By Stephen Appezzato
SEA BRIGHT – Four dedicated residents are bringing Sea Bright’s rail history back to life through a special park project.
Anchorage Park, located just north of the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge, is nearing completion. The park will offer visitors picturesque views of the Shrewsbury River and provide a snapshot of the borough at the turn of the century.
A century ago, at this spot, Sea Bright had a bustling train station. “A lot of tourists used to come down. There used to be a lot of big hotels and beach clubs here and a lot of people used to come from the city on the trains,” explained council member Erwin Bieber.
By 1950, with the dominance of automobiles, the station, which was constructed in 1870, was shuttered to make way for Ocean Avenue. Over time, the location became the home of the Anchorage condo development, walloped by Super Storm Sandy in 2012. Questions arose about what would become of the vacant lot.
“This became green space, and what do we do with the green space?” resident Linda Lamia recalled asking. The borough planned to construct a passive park, raising funds for a simple four-pillar gazebo. But Lamia, a history buff, realized this was an opportunity to present Sea Bright’s little-known rail past. Lamia, along with her husband, council member John Lamia, and Bieber and his wife Jody, embarked on a project to realize the borough’s past.
Examining old photographs of the location, the team designed plans to recreate the old rail station.
“We tried to replicate this as best as we could,” said Erwin Bieber. “In the center was a three-tier section, there
was a big middle section and two smaller ones on the side. And that’s what provided this overhead as the train came through the station,” he explained.
During council meetings, Bieber and Lamia presented their designs to the rest of the borough council.
“They liked the idea,” Bieber recalled, but, “One, we didn’t have enough money. And two, we needed engineering support, because you can’t just build something like this and, in particular, on the river,” he said.
In New Jersey, construction projects near bodies of water are subject to specific state Department of Environmental Protection permits and approvals.
The four residents contacted Monmouth Conservation Foundation (MCF), a nonprofit that acquires and preserves open space and farmland throughout Monmouth County. MCF liked the project and agreed to match some of the borough’s funding. Residents from Sea Bright and Rumson also donated to the project. After raising around $55,000, the borough council put the project out for bid. Out of 12 interested parties, only one company provided a bid… totaling $62,000 and only covering the structure’s materials.
“It was a little more than what we had, so we negotiated and we got the price down. But then we had nobody to build it because we would have had to pay somebody,” Bieber noted.
With no funding left, the team realized Bieber and Lamia could use their own building skills to assemble the life-sized replica.
After the borough council signed off on the plan, three pallets of handcrafted, period-correct cedar beams and building materials arrived from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The company providing the materials is owned by the Amish and they have “impeccable craftsmanship,” Bieber said.
He and Lamia began piecing the structure together last fall and recently completed the last of the three sections.
The park is now in its final phase. The Biebers and Lamias decorated the structure with historically accurate designs and pieces, including a hand-painted recreation of the original platform’s sign, which reads “SEA BRIGHT” in bold font. They sourced replica 1800s-style lanterns that are solar-powered (in a nod to modern-day), which will be placed alongside century-old chests and a luggage cart, which the team sourced from Pennsylvania. Railroad tracks will be painted on the park’s brick patio to further transport visitors back in time.
“We looked at (installing) actual rail, but it weighs so much, to get it here would be major,” John Lamia said.
Linda Lamia said the passion project was a way to replicate the borough’s history in a usable way for the community. “To me, it was like it was returning to what it was before,” she said.
Bieber reflected on the keys to bringing the project to fruition: “Somebody with a vision, generous donors and two people willing to volunteer. That’s what made it happen. It’s going to be a nice thing for residents for years to come,” he said.
The team plans to complete the park by June, when thousands of visitors flock to Sea Bright for sun and fun just as they did around the turn of the century. While most will be driving to the vacation spot, Anchorage Park will remind visitors how past generations used to travel.
The article originally appeared in the May 9 – May 15, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
