Beyond The Playground: Recovery in Union Beach - Part 2

My series on the recovery process in Union Beach concludes now with Part 2 of Beyond the Playground.

Beyond the Playground- A long way
back

I drove last week under cloudy skies past the playground, where I had attended the
dedication just about five weeks ago, that day was sunny and beautiful and the
park was filled with happy, laughing children. Last week, the park was deserted
and quiet and the contrast was so bold from my last visit there.

I continued down Front Street and I stopped and parked the car. I walked along the bay and it was pretty quiet, only a few people were scattered in parked cars along the street in front of the small beach area. I crossed the street and met a man who
was outside playing with a small child.

He greeted me warmly, like most of the residents of Union Beach have done for me in my past interactions there, and asked if I was new to the neighborhood. I told him I was just visiting; he then asked me if I needed any help. That is what I have
come to expect from residents there, I have been offered help so many times
from people I had just met.

He was outside playing with his daughter, a 3 year old driving in a pink motorized Barbie car, and he and I started talking about Sandy. He told me that the building next to them on the corner got completely destroyed. In my recollection, I thought a building had been located there, he told me it did, until Sandy came through, now it is a vacant lot. He also told me about the several feet of sand that he had to shovel off the driveway, where we were now standing. It took him 2 days to clear a path to his home.

He told me that they were lucky, the water filled the basement which was very deep, but it did not enter the living space of his home. He also told me that he never thought it would get back to the way it is now, so I saw the hope and the
gratitude in his eyes. The residents there certainly have banded together to
meet the challenges in order to get things back on track, but they have a long
way to go.

I explained to him that I am a freelance writer, and I had covered the playground dedicated to Jack Pinto just down the road, and I had submitted and published that news article with several different entities. He had been there recently with his
little girl, and made it a point of telling me how nice it was there.

He explained to me how much of that neighborhood along the waterfront got hit pretty badly, and that it has been a struggle for his neighbors to get back into their homes.

The little girl was laughing and having fun in her little electric motor car, and driving
it up and down the driveway while we talked. She then told us that she “wanted
to take the car to the beach”. It made me smile at the innocent joy of a child,
that through all of the chaos of the months after this storm, she simply wanted
to go play at the beach. So this man and I walked with her across to the beach.
We talked as the little girl drove the little car around. He and I talked for
about 45 minutes, I felt like I had known him for years, and we just met. That
is why we need the community in Union Beach to survive.

A man on a bench

Then I saw a man on a bench by the water, and we struck up a conversation. He lives in Hazlet, but he has several friends in Union Beach. He told me that about 45% of the residents of the town were still displaced. I had read a similar number in
some reports I found in my background research.  

We spoke at length about the recovery efforts in the town. He explained that the main objective of the town government is to get more people back into their homes in the neighborhoods towards the center of the town. The land along the waterfront
is going to be a longer and more involved process. The municipal government
needs “ratable tax revenue” from the property owners in the other neighborhoods
of Union Beach to return in order to be able to solve the other issues it
faces.

He handled budgets for a large pharmaceutical company for many years, and I enjoyed our conversation. He had high hopes for the town to come back but cautioned me that it will take time. We spoke about the link to tax revenues and the operation of the town budget, some of these barrier island and Bayshore towns are going to have some major decisions on how they will make their budgets due to the
current situation.

I thanked him for his time and drove back down Front Street past the playground, where I stopped and said a prayer for Jack Pinto and his family. I then proceeded to my final stop on my visit, the great neighborhood spot, Jakeabob’s.

Jakeabob’s – new address, same family
feel

Jakeabob’s on the Bay has been a neighborhood destination in Union Beach for years. It stood in a wonderful spot right on the Bay on Front Street. The restaurant was badly damaged in Hurricane Irene back in 2011, and the building was completely destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

The family ownership opened a new location, Jakeabob’s Off the Bay, on Union Avenue and I stopped there before I left the area that day. The new restaurant and bar features the front doors of homes which were destroyed during Hurricane Sandy. The address of the home is painted in black lettering on each one and they are displayed throughout the restaurant.

The locals there told me that the doors represented another sign that they will rebuild their community and their lives by working together to move forward. This is a tight knit community and I believe, with the help of the government and other funding resources that Union Beach will move forward together as they have always done before.