Category: Notable Locals

Episode 62: Surfing and KYDS

September 26, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
Amy Quinn and Joe Walsh talk more surfing as we talk to Rodney Salomon from KYDS Asbury Park (which stands for Konscious Youth Development & Service) and Christian May from the Asbury Park Surf Club with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. We learn how Rodney and Christian teamed up to get the kids of Asbury Park (or Neptune or Long Branch) onto their beaches, into the water and up on a board. This is not as simple as it sounds, as you will hear.

Episode 61: Surfrider

September 15, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
This week Amy Quinn and Joe Walsh talk with Mike Castellano and, making her encore appearance on Asbury Pod, Diana Pittet—both from the New Jersey chapter of the Surfrider Foundation—with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. We find out what the Surfrider foundation does—which is everything from beach clean-ups and sponsoring Asbury Park’s Family Day at the Beach, to activism in support of beach access and regulation of pollution from plastics.  Surfrider also provides an army of volunteers in support of the upcoming Sea Hear Now Surf Music and Art Festival in Asbury Park—and we also hear Amy Quinn wish very hard out loud that someone would introduce her to Ani DiFranco.

Episode 60: Amy Russo from Toast

September 8, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
This week Amy Quinn and Joe Walsh talk Peace, Love and Pancakes with Amy Russo, founder and driving force behind Toast Restaurant here in Asbury Park. With the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio, we talk to Amy about the birth of Toast, its expansion from Montclair to Asbury Park and now Red Bank—what’s it like to get a rave review in the New York Times when you least expect it, and how the pandemic has affected her business.

Episode 59: Kiwanis Club of Asbury Park

August 18, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
This week we welcome Sarah Bloom and Michelle Grezner of the newly re-chartered Kiwanis Club of Asbury Park with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. We get right to the heart of the matter in this one and to find out what is Kiwanis? What do they do? We were hoping that they would be mysterious and creepy like freemasons. But no, to our great disappointment we found out that they seem to be non-secretive, inveterate do gooders who might just be your nice neighbors and whose organization you might want to join after hearing this episode.

Episode 58: Local Artists George Bates & Courtney Pasterchick

July 18, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
We took a little, unplanned break earlier this month, so we are glad to be back.
This week we welcome artists George Bates and Courtney Pasterchick with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. George and Courtney recently completed works for the 13 Artist Mural Project here in Asbury Park, one of the public art initiatives which — together with the Wooden Walls Project on the boardwalk, and other endeavors — has made Asbury Park the public art juggernaut it is today-with plenty more to come.
We talk to Courtney and George about the role of public art, the business of art, and the training, commitment and practice required to become a successful artist (hint: it’s a lot).

Episode 57: Jimmy Bruno & Kiki Tomek, Asbury Park’s most nonchalant gay-rights heroes

June 18, 2021 asbury-pod Local Government, Notable Locals 0 Comments
This week, as we observe Pride Month here in June, Amy & Joe talk with longtime Asbury Park luminaries with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. Our guests are former Asbury Park city clerk Kiki Tomek and Jimmy Bruno– former Deputy Mayor of Asbury Park, former Board of Education President and Vice President, longtime Little League president and coach, and retired Asbury Park Firefighter. The duo became unlikely icons of LGBTQ history when they licensed and performed the first (and at the time still illegal) gay marriage in the state of New Jersey on March 8, 2004 and expedited the state’s march to marriage equality.

Episode 56: Tee Gates, Asbury Park’s first Black woman Fire Marshal

June 6, 2021 asbury-pod Local Government, Notable Locals 1 Comment
This week Amy and Joe, with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio, welcome Tee Gates, the first Black Woman to serve as Fire Marshall for the city of Asbury Park—which is apparently a family tradition. She also is the daughter of the first Black Female Police Officer to serve in Asbury Park. We talk to Tee about her 32 years in and around the Asbury Park Firehouse and find out what responsibilities the Fire Marshall has. Other important take-aways include, remembering to keep your propane tanks outside, never to chain your fire doors and that, inexplicably, there is no women’s restroom in the Asbury Park Firehouse.

Episode 55: Judy Meltsner Feinstein, a pioneer in Women’s Aviation

May 23, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
This week Amy and Joe welcome Judy Meltsner Feinstein, a pioneer in Women’s Aviation as both pilot and educator with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. Judy is a two-time recipient of the Amelia Earnhardt Medal—and someone who has spent over 50 years in and around Asbury Park. We talk to Judy about her life as a pilot–with second and third lives as restauranteur, caterer, and antiques’ dealer– we learn that Asbury Park had an airport on route 66 and most importantly, we learn that when you are flying from Managua to Panama City Florida, do not take photographs when you land at a Mexican Air Force Base to refuel.

Episode 54: Dani Boglivi-Fiori of Sweet Dani B’s

May 6, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments
This week Amy and Joe welcome Dani Boglivi-Fiori while social distancing from their respective homes with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. Ms. Boglivi-Fiori, known best as Sweet Dani B, owner of Sweet Dani B’s Cookie Kitchen and Café on Bangs Avenue here in Asbury Park—home of the life changing chocolate chip cookies (no lies detected) and some of the prettiest designs you’ll see on a cookie. We talk to Dani about her previous lives working for Ralph Lauren and Martha Stewart, where she keeps her Emmy (seriously, she has a real Emmy), how she found herself opening a cookie shop here in Asbury Park, and what to do When Martha Stewart blows up your cellphone by giving your business a shout out on national television.

Episode 53: Tara from Hot Mess

April 18, 2021 asbury-pod Notable Locals 0 Comments

This week Amy and Joe welcome Tara Pimco of Asbury Park’s Hot Mess Studio while social distancing from their respective homes with the help of Ming Chen from A Shared Universe PodcaStudio. Tara talks about how a small storefront salon became the premier “destination boutique” anchoring Press Plaza on Cookman Avenue and how some quick thinking not only kept the lights on during the early days of pandemic but allowed the business to hit the ground running when things began to reopen.