This bridge runs between Belmar and Avon-by-the-Sea. I featured it for the December Theme Day; when I did, I was unsure of its name. So when I once again found myself traversing the bridge on foot, since it was daytime and I could actually find the plaque, I photographed it. (I won’t show the plaque because even in the daylight, it’s very difficult to read.) I saw that it is the Shark River Bridge, but I didn’t realize until I got home that a famous trombonist/bandleader had been one of the officials who brought the bridge into existance!
Here is what the plaque says:
Bridge W43 [W48?]
on Ocean Avenue
between Avon and Belmar
———–
Monmouth County, New Jersey
———–
Built 1936
———–
Board of Chosen Freeholders
Raymond L. Wyckoff, director
Henry W. Herbert . . . James S. Parkes
Joseph Mayer . . . . . . . . . Arthur Pryor
———–
John E. Hogan, County Engineer
———–
Ash Howard Needles & Tammen
Morris Goodkind
Consulting Engineers
Merritt Chapman & McLean Corporation
Contractor”
Now, that may seem like just a bunch of names, and it is, but the part that caught my attention was one of the Chosen Freeholders.
Arthur Pryor?
Arthur Pryor was a Chosen Freeholder?!
Arthur Pryor was a famous bandleader and trombonist in the John Philip Sousa Band. (The only reason I know this is because one of my community bands did a huge Arthur Pryor feature last year. We imported a trombone virtuoso from Virginia who dressed up in period band costume and narrated the songs.) Pryor had strong ties to this area: although he retired from the John Philip Sousa Band (in 1903) before the band started making regular appearances at the Ocean Grove Auditorium [outside view] (from 1912-1926, until Sousa made a crack about Prohibition and the Ocean Grove Methodists decided not to invite him back), Pryor’s own band performed for 26 seasons on the Asbury Park boardwalk (which is less than a mile from the OG Auditorium); he retired to Long Branch; he died immediately after a rehearsal in the Asbury Park bandstand.
And APPARENTLY, according to this source, he DID win a seat on the Board of Chosen Freeholders, so the name on the bridge IS the same Arthur Pryor!
What an unexpected perk of a bridge plaque photograph!
P.S. I actually used a fill flash! I’m so proud of myself.
March 2, 2008 at 10:39 pm
the photo really does work well…
and, for what it is worth, i didn’t know about the fill flash till i read all of your posting… but, in my opinion, the fill flash is a bit part of why it works well… it keeps the value in the foreground and background roughly the same… and that constant-ness/consistency is part of what makes the collapse of space work… i.e., it is part of makes pictorial space shallow… and creates that fun (for me) cognitive dissonance that happens when we know that the real space is much greater than the appreciated space in the image…
god… i’m rambling… i need some sleep… i do hope, however, that made some sense…