Holiday House Tour Lights Up Historic Bridgeton Again

Holiday House Tour Lights Up Historic Bridgeton Again

Bridgeton, NJ. November 21, 2014. For immediate release.

Bridgeton puts its historic riches on display once more on Saturday, December 6, as New Jersey’s largest National Register Historic District offers its annual Historic House Tour. This year’s East Side and West Side wings (1-5pm & 3-7pm) include 20 historic homes, public buildings and churches mostly along Commerce Street, plus more unique food items and holiday gifts and crafts than ever at shops in the downtown.

Tour veterans take note: on the East Side, besides its handsome homes and churches, there’s fresh paint and fresh hospitality at the Bridgeton Fire House, a still-functional, lovingly preserved Arts & Crafts gem. And the nearby Free Public Library’s “Cumberland Bank”section, a tiny structure with a big story, tells not just how it was built and survived the life and budget crises of two centuries, but the recent saga of its now beautifully-restored nineteenth-century front door, steps and rails. 

Visitors who’ve never seen Sara Penka demonstrate her mastery of fireplace cooking should take a detour off Commerce Street for a glimpse into colonial life at historic Potter’s Tavern on Broad Street. En route: the just-dedicated new public mural by Philadelphia artist Cesar Viveros-Herrera, remembering some of Bridgeton’s riverfront mills and the work and workers who made industrial history there. 

Tour hub is the 1791 David Sheppard House (31 West Commerce), right at the historic bridge Bridgeton is named for. A rest-stop between tour-wings, Chris Hawk at the piano will be backing up Gil Walter’s personal photo-take on historic Bridgeton. 

The evening belongs to the West Side, with its sparkling historic architecture in a neat loop around Commerce and Lake Streets. At First Presbyterian’s Bonham Hall--a quiet Gothic Revival jewel amid the vivid high Victorians of the gentry--the church’s original organ offers swelling backup as historian Jim Bergmann shares his latest digs on the history of Broad Street Cemetery and Harriett Weber showcases a few of her most intricate and glowing creations in the time-honored quilter’s craft. Up-street, the splendid Francis Minch House (now Chance McCann law offices) has Meghan Wren’s best picks to entice you into a trip to Bivalve's Bayshore maritime heritage center . 

One $20 ticket buys this whole sure way to get your heart into the holidays, including free Victorian caroling by the Off Broad Street Players and as many easy rides on a horse-drawn “trolley” as you can fit into a single tour. Call Bridgeton Main Street: 856-453-8130 or visit BridgetonHouseTour.com for ticket information and more tour details and pictures. 

Contact: 

Carola Lillie Hartley <carolahartley@aol.com> or Bridgeton Main Street Association at 856-453-8130 

BRIDGETON MAYOR ELECTED AS SECOND VP OF NJ LEAGUE OF MUNICIPALITIES

                                                                Media Release

                                                          

CONTACT:                                                                                 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kevin Rabago,

Office of Development & Planning

(856) 451-3407

BRIDGETON MAYOR ELECTED AS SECOND VP OF NJ LEAGUE OF MUNICIPALITIES

In receiving the votes of fellow mayors from around the state, Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly was elected to serve as Second Vice President for the New Jersey League of Municipalities at their November 2014 convention in Atlantic City.

Accepting the post, Kelly will be part of a team that will ensure those issues’ impacting municipal governments and their locally elected officials’ are represented at the county, state, and federal levels.

With 565 municipal governments of varying sizes filling the ranks of the association, Kelly is looking forward to rolling up his sleeves and taking on the challenges facing local government.

“There is no layer of government between municipal and the street. Municipal government presents some of the greatest challenges, but also presents us with a space to come up with creative solutions. Municipal officials, more so than others, have to make government work; gridlock is not an option” Kelly said.

Kelly sees local government dealing with issues big and small; everything from foreign investment in large cities to making sure the trash gets picked up in smaller cities. He believes that local governments should have the most diverse toolkit because policy debates at the state and federal level usually play out at the municipal level.

“Regardless of the issue, it all plays out locally. We have to adapt, adjust, or deal with the consequences of policies made somewhere else. Make a policy decision on immigration in Washington DC, and it impacts the mother who works in your downtown whose kids go to the neighborhood school. Make a decision in Trenton about Brownfields, and it determines the future of the vacant gas station 2 blocks away from City Hall” said Kelly

While many believe all politics is local, Kelly tends to see the best solutions as being local and he hopes to take that message to Trenton and beyond.

“Our cities are where the most creative governing is happening these days, yet so much of what we can do is determined at the state and federal level. I want help my colleagues at the League of Municipalities to be as strong a voice as possible for municipal government because we’re the ones closest to the people” said Kelly.

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Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly tapped as 2nd VP for NJ League of Municipalities

Bridgeton Mayor Albert Kelly sworn in as 2nd VP of NJ League of Municipalities