NEWARK – A three-car collision in a downtown intersection here Sunday night has left three people dead, five others injured and authorities searching for its cause.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore Stephens II and Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said that a Mazda with five people aboard was traveling south on Broad Street/Kenneth Gibson Boulevard when it collided with a northbound Honda at the Central Avenue and Fulton Street intersection at 7:10 p.m. Aug. 30.
The impact sent the upright black Mazda onto Fulton Street – and the Honda into the path of a red Toyota with three aboard. First responders found the Honda upside down and partially atop the Toyota.
Emergency personnel immediately closed the intersection and used “Jaws of Life” extractors to free occupants. Eight people, including six sent to University Hospital, rushed them to nearby medical centers.
Three of the more severely injured, however, died overnight. Mazda driver Rosa Lojalema, 35, and Honda passengers Elba Galatrza, 77, of Glen Ridge, and Clarise Pizcha, 11, died by 1:20 a.m. Aug. 31.
The remaining five injured people were still hospitalized as of Sept. 1. The Toyota driver and its two passengers were physically uninjured. No charges have been filed as of Tuesday.
IRVINGTON – Township police, fire and contracted EMS found themselves almost simultaneously responding to a pair of car collisions a block apart Aug. 23.
The first group of responders arrived at 15th and Oak avenues 11:10 a.m. that Sunday – and found a car there with front end damage. The driver and witnesses said that the other car involved in the head-on crash, and another car, had just fled east.
They looked east – and saw a three-car collision at 15th Avenue and Grove Street. The vehicles there, all suffering front end damage, were a maroon Ford Explorer, a GMC SUV and a silver SUV. Photos from the scene included a white four-door Lexus with front end damage.
While no serious injuries had resulted, which cars were pursuing, fleeing or victims were not immediately known. Irvington fire and police took up northbound Grove Street, prompting NJTransit No. 90 buses and other traffic to alternatingly pass on the southbound lane. No charges have yet been filed.
EAST ORANGE – The mid-August arrest of two city brothers, said Passaic County authorities, led to the arrest of the triggerman in an Aug. 9 shooting of a Newark man in Paterson.
Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valez and Paterson Police Chief Ibrahim Boycor said they had arrested Keyshawn Wright, 20, and Delshawn Wright, 22, Aug. 18. They arrested Christian Patterson, 29, of Paterson Aug. 20.
Velez and Boycor said that the Wrights were accomplices to Patterson, who shot the Newark man three times at Park Avenue and East 23rd Street 11:30 p.m. Aug. 9. The otherwise unidentified victim, said St. Joseph Regional Medical Center staff, arrived in a private car to their emergency ward. The man was released after treatment and a PPD interview.
All three are being held in Paterson’s Passaic County Jail on attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons charges. D. Wright and Patterson have also been charged as convicted felons possessing weapons.
ORANGE – Orange Superintendent of Schools Dr. Gerald Fitzhugh II have been making live Zoom presentations last month, explaining that the district’s starting the school year Sept. 8 with all-remote learning is the first of a four-phase reopening process into Jan. 4.
Orange Public Schools’ transition to remote synchronous phase two, said Fitzhugh, is earmarked for Oct. 2-5. Teachers are to hold virtual instruction from designated classrooms two days a week. School principals will assign the classrooms for phases two through four.
The phase three soft launch is set for after Nov. 25. Designated classrooms will open for in-person instruction for English as a second language and special needs students as audited March 17-June 24. Occupation will be set at 25 percent of building capacity plus full-tome mask wearing, temperature checks and other social distancing measures.
“Phase Four is our full re-entry (on) Jan. 4,” said Fitzhugh. “Students will be on site with staggered schedules: you have your morning session with one group of kids and your afternoon session with another group of kids. On-site schooling will be Monday and Tuesday, cleaning day Wednesday (and) a different group of kids on-site Thursday and Friday.”
Each phase’s starting date is dependent on the state’s COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death rates.
WEST ORANGE – Those who want to attend the 18th annual Essex County September 11th Observance here at the Eagle Rock Reservation will have to do so on Livestream.
Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo announced Monday that the 2020 commemoration will be held there that Friday live but to an on-line-only audience. The reservation will be closed to the public for all use 5-10 a.m. that Friday.
Invited relatives of that day’s terrorist attack victims, clergy, law enforcement, civic officials and string quartet musicians will be present to recollect, lay decorations and play reverent selections starting at 8 a.m.
Everyone else, said DiVincenzo (D-Roseland) may watch on a link provided by essexcountynj.org and Facebook on the county executive’s name.
The measures here and at most other Sept. 11 commemorations this year are due to COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus pandemic-related social distancing restrictions.
Similar conditions may be found at Our Lady of Lourdes Church’s 6:30 p.m. Rosary that Friday and a mass to invite and honor first responders 5:30 p.m. Sept. 12.
Check with your local Sept. 11 memorial service organizers on their social distancing precautions.
SOUTH ORANGE – Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church’s leadership here may have decided on whether to allow more parishioners into their sanctuary, starting with their Sept. 6-7 Masses, by when you read this.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, as Newark Archbishop, announced on Sept. 1 that OLOS and the other 211 parishes across Essex, Bergen, Hudson and Union counties can allow in up to 150 people or 25 percent of the sanctuary’s capacity – whichever is lower – for services.
Those services include Masses, baptisms, weddings, funerals and other public liturgies. The Archdiocese’s parishes will continue masks, mask wearing social distancing and post-service cleaning of pews and other high touch areas.
Tobin, who continues to give dispensation to parishioners who are unable to make Masses, has made the capacity increase voluntary.
OLOS have streamed Sunday Masses for later airing on YouTube. It is among 18 parishes in eight area towns who offer services on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and/or Instagram.
MAPLEWOOD – Columbia High School Principal Frank Sanchez has been making the schools guidance counselors and social worker available to the two-town student body Sept. 2-3 if they wanted to talk about the sudden death of classmate Omar Hutchinson.
Hutchinson, who was to be among CHS’s graduating Class of 2021, said Sanchez, “tragically passed away in a swimming accident on Aug. 28.”
Circumstances surrounding the rising CHS senior’s death, nor his obituary and funeral arrangements, have been made public as of 11 a.m. Sept. 2.
“Our community stands with Omar’s family while they grieve this incomprehensible loss,” said Sanchez Tuesday. “At this time, the family asks for privacy while they seek solace from each other. They know the Columbia family of students, faculty and staff can be called upon when asked.”
BLOOMFIELD – There are township elders and neighbors of the old South Junior High School who are hoping that the third redevelopment proposal now before the Bloomfield Planning Board will be the charm for the Art Deco building on Sept. 15.
Developer South Junior High School Urban Renewal LLC and its technical partners will continue its presentation for “Bloomfield Lofts” from its initial Aug. 18 hearing. The planning board, depending on developer and public testimony, may decide on the project via Zoom before 11 p.m. Sept. 15.
“Bloomfield Lofts” calls for redeveloping the 14,500-square foot 1939 four story building at 177 Franklin Ave. and adding a 20,368 sq. ft. addition for 122 apartment units. Space will be renovated or made for an art studio/gallery, a performing arts auditorium, community events and 171 parking spaces. Construction is projected to take a year and $30.8 million.
The Township Council prepared for Bloomfield Lofts’ way by granting a long term tax exemption in exchange for 9,900 sq. ft. for a community auditorium, Oct. 30, 2019. They also authorized a site easement in May.
This is the third proposal since the Bloomfield Board of Education closed SJHS, or “South,” in 1986. One redevelopment, approved in 2006, failed to break ground.
SJHS opened as Bloomfield’s magnet school of the arts and taught three grades – first Sixth, Seventh and Eighth, then Seventh, Eighth and Ninth – until June 30, 1986. Bloomfield Public Schools closed “South” and consolidated its students into the 1960s-built North Junior/Bloomfield Middle School.
There are no plans for the 1912-built Essex County Vocational-Technical High School building to SJHS’s west next door. The building was used as a temporary West Essex Vo-Tech 2020-21; “Bloomfield Tech” was closed in 2017 and was folded into the county’s Donald M. Payne, Sr. Technology HS in Newark.
