By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
From their vantage point on the ground, pint-sized brothers Jude and Ezra Hadley looked straight up to try to see the very top of a smokestack that, to them, must have seemed as tall as a mountain.
Jude, 3, was scribbling his name on the 390-foot-high smokestack at the former B.L. England power plant, while 2-year-old Ezra watched in fascination as his older brother’s artwork took shape one letter at a time.
“Are you having fun?” Kristen Hadley asked her two sons, eliciting giggles from both.
Although the smokestack stands tall now overlooking the Great Egg Harbor Bay in Beesleys Point, it will soon disappear entirely in what is expected to be a spectacular implosion that will drop the cylindrical structure like a giant matchstick. The implosion is scheduled for 10 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 26.
Kristen Hadley and her husband, Taylor, who live in Beesleys Point, brought Jude and Ezra to the B.L. England site Saturday morning for an event called “Say Goodbye to the Stack.” Attended by dozens of local residents and visitors, the event served as a final farewell from the public to the smokestack that has been part of the Jersey Shore’s landscape since 1987.
Taylor Hadley noted that his late grandfather, Phil DuBruille, had worked at the B.L. England plant while it was still operating. Like his two young sons, Taylor Hadley seemed awestruck by the sheer size of the smokestack.
“I’ve never been this close to it,” he said while standing at the smokestack’s base. “This is amazing.”
His thoughts then turned to his late grandfather and how he might have felt about the smokestack’s destruction.
“I think he would be a little excited. A little sad, too,” he said.
The event allowed members of the public to write their names or personal sentiments on the smokestack using pens, markers and spray paint. Essentially, the smokestack became a gigantic palette for graffiti.
“Thanks 4 the memories,” one person wrote. “Thanks for our tax break!” someone else wrote, alluding to the financial benefits that B.L. England once brought to its home community.
Lisa Greenwood, of Ocean City, wished her husband, Bob, a “Happy Birthday” in big, red letters on the smokestack.
“I think it’s a beautiful site,” Lisa Greenwood said of the stack.
Others chose to write something about the smokestack’s unofficial role as a navigational aid to boaters in Great Egg Harbor Bay or the ocean.
“Thanx 4 guiding me home,” was one inscription.
After thanking his wife for the birthday wishes, Bob Greenwood explained how he relied on the smokestack to guide him to shore when he was out on a boat or his personal watercraft.
“I’ve been coming to Ocean City all of my life and the smokestack has been very important to me. You can see it all the way from Sea Isle City or Atlantic City. It’s a good navigational tool,” he said.
Lisa Greenwood added that her husband, along with other boaters and watercraft users, will greatly miss the smokestack once it is gone “because it’s a landmark.”
Explosives will be placed on the smokestack to bring it down during the implosion. The structure is expected to collapse in a huge cloud of dust.
“It will be a nice little show,” said Chris Wilson, managing member of Beesleys Point Development Group, the owner of the B.L. England site.
Built in 1961 and closed since 2019, the B.L. England property on the Upper Township side of the bay in Beesleys Point is being eyed for redevelopment once the smokestack and other old structures are cleared away.
Beesleys Point Development Group bought the site in 2021 and has discussed the possibility of building a marina, a hotel, restaurants, retail shops and homes, while also preserving some of the ecologically sensitive wetlands on the 350-acre tract.
Wilson noted that the site’s proposed transformation from an old industrial plant to a Jersey Shore attraction will be a multiyear process costing “a fortune.” He did not give a dollar estimate.
“The bottom line is, we are putting together a project that will be like nothing else in this part of the state,” he said.
More details of the project will be revealed as the Beesleys Point Development Group moves along incrementally in the next 12 months, Wilson noted.
Beesleys Point Development Group specializes in cleaning up and revitalizing old industrial sites. In addition to Wilson, the ownership team includes Dave Kreutz, Chadd Parks and Tim Niedzwiecki.
Wilson stressed that the group has been closely collaborating with Upper Township officials for the property’s redevelopment plans. The township has officially declared the site in need of redevelopment.
“We are committed to community involvement,” Wilson said.
He explained that the “Say Goodbye to the Stack” event was one example of how the development group is building a relationship with the local community during the evolution of the project.
One Cape May County resident who turned out for the event was Dom Beningo, who worked at B.L. England for 16 years before retiring in 1998.
Now 77 years old, Beningo fondly looked back at his career as a maintenance welder and iron worker at B.L. England.
“I had a good piggybank when I worked here,” said Beningo, a Petersburg resident. “It was the best-paying job in Cape May County.”
During his time at B.L. England, Beningo was able to go to the top of the smokestack – an experience that was both amazing and somewhat unpleasant, he said.
“The view was fabulous. You can see all the way to the Delaware Memorial Bridge from the top of the stack. But it was nasty because of all of the soot up there,” he said, laughing.
