Stop! New Jersey Ave. and Mt. Hermon Way meet at the northeast corner of Firemen’s Park. Paul Goldfinger photograph © 4/25/16 Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
Kids on bikes love to zoom around those park cement paths, over and over. Dog walkers socialize while their pups socialize. Of course the people are more refined, but there is no way to look elegant when the poop bag takes center stage in the park rituals.
There is a big cherry tree in the park where kids love to climb, preferably while hanging upside down like vampires. Girls practice cartwheels, and families organize Wiffle Ball games. Boys pitch hardballs to their dads who pose as Yogi Berra. Adults like to sit on the benches or relax under a tree to read a book or have a talk.
On Choir Festival day, singers like to picnic here between rehearsals and show time.
Open up the center of Firemen’s Park. Do it for the kids. One of them could fall into those dangerous spikes. Blogfinger photo.4/24/16 ©
On the other hand, in the center of the park is an unwelcoming circular black metal fence with black spikes on top surrounding the bell—a memorial to departed firemen. The fence is locked shut so that no child could enter and touch the bell.
Around the black fence is a ring of horrible bushes with long dangerous sharp needles.
Firemen’s Park is actually under the control of Neptune Twp. They really should make the bell accessible to the kids. No part of that park should be private.
DAVID JOHANSON with VINCE GIORDANO AND THE NIGHTHAWKS, from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.
I would think that anybody who would want to vandalize the bell could pretty easily jump the small gate and vandalize it anyway. I agree that the fence and the thorny bushes should go.
Fireman’s park is an introduction into the community, and what a sad and old into it is. It should reflect joy, not “Ocean Grave.”
It is cold and lifeless. There needs to be celebration,not a gated funereal presence circulating around it, like Lenin’s Tomb.
Time for change.
Growing up in Ocean Grove That Bell was always accessible. No fence or trees around it. I have (and we) always called it Bell Park, that I remember. We climbed on the Bell from time to time and nothing bad happened to it. I grew up in the 70’s, we were outside playing ALL the time, no phones, video games. Just the street lights coming on to tell us to get home!
Of course, there’s always the chance of having jerks vandalizing and covering the bell with graffiti, too. Keep it safe behind its gate, spikes and bushed.
NO ONE IS BURIED THERE>>>>>>>>>>MOVE ON>>>>>>>>>>CLEAN UP THAT BELL AREA FOR ALL>>>>>>>>>