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End of an Era on Neptune’s Ridge Avenue
Posted by Webmaster
on 08/18/06
As printed in the Coaster:
By ANDREW CANGIANO
In order to be successful in life a person needs to have a solid foundation and the Ridge Avenue Elementary School gave kids that, said Neptune resident Nate Cave, 62, who graduated from the school in 1957.
“Once you have a strong foundation you can build anything upon it,” Cave said. “They gave you a strong foundation.”
Demolition of the Ridge Avenue School in Neptune, which opened in 1924, began Tuesday and is expected to be completed by the end of the week. For the last several years the school was rented to the Asbury Park school district which used it for students while an Asbury Park school was renovated.
Township officials and former students reminisced Wednesday morning about the school’s past, as well as the future of the neighborhood.
Edythe Douglass, 83, said all five of her children attended the school during the late 1940’s and 50’s when the family lived on Heck Avenue.
“They got a good education from this school,” said Douglass, who was given a brick from the structure as a piece of nostalgia.
Cave, who attended Ridge Avenue from kindergarten through eighth grade, also has fond memories of the school, which he said was “family-oriented.”
“They took interest in the students,” he said about teachers at the school. “It was fantastic growing up around here. And [the teachers] always encouraged us,” he added.
“It’s like a part of you, a chunk of you, that’s taken away,” Cave said about the school’s demolition.
Gail Oliver, a West Lake Avenue resident who attended the school from kindergarten through sixth grade, said that along with local churches, the Ridge Avenue school was one of the communities main meeting places.
Oliver said that when she was 3-years-old, she attended a dance recital at the school, which inspired her to start dancing.
“No Child Left Behind, they were practicing that way back,” she said about the days when she attended the school. “There was a deep caring and connection within the community.”
In reminiscing about the school, Oliver showed a picture of the graduating class of 1958 that appears in the book “In Our Own Image”, which was co-authored by Neptune resident Karen Pugh. The picture was taken on the front steps of the building.
Arden Thorne, 82, remembers the school was different when he attended it, as each classroom had a front entrance as well as one from the school’s hallway (The front entrances were eventually removed.)
“Each classroom had two exits, one leading to the central hallway and one leading outside the building,” he recalled.
He also remembers having to take showers in the locker room after physical education, a practice that has since been discontinued in most elementary schools.
Thorne said he has only good memories of attending the Ridge Avenue School.
“It was nice going to school here,” he said. “It was very nice.”
Neptune had been renting the school to the Asbury Park school district for the last several years, until the township bought the property from the board of education for $2.4 million this spring.
The township plans to have residential units built on the property as part of its redevelopment plan.
“Today marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new era for the Ridge Avenue School site,” Neptune Mayor Thomas Catley said Wednesday.
He said the township acquired the property so it could have control over what type of development is placed there.
Proposals for the site are due October 1.
“We’re interested to see what proposals come in,” Catley said, adding that he hopes proposals for larger sized lots are submitted.
He said he hopes a developer can start construction on the project by spring of 2007.
The Ridge Avenue school site is part of the township’s midtown redevelopment. The former school site will be residential and West Lake Avenue will be a mix of commercial and residential.
The Ridge Avenue school is the fourth Neptune school to be demolished in the last three years. Bradley Park, Summerfield, and Whitesville were the three others.
A new elementary school, which will be called the Midtown Community School, is being constructed on Corlies Avenue.
Deputy Mayor Michael Golub said many items were salvaged from the school, including: stainless steel sinks, a convection oven, floor buffing machines, vacuums, scaffolding, several hundred textbooks, lighting fixtures, as well as shelving, cabinets, tables, chairs, and desks.
The items were donated to the Boys Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys Club, Living Word Christian Fellowship, Camp Evans, Jersey Shore Performing Arts Center, and Shoreline Dance Academy.
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