Workers are installing new street lights on Cookman Avenue as part of a streetscape program designed to better link the waterfront and downtown business district. The streetscape project started in the spring. Waterfront redeveloper Asbury Partners is paying for the improvements, with the goal of making this barren stretch of Cookman more pedestrian-friendly. Installing the […]

A vacant field on a stretch of Cookman Avenue has puzzled many for years. The land is filled with wooden stubs, giving the appearance of a field of wooden tombstones. Over time, people have painted various patterns and images on the stubs. There has also been public art displayed on the premises. So what’s with […]

Wrecking equipment this morning ripped into the long-vacant building that once housed the Club Phoenix go-go rock bar and before that the Odyssey gay bar. In an ironic twist — and a dangerously close call — the long-time former owner of the property, Jeanette Bender, drove around a police barricade and passed by the site […]

Demolition of the former Phoenix building began earlier today as construction workers gathered on the lot on Cookman Avenue. Nearby buildings on Sewall Avenue were razed yesterday. City waterfront redeveloper Asbury Partners has ownership of these structures and is demolishing them to make way for a new streetscape plan including sidewalks, shrubbery and lighting to […]

Demolition began today on several structures as part of a streetscape improvement project for a largely vacant stretch of Cookman Avenue and nearby streets. Crews started demolishing some structures on Asbury Avenue today [pictured above]. The Club Phoenix building on Cookman Avenue is tentatively scheduled for demolition on Thursday, according to Brian Cheripka of waterfront […]

The Asbury Park city council will meet tomorrow in council chambers, with a workshop session at 6 p.m. and a regular meeting at 7 p.m. Items on the agenda include: • Scheduling a series of public awareness meetings for the Bamboozle music festival, slated for May 18 through 20. The festival is expected to bring […]

The no-man’s land of vacant lots and dilapidated buildings on Cookman Avenue dividing the downtown and beachfront will get a facelift before July 4th. A streetscape program of new sidewalks, curbing, lighting and landscaping will be installed by waterfront redeveloper Asbury Partners on the stretch of Cookman (shown above) between Grand Avenue and Kingsley Street. […]

A dilapidated Cookman Avenue building that once housed two long-closed entertainment venues is expected to be demolished within 60 days. The structure was last the home of the Club Phoenix, a go-go rock bar open for about a decade until the late 1990s. Previously, the building had housed the Odyssey gay nightclub from the early […]