TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association has not released its review on the brawl that erupted after one of Jan. 17’s basketball games here in West Side High School’s Dr. E. Wyman Garrett Gymnasium.
The WSHS varsity boys’ basketball game against the visiting Paterson JFK HS team’s final score remains 61-59 with Kennedy the winner. The game still counts on the Rough Riders (3-5 as of Jan. 27) and Knights (12-3) respective win-loss season records.
No one has been charged among the players or spectators in the bench-clearing fight that interrupted the five-game Freedom Fighters Hoops Challenge program. While Newark Police reported no arrests or serious injuries, referees handed down five technical fouls, mostly against JFK, during the game.
West Side, looking to end a three-game season-opening slide, had been leading Kennedy for three of the game’s four quarters. The 7-2 Knights, thanks to one of its players catching a pass and sinking a final buzzer-beating basket, won 6:52 p.m. that Monday.
One WSHS and one JFK HS player immediately began shoving each other – which led to blows. Respective head coaches Akbar Cook and Tommie Patterson, Newark Public School Security and Newark Police, within seconds, found themselves separating players and spectators who had spilled onto the hardwood floor.
Officers and coaches restored order so that the challenge’s final game, Paterson Charter vs. Newark Central HS, could be played. NJ Legacy, West Side Athletic Department and Paterson Division of Recreation had been holding the annual tournament in part to honor the federal observance of the late nonviolent human rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.
Central won the nightcap over Paterson Charter, 73-59 after Essex County West Caldwell Tech won the opener over Passaic County Technical Institute, 67-66. Newark Arts HS won over Bayonne, 52-41 and Montclair’s Immaculate Conception topped Newark East Side, 61-48.
IRVINGTON – Police here, in Maplewood and Newark are looking for a serial armed robber who had struck women nine times Jan. 22 and fled to adjacent borders.
Maplewood Police Chief Jim DeVaul said that they have the late model grey Infiniti that was used in the robberies. The car, which was found in Newark, has been towed and impounded.
Irvington, Maplewood and Newark detectives are looking for the driver and the passenger/robber. The suspects had likely stolen the Infiniti – who told Newark police that it was taken with the keys in its ignition switch.
DeVaul said their first of three reports was from a 64-year-old woman along the 120 block of Jacoby Street at 10:10 a.m. that Saturday She told MPD officers that she was thrown down from behind, punched in the face – and saw the robber run into a waiting car. She was taken to Newark’s University Hospital for treatment.
A 44-year-old Irvington woman along the 90 block of Franklin Terrace told MPD that an armed man exited a dark-colored car, snatched her purse after a struggle and fled at 11 a.m.
A 35-year-old Newark woman along the 100 block of Irvington Avenue said that she was stuck up by a gunman who exited a similar car at 1 p.m. She handed over her purse.
An Irvington Police spokesperson said they had six similar armed robberies on women the same Saturday. IPD would not give details beyond that the same car was involved and that none of their victims were physically injured.
EAST ORANGE – County authorities are looking for information regarding the recent murder of a city resident – and have posted a $5,000 reward for that info on Jan. 25.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and Sheriff Armando Fontoura put up a $5,000 reward on the latter’s Crime Stoppers for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Alfred Cheatham’s murderer.
Cheatham, 55, was found shot near his home on the 50 block of Whittlesey Avenue Nov. 2. He was declared dead at the scene at 2:23 p.m. that Tuesday.
Witnesses that day told a reporter that suspects approached him and had tried to steal certain items. The attempted robbers then shot him and fled.
Cheatham owned and operated his AJ Construction contracting business here since 2002. The Jersey City native had studied at the Hudson County School of Technology, New Jersey State University and Montclair State University.
Cheatham had posted a Tik Tok video earlier that Nov. 2. He sang along to Marvin Sapp’s “Never Would Have Made It” and talked about his open heart surgery and living with a pacemaker. His last rites were held Nov. 19 at Orange’s Cotton Funeral Service.
ORANGE – City detectives have been searching for a pair of vehicles involved in a South Ward car theft at gunpoint here since Jan. 19.
The driver of a black 2013 BMW 328i told responding OPD that he was sitting in his car along the 600 block of Argyle Avenue at 9:40 p.m. that Wednesday.
He added that “two black males” got out of “a dark-colored four-door vehicle.” One of them showed a handgun and demanded money and the BMW’s keys. The victim handed over the key and watched the pair flee onto northbound Valley Road.
The stolen BMW has NJ license plate L10-PHM. The other car was either a Nissan or a Honda.
Clarification
The African American Heritage Fund, which the late Hon. Bob Pickett cofounded, is at 132 So. Harrison St., East Orange, NJ 07018.
WEST ORANGE – When members of the township’s March 13 St. Patrick’s Day Parade end their run and repair to Quigley’s Tavern, they may well leave a chair empty in memory of Thomas Quigley.
Quigley, 89, second-generation proprietor of the family tavern and an early supporter of the parade committee, died at home here Dec. 29.
Thomas John Quigley was born in then-East Orange General Hospital June 20, 1932 and served Uncle Sam during the Korean Conflict 1950-53 – but was otherwise a lifelong West Orange resident.
Tom joined father John as a licensed plumber and in working in the tavern until he left for military service. He had also met Catherine McCormack at his going away party there – and kept overseas correspondence.
Tom returned with an honorable discharge to resume as a Local 24 plumber and tavern operator until his 1997 retirement. He married Catherine Aug. 4, 1955 and raised John, Thomas, Robert and David.
Three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren are also among Quigley’s survivors. Sister Norma Bell predeceased him.
Quigley, after a Funeral Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, was buried Jan. 4 at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery.
SOUTH ORANGE – A village man is now facing 15 counts of sexual assault on some of the students of the afterschool STEM program he had co-founded.
A Union County grand jury had indicted Christopher P. Marbaix, 60, Jan. 13 of on six second-degree counts of endangering the welfare of a child, five second-degree counts of sexual assault of a child under 13-years-old and three fourth-degree counts of criminal sexual contact with a child.
Marbaix, said Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel and Acting Summit Police Chief Steven Zagorski, is accused of inappropriately touching six children through their clothes “on multiple occasions September 2015 through December 2018.”
The said incidents allegedly happened to students nine-to-15-years-old while at the Robot Revolution in Summit, which Marbaix had co-founded in 2013. The largest robotics school in N.J., which has taught 3,000 students, severed ties with Marbaix upon his since learning of the allegations by Dec. 31, 2018.
“Davin Czukoski, the other partner, reinvented the program, made strict policies and procedures and instituted numerous safety measures,” said Robot Revolution in 2020. “His wife, Bonnie Liberman Czukoski, was brought on as his new partner.”
Marbaix was arrested and first charged with eight counts from three students Nov. 18, 2020. Six more charges were added, when three more children came forward, in January 2022.
Convictions of a second-degree offense carry a five-to-10-year prison sentence. Information regarding this case is to be sent to Summit Police Capt. Ryan Peters at (908) 277-9380.
MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education formally hired Christopher Stephens on Jan. 24 to succeed Christopher Faraone as Columbia High School boys indoor track coach for the remaining season.
CHS Principal Frank Sanchez confirmed, on Jan. 14, that seven-year coach Faraone had resigned. Sanchez said that Stephens, who was hired as an assistant coach and “our current coaches” will continue with the winter season and that “we’ll be looking for a Spring track replacement for next season.”
Faraone came to CHS Feb. 22, 2016 with nine years’ experience as Union HS track coach. He succeeded Lisa Morgan, who left to become head men’s and women’s track and field coach at Bloomfield College. Morgan, whose runners earned various Essex County, state and national titles and records, left in 2019 to start Bloomfield College’s women’s program.
Faraone was originally hired to head the girls’ outdoor track and field program. The UHS Class of 2000 and St. Peter’s University Class of 2004 graduate had also been a long-distance runner there.
Faraone remains a teacher of U.S. History and AP Government at UHS.
BLOOMFIELD – The 2020 Census-based redistricting process has arrived in Bloomfield as of Jan. 21 with some good and perhaps not so good results.
A good result is that the township is now all in Mikie Sherrill’s 11th Congressional District. Bloomfield was divided between the 11th and Cong. Donald M. Payne, Jr.’s 10th CD since 2012.
A maybe not-so-good result is that two of Bloomfield’s polling station districts have gone to new wards. The following shifting is in response to the township growing from 47,315 residents in 2010 to 53,105 in 2020.
The former Third Ward’s 14th District, including The Green Historic District, has been moved to the First Ward. The former First Ward’s 12th District, including Glendale Cemetery, has gone to the Second Ward.
All of this district shifting and redrawing is part of the once-a-decade population balancing act. All population-based political offices – from Bloomfield’s three wards to the Congressional House of Representatives – are to be evenly distributed.
Mayor Michael Venezia said that the new polling station locations will be posted before the June party primary elections. Questions may be put to Municipal Clerk Louise Palagano’s office: (973) 680-4015.
MONTCLAIR – A pedestrian-train collision here Jan. 27 sent the former to a local hospital and delayed the travel of the latter’s passengers and crew.
New Jersey Transit reported that Montclair-Boonton Line Train No. 6230 had struck “an adult male pedestrian” near North Fullerton Street just after Noon that Thursday.
MBL No. 6230 was to stop at Walnut Street Station at 12:01 p.m. The 11:47 a.m. departure from Montclair State University Station had picked up 50 passengers by then. It was to make all local stops to New York Penn Station.
The incident brought NJTransit and Montclair police to the scene. The transit spokesperson did not have the extent of the man’s injuries.
6230’s run was canceled and its passengers were put on later trains. Train Nos. 6237 and 6241 to MSU were respectively delayed up to 70 minutes or held a Newark Broad Street Station; No. 6234, MSU-NY Penn Station, was also delayed until NJTPD’s field investigation was completed.
BELLEVILLE – The decades-long saga of The Great Lawn may have entered a new chapter, thanks to a resolution the Township Council had passed Jan. 24.
The council passed a resolution that Monday night, as part of its consent agenda, “Authorizing preliminary studies and relates expenses and good faith negotiations, in advance of condemnation proceedings to acquire Block 2501, Lots 1.03 and 2, located at 233 Franklin Ave., and 580 Belleville Ave.”
The zoning map and address numbers are the southern and eastern parts of The Great Lawn that fronts the historic Essex County Geriatric Center. The eight-story SoHo landmark 1929 building, which started life as a Newark isolation hospital, is well on its way to becoming an apartment building. It appears, however, that the council is considering taking the overall 7.91 acres from by eminent domain if necessary.
Alma Realty, of Long Island City, had its redevelopment plan approved by the Belleville Planning Board on the condition that The Great Lawn is kept as-is. The condition was meant to end proposals to build commercial/retail space there going back into the 1990s.
The council’s Jan. 24 resolution comes 35 days after the creation of a “Real Growth for Belleville” Facebook page. RGB wants “Responsible mixed-use development around the old Essex County Geriatric Center.”
Such redevelopment, the page argues, “will allow seniors to stay in Belleville,” “gain 800+ jobs that were promised in some proposals,” “increase the values of properties all across Belleville” and “for the town to come out of debt.”
Details on the study’s timetable and criteria were not immediately available.
