By John Burton
RED BANK – The future of the historic T. Thomas Fortune House has yet to be settled, despite hope expressed last month by preservationists.
The Vaccarelli family, which owns the 94 Drs. James Parker Blvd home and property, has rejected an offer to purchase the site made in September by the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program, said spokesman Robert Considine, with the DEP.
“As it’s listed on the New Jersey and United States Register of Historic Places we had an interest in preserving property,” Considine said.
The DEP’s Green Acres Program assists communities in acquiring property for recreational and educational purposes.
This is a setback in the efforts to preserve the historically significant site, the former home of T. Thomas Fortune, noted late 19th and early 20th century African American journalist, author, newspaper publisher and intellectual. “It puts us right back at square one,” in those efforts, acknowledged Borough Councilman Edward Zipprich, who serves as the council liaison to the borough Historic Preservation Commission.
A call to the Vaccarelli family William Street home on Tuesday evening was met with an abrupt hang up.
Gilda Rogers, who chairs the T. Thomas Fortune Project, looking to raise enough money to purchase the site, said this week, despite this latest development, “we’re still in negotiations with the family and we’re hoping for the best outcome.”
Considine declined to make public the amount of the offer given “there’s always a chance we can renew discussions.”
Those familiar with the situation have said previously that family members have been divided over what should be done with the property and there has been talk in the past of the family selling the property to a private developer.
Following the death last August of 93-year-old Anthony Vaccarelli Sr., the family patriarch, two family members had filed for a demolition permit for the structure but never followed through on it.
Members of the Vaccarelli family have owned the property for generations, dating back about a century. The family, which originally emigrated from Italy, lived and for many years operated a bakery at the location.
The building has greatly deteriorated over the years and become a victim of what Zipprich called “demolition by neglect” and vandalism.
Saving the structure has become a cause celebre for local preservationists who hope to secure enough in private donations and grants to eventually purchase it.
Tentative plans call to restore the aging, dilapidated structure and have it eventually serve as a living history destination and museum highlighting the area’s African American and immigrant heritage.
“It’s been a slow process,” however, on the fundraising end, Zipprich acknowledged.
What is commonly called the Fortune House was named to the National Register of Historic Places in December 1976 and to the state register in August 1979. It is one of only two destinations on the national register in New Jersey associated with African American history. It earned the dubious distinction in 2007 of being labeled by Preservation New Jersey as one of the 10 most endangered historic sites in the state.
T. Thomas Fortune (1858-1928) was born into slavery in Florida. He was an early activist for the civil rights movement and lived on the borough’s west side from 1901 to 1915, at the time publishing a Harlem-based African American newspaper. He called his home Maple Hill, which was built sometime between 1860 and 1865. Fortune entertained at his home such intellectual contemporaries as Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois.
