This is the Red Bank Armory, the local skating rink I usually go to. I think it has a second rink in back. (For the Red Bank Armory’s home site, click here; for public skating times/admissions, click here.)
I’ve always wondered what ice skating had to do with an armory, so I did some research.
It was designed by Joseph Swannell and built during the 1910’s to house the Second Troop Cavalry of the National Guard of New Jersey. Apparently, by the 1950’s, the armory was no longer used for anything except storing abandoned tanks.
In order to remodel the armory as a recreation center, it was necessary to:
* Strip 13,000 square feet of lead-based paint from interior wall brick surface
* Remove asbestos from boiler room and piping throughout building
* Demolish the interior (including partition walls)
* Remove a couple hydraulic lift systems from a former maintenance area
* Dismantle two interior rifle firing ranges (including sand and backstops)
* Clean entire armory to make sure nobody got lead poisoning (power wash ceilings and floors throughout the building)
Apparently this was all only finished in 1998, though I’d thought it was a well-established rink in 2000.
Some sources for this brief research:
http://www.researchingthepast.com/Projects.htm (defunct as of 2/1/09)
http://www.awtenvironmental.com/services/leadabatement.html (defunct as of 2/1/09)
Red Bank by Randall Gabrien, 1999, Arcadia Publishing*
(Note bene: this “research” is by no means complete [or well-cited] and took me about 20 minutes. If you have any additional information/complaints/corrections, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. I’ve noticed that this particular post seems to get a lot of traffic, and I’d like to make it clear that I’m no expert on the Red Bank Armory.)
*Asterisk: I own about 8 of these local-town books from Arcadia Publishing. It’s always fascinating to see what my own stomping grounds looked like 100 years ago and why they look the way they do today. They often focus on architecture (there’s a lot of “This house, demolished in 1862, belonged to James P. Wane’s family,” and you kinda look at it and say ‘who’s James P. Wane and why do I care about his nonextant house…?’), but I highly recommend them if you’re interested in Monmouth County history.
February 1, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Thanks, I just came from skating there and was curious what it was built and what it was originally used for. I was surprised their website had no historical information. By the way, the links you have provided for sources no longer work.
February 1, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Oh dear! Thanks for the heads-up, Jeff!