OLD BRIDGE – A newly formed nonprofit group is offering 23 years of local government activity through a new website – The Old Bridge Archive.
“There’s a wealth of knowledge contained within the archive, from the serious to the lighthearted,” said Matt Morgan, who serves as chairman of the Old Bridge Residents Inc. (OBR). “Curious to know what the penalty is for installing your own personal speed bumps? It happened, and you can read it [in the archives]. What about the time a resident had elephants trampling her lawn? Yes, it happened in Old Bridge.
“The Archive is useful for those looking to get involved in their town, or to learn its history.”
The site features content pulled from authoritative sources: official meeting minutes, recordings, and contemporaneous reporting. All content is tagged, allowing readers to view a common thread of entries pertaining to an individual person, location, date, or specific topic, Morgan said.
Residents of the Arbors neighborhood who recently began organizing a community response to speeding and traffic concerns along Phillips Drive can benefit from the Archive review of “Speed and Traffic Calming” and can look if speeding and traffic concerns in the area were discussed publicly in the past two decades, Morgan said.
He said residents can use the Archive to view various building projects from “concept to reality.”
“Driving around Old Bridge, there is no shortage of construction,” Morgan said. “Residents are always wondering what is being built and why.
“Township parks such as Mannino Park and Cottrell Farms are both in various stages of construction, over a decade since their original conception. The same can be said for private development, such as the Oaks at Glenwood community, or more recently, warehouses along Routes 9 and 516. There is a story behind each of these, and the Archive provides Old Bridge residents with that history.”
Old Bridge Residents Inc. is made up of current and former township residents.
Morgan said he has “always been fascinated by the rich history of my hometown.”
“Stories such as these develop over years if not decades, and I am excited to see how the Old Bridge Archive pieces them together. There are so many fascinating anecdotes and details included here. We all hope that this proves to be a useful resource for journalists, historians, and anyone with curiosity.”
The Archive is meant to essentially be a “living database” where the public can add submissions through new entries or add and improve to existing submissions, Morgan said.
OBR Inc was launched by the administrators of the Old Bridge New Jersey Residents community Facebook group, which came together to provide “unofficial synopses of local
government meetings for the benefit of the OBR reading audience as well as local
journalists.”
For more information visit Old Bridge Residents – Your Community Connection (obresidents.com).