Greener New Jersey Productions aimed to produce a video that more or less provides a touristy look at Monmouth County’s history and green spaces.
“Monmouth County is rich with inspiring places to visit,” host Megan Gunning Patterson says in the video. “Open spaces that can be enjoyed in many ways. And treasures from our history.
Those places are here today, thanks to the people who worked to save them.”
That pretty much sums up “Open Spaces and Historic Places in Monmouth County,” an approximately 30-minute video that premiered Sunday, April 17, at Monmouth University.
Greener New Jersey Productions, a non-profit video production company based in Hunterdon County, is now talking to public television outlets to air the video – hopefully this summer, said executive producer JoAnne Ruscio – just as public TV aired the organization’s video on Morris County. She added that the video will be available on the Greener New Jersey Production website after it airs on television.
The video ties together recreation, history and conservation – “how the three relate, in a nutshell,” said Ruscio, 64, a Rumson native who noted Pomphrey Pond is named after her maternal family.
The video contains familiar places. Those in the Two Rivers area include Sandy Hook; Twin Lights Lighthouse in Highlands; Longstreet Farm in Holmdel; and Huber Woods, Hartshorne Woods, Thompson Park, Tatum Park, Deep Cut Gardens and the Sunnyside Recreation Area, all in Middletown.
“I think it gives everyone a taste of what’s there and sparks a willingness to explore,” said William D. Kastning, executive director of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation.
Conversely, said Michael Catania, chairman of Greener New Jersey Productions board of trustees, “If you visited these sites before, the film will be a pleasant reminder.”
Other sites visited in the video are Allaire State Park, the Manasquan River Reservoir in Howell and the Historic Walnford farm-village in Upper Freehold.
“Outstanding,” said Stephen Wilkowski after viewing the video premier with his wife, Debbie, and about 150 other attendees. The Wilkowskis now live in Morris County, but are former Middletown residents.
“It’s just inspiring,” said Stephen Wilkowski, 57. “It gets us thinking at a higher level, to really value what we have.”
“I like the photography, the shots of the places that were familiar,” said Debbie Wilkowski, 56.
“A lot of the venues we saw in the movie, we saw (in person), we walked,” Stephen Wilkowski said.
Familiar faces, too, are in the video: Kastning and Amanda Brockwell, deputy executive director, of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation; Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action; Scott Barnes, a naturalist for New Jersey Audubon, director James J. Truncer, historian Gail Hunton, and horse-riding instructor Jackie West, all of the Monmouth County Park System.
Ruscio, who lives in Delaware Township in Hunterdon County, worked in marketing for New Jersey Network broadcasting when the state shut it down in 2011. So she and others formed Greener New Jersey Productions.
Truncer said Ruscio, whom he has known for decades, approached him several months ago about doing a video on the county.
“She had (already) done a film for Morris County, which was very well-received,” Truncer said.
From there, the video took off. It cost $90,000, funds provided by area groups: Saker ShopRite supermarkets, the J.M. Huber Corporation, New Jersey Natural Gas Charity, Monmouth Conservation Foundation and the Monmouth County Friends of the Parks.
“A critic could say you left stuff out (of the video),” Truncer said. “(But) in terms of highlighting, I think they did a fine job. I think JoAnne will tell you it was some difficult choices, what to include, what not to include.”
Missing from the video, for example, are such things as active recreation and municipal parks.
Both Ruscio and Catania said the video is not a documentary. Rather, according to Catania, “a small sampling.”
Among those at the premier was Ruscio’s cousin, Ed Pomphrey of Rumson. “There’s a reason people settled around here – the natural beauty, farmland,” said Pomphrey, 62. “It’s a beautiful area,” added Pomphrey’s wife, Sarah, 55.
Sarah Pomphrey said it was important to praise those who had the foresight to save what was portrayed in the video.
“We are blessed,” Truncer said. “The county we live in, the people who support open space, historic preservation, makes the county such a wonderful place to live in.”
Interestingly, Kastning pointed to Truncer, who has been director of the Park System for 50 years, as a visionary – something that “went unsaid” in the video.
The Park System, which has about 16,000 acres, gets 6.1 million visitors a year, Kastning said.
“I think it’s phenomenal what Jim did for the county,” Kastning said. “Jim was a leader, but he has a phenomenal staff pulling it off.”
Catania said there are “not only the places worth saving, but the institutions” that do the saving. He specifically praised the Park System.
“The average citizen doesn’t understand what is required to operate and share what is going on in these parks and open spaces,” Kastning said.
