Photo by Allison Perrine
SEA BRIGHT – A deep orange SkyTrak forklift sent rubble tumbling down from what was once the Sea Bright School on a warm and sunny morning Sept. 12.
The building had been vacant for years and had fallen into disrepair. These days Sea Bright public school children attend Wolf Hill School in Oceanport for preschool to fourth-graders; Maple Place Middle School in Oceanport for fifth- to eighth-graders; and Shore Regional High School in West Long Branch for ninth- through 12th-graders.
The now empty lot will soon be divided into eight residential lots with new curbs and sidewalks on River and South streets as part of the approved application brought by River Street Realty, LLC – whose sole member is Aldo Frustacci – earlier this year.
The demolition has stirred up some memories for local community members who knew what the school was once like. That includes councilman Charles H. Rooney III, who spent his early years as a student at the school in the 1960s.
“It was almost like somebody’s house. It was just a big old building,” said Rooney. He described its interior as warm with lots of wood, specifically wooden staircases students would take to get from class to class. And the most special part, he said, was that everyone mattered.
“That is something I feel as you go along, you find that to be unique, where every single student matters. All the teachers cared about their students very much – not that they don’t today – but they really did,” he said.
Every Friday the school had an assembly, where all students and staff would come together as Mrs. Helicker played the piano, he said. Rooney remembered the students singing various patriotic songs, like “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” “It was a special, special place,” he said.
Photo by Allison Perrine
And his favorite teacher, he said, was Mrs. Carol Allen. “She really liked me, but she was hard on me,” he said, adding that he was a mischievous young man back then. “If there was trouble, I was in it. But she loved me,” he said with a laugh.
At that time Sea Bright was filled with families and children. They would wake up in the morning and walk along Ocean Avenue, lunch boxes in hand, to get to school. A select group of lucky upperclassmen were named safety patrol and wore bright orange sashes across their chests. Rooney said any child on safety patrol felt like “the coolest” person ever.
Along the walk to school on Ocean Avenue were fun little stores and, once a week, when some children got their lunch money, Rooney said, they would stop into Wiseman’s, where Anjelica’s Restaurant is now. It was an old-school store with fountain sodas and “everybody loved it,” Rooney said.
Now, Sea Bright is different, he said. There are 1,400 residences in the borough and 1,000 households, fewer than two people per household.
Some of the former students of Sea Bright School have collected a brick or two each from the demolished building as a keepsake from their earliest years in the education system. According to resident Janet Sanders, the idea was spearheaded by her husband, Sea Bright mayoral candidate Jack Sanders (D), who is running against Brian Kelly (R).
“We have a 5-year-old and seeing all the sentimental posts made me think about not just the school itself, but the sentimentality and memories that are attached,” said Janet. “I don’t think it’s necessarily the building itself, but the memories of family and childhood attached to the bricks that make them special. It felt like an easy way to spread Sea Bright love, as cheesy as that sounds.”
