Located just 24 miles from Manhattan, in straight-line distance, and slightly over an hour by train on NJ Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line, Red Bank is the quintessential cool town, a mid-sized mecca of coffee shops, restaurants, record stores, and no shortage of exposed brick. Once a prosperous manufacturing hub, this vibrant borough of Monmouth County experienced a cultural renaissance through the latter half of the 20th century, owed largely to its picture-perfect building stock and gateway location to the Jersey Shore. Some 12,000 reside in Red Bank’s modest two-square-mile footprint, nearly 20% of which is water. The buzzing commercial district, which branches in all directions from the main drag on Broad Street, features an eclectic, indie-leaning mix of local and larger merchants, marked by favorites like 50-year-old Jack’s Music Shoppe and the comic store owned by a certain local-native Hollywood director whose cult classic films immortalized the area.