By Sunayana Prabhu
HOLMDEL – The world-renowned Holmdel Horn Antenna, which proved the creation of the universe by confirming evidence of the Big Bang theory, is under threat, say residents.
While control over redevelopment and preservation of the site where the legendary antenna resides seems to be the intent of township officials, infuriated residents have called the proceedings suspect and launched a petition to save the horn antenna, garnering nearly 2,500 signatures from 42 states and 27 countries within a week.
Township Proceedings
During the township committee meeting Tuesday, Nov. 22, an unexpected item was added to the agenda: A resolution authorizing the township’s planning board to investigate whether the property at 791 Holmdel Road (the former site of Nokia facilities) may be designated as “an area in need of redevelopment for non-condemnation purposes under New Jersey’s Local Redevelopment and Housing Law.” According to a press release from the township, the property contains the Holmdel Horn Antenna, a U.S. National Historic Landmark, “among other structures.”
At the following planning board committee meeting chaired by Serena DiMaso Dec. 6, with the exception of board member Ron Emma, all of the board members voted to adopt the resolution to allow township planner Phillips Preiss, LLC to prepare a study to determine whether the site of the Horn Antenna needs redevelopment. “Control is the key,” board attorney Martin F. Pfleger said over speakerphone at the meeting.
Emma vehemently opposed the decision. “What if it is not redeveloped? It’s zoned for research now, it stays as is and we try to raise the money through the levy that was passed in the last election to fix the antenna where it’s at,” he said. “You’re doing this resolution almost like the assumption that those three lots are going to be redeveloped. That to me is not a foregone conclusion.”
Covering approximately 42 acres, the property sits strategically on one of the highest elevations in Monmouth County, providing remarkable views of Raritan Bay and Manhattan. It is located about three miles north of Garden State Parkway Exit 114. It includes an approximate 50,000-squarefoot research laboratory visible from Holmdel Road that is presently unoccupied.
As per Holmdel Township tax records, the property is currently owned by South Plainfield-based Crawford Hill Holding, LLC and classified as an RL40 (Research Laboratory) district on the township’s zone map. The building has housed several companies in the past, from Bell Labs to AT&T, Lucent and Nokia.
Enraged Citizens Trigger A Worldwide Movement
One of the many upset residents at the planning board meeting, Jay Yanello, said he was “infuriated at the process.” He said the last-minute decision to add the antenna property to the agenda and fast forward it to a study without allowing public comment was unwarranted. “We’ve seen that type of shady process too many times,” Yanello said.
But DiMaso drew comparisons to the redevelopment of Bell Labs, something the township is proud of, noting that, while the Holmdel Horn property is much smaller in comparison, “it’s better to have control over what happens there.”
DiMaso further added that the owner of the property cannot remove the antenna because it is a national landmark. “But they could raise a whole building and close it off and nobody could go in there,” she said. “If we do a redevelopment plan, that would be difficult for them to do.”
The Horn Antenna is located in the Crawford Hill section of Holmdel. The fact that the largely wooded property plateaus at one of the highest elevations in Monmouth County is just as important as the famed antenna. “The value is in the plateau,” Yanello said. He and other residents are not convinced a builder would want to maintain any public access to the antenna because the “elevated real stretches of land where you could build a lot of houses on, its where the horn is.” Yanello said moving the antenna to a school, museum or any other location to preserve it will kill its significance, rendering the big telescope “meaningless.” “People don’t want you moving it because when you go up there, you can see where this thing pointed toward the horizon,” he said.
The matter has triggered a movement which is growing by the day. Nearly 2,500 concerned citizens have signed the online petition “Save Holmdel Horn Antenna.”
The petition was initiated on actionnetwork.org by concerned citizens and three different nonprofits from Holmdel: Citizens For Informed Land Use (CILU), Friends Of Holmdel Open Space (FOHOS) and Preserve Holmdel (PH). The petition urges the Holmdel Township Committee, the Monmouth County Board of County Commissioners, and the New Jersey State Legislature to preserve the site as a public national historic landmark and public park.
A press release by CILU called the township committee’s move suspicious, saying it “circumvents the conventional application process and suggests this site could be slated for high density housing in the near future.”
Signees to the petition are concerned there are considerations to either move or remove the Holmdel Horn Antenna and to rezone the property for residential development.
Significance Of The Holmdel Horn Antenna
The legendary antenna was built to support NASA-commissioned Project Echo, which consisted of passive communication satellites orbiting the earth. There was no communication recorded until Bell Labs scientists, Dr. Robert Wilson and Dr. Arno Penzias, studied microwave radiation from beyond the Milky Way using the Horn Antenna. Their research confirmed the theory that the universe was formed by a cataclysmic explosion called the Big Bang. In 1989, the Holmdel Horn Antenna was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
“Electronics World,” a monthly technical magazine for engineers, touted “First Call Via Man-Made Satellite” on its November 1960 cover. Inside, an article noted “Bell Telephone Laboratories Bounces Voice Off Sphere Placed in Orbit a Thousand Miles Above the Earth.” The article provides more context for the antenna’s invention and subsequent research: “Think of watching a royal wedding in Europe by live TV or telephoning to Singapore or Calcutta – by way of outer-space satellites! A mere dream a few years ago, this idea is now a giant step closer to reality.”
Wilson and Penzias earned a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for establishing evidence of the origin of the universe with the Horn Antenna.
Harvard physicist and Nobel Laureate Edward Purcell said at the time of the finding, “It just may be the most important thing anybody has ever seen.”
Karen Strickland, co-president of CILU said one of their community members was even greeted during a visit in Antarctica with excitement: “Oh Holmdel, that’s where the Horn Antenna is.”
“Everyone in cosmology knows how important this is,” Strickland said.
While the Horn Antenna has a rich history, the once thriving research laboratory on the site is also important; it attracted the best scientific and technological innovators to the Jersey Shore who made groundbreaking discoveries. Much before the Horn Antenna, the laboratory functioned as a research arm of AT&T where Karl Jansky invented radio astronomy in 1932.
Ralph Blumenthal, a former physicist for Bell Labs, is chairman of the Holmdel Township Zoning Board and a trustee of FOHOS. He said he feels strongly that the public should have access to the site.
The antenna “is an outstanding piece of physics,” he said, noting the research done with the help of the Horn Antenna will inspire people to understand important concepts, like “How did our universe come about?”
“It will also let people walk up to the high point. There could be a park or a picnic area at the top,” Blumenthal suggested. “The antenna is a unique device that is known by many in the science community and clearly should be preserved, but on its current site.”
The article originally appeared in the December 8 – 14, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
