, public beachfront, and public park overlooking the Toms River and Barnegat Bay within short walking or cycling distance of the trail.

Trail’s Opening Eyed as Path to Revival

Written by Candus Thomson for the Baltimore Sun
Originally published December 13, 2006 in the Baltimore Sun

CUMBERLAND [MARYLAND] – Once known for being at the end of a famous canal, this city is ready to open a new pathway, one that civic leaders hope will make it a recreation destination and infuse downtown businesses with cash.

Interior of the American Store, undated. This later became Clancy's Pharmacy, and is now home to the Clutter shop.

Feet – hundreds of thousands of them – are expected to pedal and hike the Great Allegheny Passage, a 150-mile converted railroad corridor that connects here with the C&O Canal Towpath, providing a link between Washington and Pittsburgh.

Trail advocates and government officials will celebrate completion of the East Coast’s longest rail trail tomorrow with a ribbon-cutting along the banks of the Potomac River, where the trail and the towpath meet.

Over the past two decades, Marylanders have come to embrace gently undulating rail trails as family-friendly recreation, where walkers and those taking leisurely bike rides feel safe and comfortable because amenities are never far away.

The state has two of the top 10 most popular rail trails in the nation. The 14-mile Baltimore and Annapolis Trail and the 22-mile Northern Central Railroad Trail in Baltimore County each attract 1 million users annually.

This original bungalow, dated here 1916, later became and is today the Beachwood Library.

Supporters of the Great Allegheny Passage believe that the history and culture along Maryland’s 20-mile portion of the trail will be a magnet for families looking for a different kind of weekend adventure.

The new trail, says David Lillard, former president of the American Hiking Society and author of trail guides, “is a great conservation story … and destined to become one of the best-loved multi-use trails in America.”

A City’s Revival

Even in its incomplete state, the rail trail was used last year by about 400,000 people, a number that is projected to triple with the completion, and that’s music to the ears of Cumberland officials.

“The revival of the city is driven, in part, by the trail,” says Mayor Lee Fiedler, who ordered bike racks installed on downtown street corners. “No one thought people with bikes would spend money, but they were wrong. Business is spreading back from the trail.”

Beachwood Library, 2009.

Two bed-and-breakfasts have opened with trail users in mind. The National Park Service is reviewing plans for a riverside campground. Wi-fi blankets the city’s core. A historic railroad hauls bikes up the steepest trail grade to Frostburg. Last summer, weekend nights were filled with outdoor concerts and people eating at sidewalk cafes. A hotel with a bike repair shop is in the works.

“That’s a sizable chunk of tourism for families, building a critical mass of things to do,” says Richard Pfefferkorn, executive director of the Canal Place Preservation and Development Authority in Cumberland.

This city of 21,000 has long been known as the terminus of the 185-mile Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, built from 1828 to 1850 to ferry goods and passengers. But civic leaders acknowledge that that distinction hardly made their community a destination.

“In Cumberland, you have to have more than where people start and people stop. Before the trail, visitors would come in Friday afternoon for a matter of 20 minutes and be off on the towpath. The economic benefit was rather small,” says Fiedler, a retired business executive in his second term.

City officials and merchants began to see a change last fall, when the Great Allegheny Passage closed to within a few miles of downtown. Although detours on local roads from Frostburg were hard and dangerous, people began making the effort.

Disbrow's Market, 1947. This became Clancy's Video after closing in 1988, and now sits vacant waiting for a new life.

Two years ago, Gail Shofer Hall, a former Baltimore resident, began booking upscale bicycle tours for middle-age weekend warriors “who want to be spoiled.” In October, she opened The Inn on Decatur, four blocks from Mile Marker One, the trail’s beginning.

“We’re at the quasi-half point between Pittsburgh and Washington,” she says. “You’ve pedaled more than 100 miles, you want a little downtime.”

Outsiders took notice. Two regional hiker-biker guidebooks included the trail this year, and the Web site BikeWashington.org dubbed it “the crown jewel of the Mid-Atlantic rail trails.”

Building Trails

Railroad Avenue, Beachwood.

The move to convert never-used or abandoned railroad corridors began in the 1960s, as people began to look for places to walk or bike away from motorized traffic.

Today, there are more than 13,000 miles of rail trails, with another 14,000 miles in the planning stages, according to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Maryland has 21 rail trails that cover 115 miles, with another 24 trails totaling 264 miles in the planning stages.

When the first section of the Great Allegheny Passage – a nine-mile stretch at Ohiopyle, Pa. – opened 20 years ago, “it showed that if you build these trails, they will be used by locals but also attract tourists,” says Linda McKenna Boxx, president of the Allegheny Trail Alliance, an umbrella for seven trail groups.

Momentum gathered. In fall 2002, Maryland officials spent $875,000 for 4.8 miles of right of way from the Mason-Dixon line to Frostburg.

Disbrow's Market building, 2009.

But as they stitched the pieces together, trail advocates knew they’d have to deal with a gaping maw: the 3,300-foot Big Savage Tunnel, one mile north of the Maryland line. Built in 1911 and abandoned in 1975, the tunnel was dank and riddled with water damage, but it provided a vital bypass across the Eastern Continental Divide and through 2,375-foot- high Savage Mountain.

It took five years for the trail groups to raise $12 million to restore the tunnel, which opened in May. It is to be closed from December to April every year to keep the elements from destroying the walls, lighting and drainage system.

Trail work remains near Pittsburgh and McKeesport, and there’s more to do to help towns create a smooth-running economic engine, Boxx says.

Towns along the trail are being encouraged to think of it as a second Main Street, and to begin improving hospitality and other services to take advantage of new business. Boxx envisions hiring a “circuit rider” to help communities develop marketing plans and plan joint events.

Fiedler says he can hardly wait until spring.

“It ties into the other things we’re doing,” says the mayor, sitting at a downtown coffee shop. “We’re not a place you’ll go to stay for a week, but if we can get you to stay two or three days, we’ll be very happy.”

The Economic and Social Benefit of Trails

Trails are an important part of community well-being in many areas.

By Gary Sjoquist

Photos of World War II Servicemen from Beachwood, as they originally hung in the Beachwood Circle Shop, now Carpet Land. In the center is then-mayor Joseph Jerue.

During warm weather months in Minnesota, nearly 1.5 million cyclists, inline skaters, and walkers use our nationally-recognized city, county, and state trails. In fact, these trails are a quality of life issue for residents, as well as luring tourists from neighboring states who don’t have access to the number and variety of trails we have in Minnesota. Other than a quality of life issue, our trails are an economic boon to the state as well.

Lanesboro, on the Root River Trail in Southeastern Minnesota, is an often-cited example of the economic impact a trail can have. Pre- and post-trail Lanesboro, a town of about 800 residents, differ dramatically. Post-trail Lanesboro boasts 12 B&Bs (with year-long waiting lists), 8 restaurants, an art gallery, a museum, and a thriving community theater well-off enough to offer housing to its actors. Economically speaking, the Root River Trail has been very, very good for Lanesboro.

A specific example from Lanesboro can provide further insight. The bike shop in Lanesboro, a small “mom and pop” kind of a place, sold 60 tandem bicycles in a single year (more than the Twin Cities largest multi-store bike retailer that same year). Now, few people would go to Lanesboro to specifically purchase a not-inexpensive tandem bicycle. Rather, this is an indication of people who are having a good time, want it to continue, and are willing to spend the money to spend quality time on the trail. This kind of “impulse” purchase bodes well for retailers along our trails.

Nationally, trail-related expenditures range from less than $1 per day to more than $75 per day, depending on mileage covered. Generally, it’s been found a trail can bring at least one million dollars annually to a community, depending on how well the town embraces the trail. For a town like Lanesboro, a trail can mean an annual economic impact of more than five million dollars.

Greene's Economy Store, circa 1921. Today it is threatened to be demolished as part of the Rite Aid proposal, along with the former Beachwood Circle Shop and a half dozen other structures.

Another aspect has to do with how trails affect property values and the general attractiveness of an area. Studies have shown that 70% of landowners felt that overall, an adjacent trail was a good “neighbor,” with positive impacts including 1) getting in touch with nature (64%), 2) recreational opportunity (53%), and 3) health benefits (24%).

Furthermore, 70% of real estate agents use trails as a selling feature when selling homes near trails. 80.5% of them feel the trail would make it easier to sell. In Minnesota, 87% of home owners believe trails either increased the value of their homes or had no impact. On Seattle’s most popular trail, homeowners with properties near, but not adjacent to the trail, sold for an average of 6% more than comparable property elsewhere. Additionally, the U.S. National Parks Service notes that increases in property values range from 5 to 32% when adjacent to trails and greenways.

To better estimate potential economic impact, it’s important to understand a demographic profile. Overall, trail users average about 48 years of age, are more likely to be male, have completed college, with annual household incomes between $35,000 and $75,000. In Minnesota, trail users have median incomes $10,000 higher than average; good news for the communities along the trail.

With trail users relatively affluent, mobile, and interested in spending quality time with families, trails provide a perfect “getaway” adventure. Having access to trails has changed how families recreate, with people taking shorter but more frequent “vacations” closer to home and with a more family-oriented focus.

Trails have also allowed these escapes to include a wider variety of family members. Thanks to our mostly paved trails, and the advent of bicycle trailers, “trail-a-bikes,” and comfort bikes, it’s not uncommon to see an entire extended family – children, teens, parents, and grandparents sharing an outdoor recreational activity. While not an “economic” benefit, necessarily, this is still an important “value added” component trails bring to our state.

For more information, contact the Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota at: 651-726-2457 or 1-800-944-0707 (outside Minnesota) 275 E. 4th Street #642, St. Paul MN 55101-1651 — e-mail: info@parksandtrails.org