Rhine Cliff Cottage
Known Name(s)
Rhine Cliff Cottage
Address
Ridge Ave. Asbury Park, NJ
Establishment Type(s)
Resort
Physical Status
Extant
Description
138 Ridge, located in a quiet residential section north of Springwood Avenue in Asbury Park’s West Side, was labelled on the 1930 Sanborn insurance map as “The Rhinecliff Cottage.” It was depicted as a large, three-story, cinderblock dwelling with a mansard roof, a wrap porch, and a small porch to the rear on the southeast corner. Extant today, 138 Ridge retains its form.
Sources: Sanborn Map Co., Insurance Maps of New Jersey Coast, New Jersey, Vol. 2 (1930), sheet 201.
Detailed History
Rhinecliff Cottage existed before Mary J. Ringold listed her business in The Green Book, first, as located on misspelled “Readge,” and then as specifically located at 138 Ridge Avenue in Asbury Park.
Mrs. Ringold, an African-American woman who was born in Maryland in 1892, lived for about a half-century on the West Side. She owned and operated the business primarily on her own. The Asbury Park Press reported that she was living at Rhinecliff Cottage, her boarding house, in 1917 when her husband, George, who had been missing for 9 months, arrived home and shot her. She survived the attack, and continued to run her business for many more years. The 1940 census named her the head of the household, which included 6 boarders. Mrs. Ringold died in her home on Ridge in 1971 at the age of 96.
After a difficult stretch as a boarded-up drug house, 138 Ridge was rehabilitated in 2004 nd today is a residence.
Sources: US census, 1940; New Jerswey State census, 1915; Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory, 1950, 1955, and 1957; “Missing Husband Returns to Home and Shoot Wife,” Asbury Park Press, 14 July 1917; “Mrs. Mary Ringold, Owned City Hotel,” Asbury Park Press, 11 April 1971; “Old Asbury homes getting new life,” Asbury Park Press, 25 June 2004.
J. Shaffer
