Physical Therpy For Injuries and Pain in Phalanx, NJ

Monmouth County is home to many amazing things to see: beautiful board walks, picturesque country roads with stunning million dollar homes and farms...and a dancing Jesus?

If you’ve never heard of the Dancing Jesus in Middletown, then you’re missing one of our most famous county residents, even if he is not alive and breathing, but a statue in a cemetery. Local legend has it that if you shine your headlights on the statue, you can see him start to boogie after a few moments of waiting and staring.

Not a believer? There are creepy places that you don’t need to believe in the stories in order to experience for yourself the spooky and the strange. Whipporwill Valley Road, again in Middletown (the state’s ”biggest small town” seems to be perhaps one of the most haunted!) is located right near a busy highway, and if you blink at the wrong second, you will pass this road by. It’s narrow, long, and twisting, which adds to why it is one of the creepiest places in the county. Many people can attest to having taken the slow, winding drive down this road, and if they have the nerve, have turned off their headlights and experienced for themselves the eerie feeling that is often difficult to explain, or its source. There are many stories about the road, involving witches being burned at the stake in the 1800’s; KKK rituals in more modern times; and even the Devil, wandering the road at night, looking for cars full of curious thrill-seekers.

The Asbury Park Press has gathered stories from local readers on another infamous road long-thought to be haunted: Phalanx Road in Colts Neck. Legends surrounding Phalanx Road go all the way back to the time of the American Revolution, and is said to be the site of numerous deadly car accidents, going back a few generations. One reader wrote in to the Press, telling of a rainy night when a lone, young girl appeared seemingly out of no where, to tap on the driver’s window while stopped at an intersection, but only gesturing for the driver to follow, and not speaking a word, before disappearing into the night.

Find out what's happening in Little Silver-Oceanportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Patch recently featured another haunted location in Monmouth County- Our House Tavern in Farmingdale, the site of a recent filmed ghost hunter’s investigation into the strange and unexplained sightings and occurrences that employees and past and present owners all adamantly agree take place regularly at the popular restaurant. Take a look at the video of the episode, in which a local ghost hunting group, Twilight Passages Ghost Investigation Team, explores the paranormal side of Our House Tavern.

Do you have any weird encounters, of the paranormal kind, that you would like to share with Patch? Let us know in the comments below, or email to caitlin.brown@patch.com.

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Lincroft residents were positive the high winds and tree damage they witnessed was a tornado Wednesday morning.

And, after the National Weather Service (NWS) investigated, it turns out they were correct.

It was an actual tornado that first touched down on the Brookdale campus baseball diamond just before 10 a.m. Wednesday and then continued on a 1.2-mile path of destruction down Phalanx Road and over Swimming River Reservoir.

The National Weather Service investigated, reviewed damage photos and videos (some of which was submitted by Patch) and on Thursday, made the official declaration: It was indeed a twister. The tornado had maximum wind speeds of 80 miles per hour, a path of 70 yards and a path length of 1.2 miles. It touched down for a mere two minutes, from 9:57 a.m. to 9:59 a.m.

Residents in the area insisted what they had just experienced was a tornado, as 70-foot-tall trees were slammed into homes, into pools and brought down fences and power lines. Nobody was injured.

Find out what's happening in Middletownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"It was crazy," one Lincroft resident told Patch. "Trees were tossed in people's swimming pools, fences torn up. It looks like a war zone."

"When we got to the basement, you heard everything just stop, it just went quiet," said Greengrove Court Ben Harris told the Asbury Park Press. "I think it was a tornado because I never heard anything go silent like that. Came back out and obviously you can see what happened."

The NWS had just put the entire area under a tornado warning Wednesday morning, just minutes before the twister struck, even texting residents to get into their basements immediately.

"It just got really dark, windy and started raining pretty hard," said Marguerite Portagallo, a Lincroft resident who lives near the Christian Brothers Academy campus. "I then went to the basement because we got an alert on the phone to take shelter."

The Middletown Fire Dept. provided this photo of a home on Greengrove Court. Photo by Laurie Kegley, MTFD Public Information Officer Photographer

The official tornado confirmation did not come as a surprise to Middletown volunteer firefighters who responded to the damage Wednesday.

"It does fit in with what I saw. It had a narrow path. The neighbor at the top of Greengrove Court did not have one leaf out of place," said Middletown volunteer firefighter Dennis Fowler.

Fowler, 63, said he's lived in Middletown his entire life and never heard of a tornado hitting the area.

"Never to my memory," he said, adding he was going to ask some longtime Middletown residents in their '90s if they've ever heard of a tornado here before.

"A tornado touched down on a baseball field on the campus of Brookdale Community College in the Lincroft section of Middletown. It tossed a set of metal bleachers to the field, then crossed over Phalanx Road into a residential area, with numerous trees sustaining damage on and around Hickory Lane," read the National Weather Service's report. "The tornado continued a little south and passed near the northeast corner of Swimming River Reservoir, causing additional tree damage. It then entered another residential area near Swimming River Road and Normandy Road, producing a continued path of damaged trees."

The tornado ran out of steam as it entered Riverdale West Park, said the National Weather Service.

Initial Patch report: Trees Strike Middletown Homes After Tornado Warning In Monmouth

From the National Weather Service: (you can read their statement here: https://nwschat.weather.gov/p.php?pid=202008201508-KPHI-NOUS41-PNSPHI)

...SUMMARY...A TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN ON A BASEBALL FIELD ON THE CAMPUS OF BROOKDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN THE LINCROFT SECTION OF MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP IN MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY. IT TOSSED A SET OF METAL BLEACHERS ADJACENT TO THE FIELD, THEN CROSSED OVER PHALANX ROAD INTO A RESIDENTIAL AREA, WITH NUMEROUS TREES SUSTAINING DAMAGE ON AND AROUND HICKORY LANE. TREE DAMAGE MAINLY CONSISTED OF BROKEN LIMBS AND THE SNAPPING OF SOME TREES NEAR THEIR TOPS. AT LEAST ONE TREE WAS ALSO UPROOTED IN THIS AREA.

THE TORNADO CONTINUED A LITTLE SOUTH OF DUE EAST AND PASSED NEAR THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF THE SWIMMING RIVER RESERVOIR, CAUSING ADDITIONAL TREE DAMAGE. THE TORNADO THEN ENTERED ANOTHER RESIDENTIAL AREA NEAR SWIMMING RIVER ROAD AND NORMANDY ROAD, PRODUCING A CONTINUED PATH OF DAMAGED TREES.

THE TORNADO LIFTED AS IT ENTERED THE RIVERDALE WEST PARK, WHERE TREE DAMAGE WAS NO LONGER OBSERVED. THE TORNADO DID NOT APPEAR TO CAUSE ANY DIRECT STRUCTURAL DAMAGE, THOUGH A COUPLE OF HOMES SUSTAINED DAMAGE FROM FALLING TREE DEBRIS. THE DEGREE OF DAMAGE IS CONSISTENT WITH AN EF0 TORNADO WITH ESTIMATED MAXIMUM WINDS OF 80 MPH AND A CONTINUOUS, RELATIVELY NARROW PATH OF AROUND 70 YARDS IN WIDTH. THANKFULLY, NO INJURIES OCCURRED AS A RESULT OF THIS TORNADO.

Wind speeds of 65 to 86 mph are considered the weakest kind of tornado, according to the enhanced Fujita scale, which classifies tornadoes as the following:

EF0...WEAK......65 TO 85 MPHEF1...WEAK......86 TO 110 MPHEF2...STRONG....111 TO 135 MPHEF3...STRONG....136 TO 165 MPHEF4...VIOLENT...166 TO 200 MPHEF5...VIOLENT...>200 MPH

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This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Brookdale professor slated to speak about the Utopian community thrived in Colts Neck, near Lincroft, in the mid-1800s for more than a decade.

Once upon a time in Monmouth County, there existed what some would call an Eden, others would call Sodom and still others would call a pie in the sky dream created by visionaries, or by socialist who wanted to destroy capitalism.

The people who created utopian communities were considered idealists or fools, visionary or deluded, but no matter what side you came down on, there was no denying that they were looking for a better way of life.

It all played out during the mid-1800s, when there was an utopian community located in Colts Neck, near the border of the Lincroft section of Middletown, called the North American Phalanx.

The NAP operated between 1843 and 1856. According to a 1873 article in the Red Bank Register, it was on some of the most beautiful land in Monmouth County.

And according to Brookdale Community College History Professor, Jess LeVine, it was one of the most successful of the utopian communities that were cropping up all over the country at that time.

Professor LeVine has taught about this community in his history classes and has delved into further research on the topic for a future project. He will be sharing his expertise on the subject at the Monmouth County Historical Association as part of its Historically Speaking lecture series, on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 p.m.

While the Phalanx is known for its successful economic model, his presentation will focus on the personalities involved and the issues that confronted them while they were there.

“There was an interesting mix of what we might call celebrities of the day and the sort of regular folk who inhabited and ran the community on a daily basis,” LeVine explained.

He believes there were two reasons for these communities: one was to deal with the economics of the times. “But it was also part of an overall time of reform movements in America that looked for better ways to live the American dream and to take care of those less fortunate," he said. "Some saw withdrawal as the best way to cope and to set an example for others to follow.”

LeVine noted that in the case of the NAP, the concentration was on individualism and individual wealth building which was something they saw as almost a mania of the times. They were seeking a better way.

He explained: “While that strain of individualism is a huge part of American development and our ideas about freedom, there is also a strain of communalism that is part of our culture as well. So, they banded together to protect themselves, to compete as an economic unit to be more successful, to set an example to others, and to take joy in living together as group, working shoulder to shoulder, looking out for one another.”

LeVine added that this idea was critical. “This is the idea that (Charles) Fourier (French Philosopher) argued," he said "... that not only the project or goal is important, but the sheer joy of the communal experience is the value as well and should be as revered in American society as individualism.”

According to Wikipedia, Fourier's views inspired the founding of the community called La Reunion near present-day Dallas, Texas, as well as several other communities within the United States, including the North American Phalanx in New Jersey and the Community Place and Sodus Bay Phalanx in New York State.

Some Utopian communities had problems with moochers or hangers-on, he said. New Harmony in Indiana is one example of that problem. The other problem involved what LeVine calls “ridiculous economic survival strategies.”

An example of that, he said, is Fruitlands, outside of Boston in Roxbury. It was run by Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott’s dad, who tried to grow fruit to sell to others. The problem was that he included fruit like oranges and lemons which didn’t grow in that climate.

“I think a lot of the story of the NAP is in the people — the lives they lead, the things that bothered them, how they tried to digest and make sense of the changing world around them, and how they worked hard and fought to produce a better world, an example of a higher quality life in that world," LeVine said. "One of the more interesting things is to figure out what the various individuals wanted to get out of the experience and how true to the principles they were.”

He added that Utopian communities sometimes don't make it because the conditions that caused them to form, change. “If they are formed to deal with an unstable economic climate, and that improves then there reason for being begins to lose steam," he noted. "If they are formed more to an ideal way of life, regardless, then they might develop difficulties based on the people that make them up. It could be that the people who try these things grow out of them or change their ideas over time.”

Regardless of the cause, the Phalanx community was disbanded by the time this article, that said it was one of the most beautiful spots in Monmouth County, five miles beyond Red Bank, ran in the Register on Oct. 10, 1883:

“The Phalanx is a large tract of land shut off from the country road by a wild and luxurious growth of brush and shrubbery. Once beyond this natural screen the visitor finds himself in a charming, and at the same time an astonishing place. A dam transforms a little brook into a placid lake at the foot of a majestic lawn leading up to a city row of houses, built at right angles to an enormous structure something after the style of a watering-place hotel. Other large buildings are to be seen through the trees … If one did not know the truth, it would be difficult to decide at a glance whether the place was dead and deserted, or whether it still continued a population.”

The article becomes rather imaginative when it talks about the Phalanx community during the time of its viability. The reporter talks about the neglected pond, lawn, and trees as well as the big, hotel-like place that was no longer inhabited.

He mentions the cottage chimneys, and the occasional man, woman, “or a pair of romping children” that pass from one house to another and the “calls of a ploughman to his sweating horses that rings out through the grove.” To him they all held the echo of another time when the place was full of productive people carrying on various industries.

He says, “And this would be in a general way the truth about the place.”

But the article doesn’t stop at the general outlines of the community. It goes on to detail how they lived and worked and made decisions. “The food was excellent and the cooking elaborate.”

He reports that everybody worked at what he or she could do best, and the pay was regulated partly by the rates of wages elsewhere and partly by the nature of the work and the number employed at it. “It was part of the theory that disagreeable work, such as had to be performed, and yet could not be with pleasure undertaken by anybody, should command the highest pay.”

The article also explains that no matter how silly someone’s idea was, he was treated with respect and his view heard. “The Phalanxers held to what was wholesome, honest and practical all through their cooperation, and there never blew for an instant during their eleven years of existence the faintest breath of scandal there,” it said.

But apparently there were many people who misunderstood and did not trust the “Phalanxers,” he wrote.

“The simple fact that the Phalanx girls and women wore the Bloomer costume settled this point in the rural mind," the Register story said. "Yet some of the Phalanx women continued to wear that dress long after the colony went to pieces, and it is easy to find today comfortable matrons in fashionable dresses who stoutly assert that the Bloomer is the only dress for women, and that they would don it today if the rest of the world would but withhold judgment…

The Phalanx girls found the short skirt and long trousers the best costume when at work; washing, scrubbing, waiting on table, moving about near machinery, toiling in the fields and elsewhere.”

Although there was still farming going on at the old Phalanx place, on Oct. 6, 1909, there was a notice that the former James Bray Place was sold for $8,500. The farm contained 66 acres, a fine orchard and an asparagus field of eleven acres.

“It was part of the original Phalanx property, and was bought by that concern when the

North American Phalanx was formed. After the dissolution of the Phalanx as an organized body, part of the Phalanx lands were bought by Mr. Bray, and this farm was a part of his purchase.

Professor LeVine teaches courses in American, World and New Jersey History at Brookdale Community College. More can be gleaned from an exhibition that coordinates with his lecture, American Utopia; The History of the North American Phalanx. The exhibition features manuscripts, artifacts and images of the Phalanx.

The lecture is open to the public and admission is free. It will be held in the first floor exhibition gallery at the Association’s headquarters, 70 Court Street, Freehold.

Refreshments will be served following the presentation. Call 732-462-1466 for further information or to let them know that you will attend. The gallery on the first floor of the Museum, where the lecture will be held, is accessible to persons with disabilities. If there are any special needs that require accommodation, please contact the office at 732-462-1466 within 24 hours of the presentation.

Residents and Middletown firefighters are sharing photos of incredible damage and trees that fell into three homes in Lincroft Wednesday.

Patch Staff

|Updated Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 9:07 pm ET

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — A quick-moving storm damaged trees and homes in Monmouth County on Wednesday after a tornado warning was issued in the area.

Extremely high winds and what one meteorologist speculated may have even been a tornado caused incredible damage in Lincroft Wednesday morning, very close to the Brookdale College campus. The National Weather Service said it was investigating the event, doing what they call a "storm survey," where they try to gather as much photo evidence as possible.

While an official tornado confirmation has not been made, the winds pushed trees into three separate homes off Phalanx Road, even briefly trapping people in their homes, according to Middletown volunteer firefighters who responded. Nobody was injured.

"Trees were tossed in people's swimming pools, fences torn up. It looks like a war zone," said a Lincroft resident. "This was crazy."

A seventy-foot-tall tree fell into a house on Greengrove Court, which the homeowners had just moved into only days earlier, said Middletown firefighters. Nearby, residents were briefly trapped in their home on Hickory Lane by a downed tree and live electric wires.

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Even Gov. Phil Murphy speculated that it was a tornado that hit the area.

"I got a picture from a dear friend that appears to be a tornado or a funnel cloud in Deal," said Murphy at his daily press conference, adding that it's not verified yet.

The National Weather Service said in a Tweet that they, too, saw that photo, but "we too have doubts and have not been able to authenticate it. However, we are looking into reports of damage in the Middletown/Lincroft/Tinton Falls area."

That area of Monmouth County — Middletown, Long Branch, Tinton Falls and Eatontown — was under a tornado warning until 10:30 a.m., according to the National Weather Service.

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Tonight, it’s in your hands.

singing is scheduled to appear on Simon Cowell’s X Factor talent show tonight for a second live performance with her newly formed group, , as the 17-year-old senior tries to stay in the ever-tightening competition for a $5 million recording contract.

But instead of the show’s celebrity judges deciding who stays and who goes home, the show turns to the television audience to decide.

Tonight’s show is set to air on the Fox television network at 8 p.m. and will carry live performances from the show’s 12 remaining finalists, Fletcher’s group among them. At the conclusion of the program, telephone lines will be opened, allowing the audience to cast votes for their favorite acts.

Also, in a first for network television, fans will be able to vote in their favorite acts using Twitter. Immediately following the live performance, fans will be able to register their votes by visiting the show's Twitter page and following @TheXFactorUSA.com. Viewers can then vote via private Direct Message, the network said Tuesday.

Supporters are at the ready.

A phalanx of Fletcher’s fans, all high school students and their families, will gather tonight at Wall High School for an X Factor viewing party, school officials said.

At the conclusion, cell phones will predicibly light up lines in support of the Girls’ Varsity Volleyball team co-captain and talented singer. E-mail messages from the school district’s various parent-teacher groups have also alerted parents of tonight’s program.

The high school’s viewing party is being hastily put together by the school’s Student Council, according to Kristin Scott, student council advisor.

The group is busily contacting local businesses, hoping for donations of t-shirts, gift cards or anything to make the event a success. The group hopes to continue to have the “Vote For Cari’’ parties each week that Fletcher remains on the show, Scott said.

The group hopes tonight’s first event is “successful enough that the kids keep come back each week,” Scott said.

Fletcher, a Wall High School senior and a captain of the girls varsity volleyball team, has defied odds and stayed in the competition where thousands of singing hopefuls have failed.

. But later in that same show, the judges announced that Fletcher had been grouped with three other women who were also cut as solo acts. Together, they would be allowed to continue on the competition as a group.

That group met and practiced at Fletcher’s Wall Township home earlier this year before heading off to X Factor judge Paula Abdul’s California estate for a round of competition. Video footage of the group at Fletcher's house was aired on the show, shot by Wall High School graduate and filmmaker Ryan Hutchins.