RED BANK GREEN

On the 20th anniversary of the launching of redbankgreen, the hyperlocal news site covering Red Bank, New Jersey, founder John T. Ward, publisher Kenny Katzgrau and editor Brian Donohue discuss how it all started, what it's like running an independent news site and where it's headed from here.

On this episode of the redbankgreen podcast, editor Brian Donohue interviews Gilda Rogers, Executive Director of the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center. Rogers discusses her own background growing up in a multiracial neighborhood in Elizabeth, the amazing story of how "T. Thomas Fortune found me - not the other way around," and the cultural center's role in telling the story of a Black community in danger of vanishing after 20 years of dramatic demographic change.

As Red Bank, New Jersey undergoes a development boom that has condos and apartment buildings rising in seemingly every corner of town, redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue sits down for a conversation with a guy who's had a key role in deciding what gets built in town for three decades: Red Bank Planning Board Chairman Dan Mancuso. 

Donohue and Mancuso discuss projects approved, project denied and those coming down the pike and what it all means for residents and the next chapters in the town's history.

Norman Seldin’s sixty-plus year career in the music business as a musician, singer, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, producer, promoter, manager, music director and record label owner has taken him from the Mississippi Delta to the White House. But it begins - and all comes back to - Red Bank, NJ. Redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue interviews him on the eve of Red Bank’s third annual Porchfest.

Itzel Hernandez's story is both commonplace and extraordinary in Red Bank. Brought here from Mexico by her parents at age 10 she describes how she managed to find success with insane amounts of hard work and the help of key institutions and individuals. Now, she's a a leader in the efforts to help those who have come after her in Red Bank's Latino immigrant community.