Community Corner
Tom Gagliano Recalls The Road to Preserving Holmdel's Rural Character
At a Holmdel Historical Society last night, former township attorney Tom Gagliano talked about his role in helping save wide open spaces in the southern end of town.
In his presentation last night at the Holmdel Historical Society, Holmdel's former resident and Township Attorney S. Thomas Gagliano shared memories of the town's more rural days.
In the 1960s, when the population was less than a third of what it is today and housing lots were one-acre, the township residents enjoyed low taxes and healthy employment, said Gagliano. Along the major roads, there were industries like Bell Labs, Lilly Tulip, Mattel Toys, Triangle, Prupac, Ranger and E.E. Cruz.
But there were a lot of farms, and it was still a place where your car could very well get stuck behind a slow-moving tractor on the roads, where modest farm stands beckoned with home-grown tomatoes in straw lined bins, and -- as Gagliano remembered complaints aired in public meetings -- Casola Farms set off a 5 a.m. shotgun blast every morning to scare birds off the cornfields.
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Gagliano, who also served as a county surrogate and later state senator, was township attorney from 1966-1989. He told stories about being part of the team that preserved properties like Bayonet Farm for the public (at $7,000 an acre!) and Marlu Farms, from Brookdale to Longbridge Road, under the Green Acres program.
For fun, he asked who remembered the Farm Labor Camp at Catbird Alley. (See video)
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And he circulated a list of Holmdel farms in the 1960s, asking for shout-outs on who he missed. The group came up with about 14 more names, which we have pencilled into Gagliano's list. "Any others?" he asked
Holmdel Patch readers, this is your challenge!
Holmdel Farms and Farmers of the 1960s
Ackerson
French
LePre
Porter
Allocco
Friedauer
Lucarelli
Potter
Ambrosino
Genovese
Marlu
Purdy
Artelli
Greco
Mason
Rue
Bailey
Harding
McCampbell
Thorne
Bennet
Hazienda
Menosky
Tricorn
Callan
Hendrickson
Menzel
Twitchell
Casola
Holmes
Mocci
Urbanski
Cerlione
Hop Brook
Molzon
Walnut
Cowan
Infante
Neason
West
DePalma
Kanefer
Ondrush
Willie
Flemer
Lawrence
Pappas
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