TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Funeral arrangements for “a Newark community mother,” Wilhelmina Holder, has not been announced here as of press time. That lack of information has not stopped the tide of tributes from coming over the last two weeks.
One of her three daughters said that Holder, 70, had suddenly passed away at her Vailsburg home on April 27.
Holder, except for her studies in Rutgers’ Douglass College, was a lifelong Newarker who fought for her children, grandchildren and in the best interests of the roughly 40,000 Newark Public School students for five decades.
“Wili” or “Mimi” co-founded Rutgers Abbott Leadership Institute with Junius Williams, Esq. She was a regular at ALI Saturday morning classes and frequently checked on students in its computer labs at 110 Warren St.
Holder codirected the High School Academic Support Program with Lyndon Brown. She also served with the Secondary Parents Council and the Essex County PTA and was a Weequahic High School PTA parent.
Holder, who was born here Aug. 18, 1951, was the eldest of six children who went through Cleveland and 18th Avenue Elementary and W. Kinney Junior High schools. The Weequahic Class of 1969 graduate became a paralegal for a Morristown lawyers’ firm.
The Newark Public Schools Board of Education regular public speaker was known to go to Trenton, among other places, in the pursuit of improving the academics of children and in having the district’s educators and administrators to do what is in the students’ best interests.
IRVINGTON – “Local Talk” has learned that last rites had been held for the man who was shot dead here March 16 in gunfire that also injured three other men.
The deceased’s full name was Quardell FuQuan Davis. Davis’ visitation and funeral service were held at Newark’s Genesis Baptist Church April 1. His remains were later interred in Hillside’s Evergreen Cemetery.
Arrangements were made between Davis’ family and Newark’s James E. Churchman Funeral Home.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and Irvington Police Director Tracey Bowers said that township police officers found Davis, 44, shot by 862 18th Ave. 10:47 p.m. March 16. Local EMS took Davis to Newark’s University Hospital – where he died.
The three other men who were also shot at 18th and Isabella avenues were treated and released for non-life-threatening injuries. The investigation continues.
EAST ORANGE – Friends, relatives and colleagues of the late Robert Louis Bowser nearly filled the Cicely Tyson School of Fine and Performing Arts’ Jean L. James Auditorium May 7 to more than measure the quality of their loss.
Bowser, 86 – a civil engineer who was mayor 1997-2013, founder-president of the New Jersey Conference of Black Mayors, president of the National Conference of Black Mayors and president of the New Jersey League of Municipalities – died April 2 in Pasadena, Md.
They gathered for around two hours to celebrate the life and legacy of a native son who was known for his dry humor, direct opinions and his opportunities to offer advice and career assistance.
Both Elizabeth Mayor Christian Bollwage and memorial master of ceremonies/former city PIO Darryl Jeffries, for example, remembered how Bowser concocted the East Orange Waterfront Development Commission.
Bowser first brought Bollwage with him at a League of Municipalities seminar on waterfront development and, days later, had Jeffries arrange a press conference at City Hall Plaza.
The Mayor, at the conference, announced that he will turn Interstate 280 into a canal by plugging its catch basins and erecting walls at city borders. Bowser, with a captive press audience, then announced a more serious city redevelopment plan.
It was fitting that Bowser’s memorial was held here because the mayor – himself an East Orange High School Class of 1953 graduate – was able to turn his vision for a performing and fine arts magnet public school into reality. That vision included gaining the involvement and support of actress Tyson.
Robert was the last of the Bowser brothers. Edward, Lucius and Hamilton are among those who had predeceased him. Wife Marilyn, son David, daughters Lisa Ward and Dr. Leslie J. Ward are among his survivors.
ORANGE – A recently awarded bank loan has brought 606 Freeman St. closer to realizing its next purpose.
OceanFirst Bank, of Toms River, has loaned $26 million to Reynolds Asset Management to start building the Orange Valley Apartments here. Reynolds, of Paramus, received Orange Planning Board approval May 26, 2021 to build a five-story, 103 apartment unit building at 606 Freeman St. CEO Lou Reynolds intends to have the building open before 2023 is out.
Reynolds’ building will be sitting on 600, 602, 606 and 612 Freeman plus 409 Tompkins St. Orange Freeman Holdings had bought 606 Freeman from Wishnie Associates in June 2021 and commissioned the property’s demolition on Dec. 12.
What is now a .2318-acre vacant lot had been a beehive of almost daily construction supply activity since 1942, when Orange Valley Hardware & Lumber opened.
Three generations Wishnies – including patriarch Sam and sons Rich and Victor – kept the traditional business going in a Valley neighborhood that was once so rough that the local liquor store closed in the 1970s.
Sam, Rich, Victor, third son Gunnar and grandson Richard Wishnie, however, bowed to age and time. They closed Orange Valley Hardware to the public June 4 and put the rest of their inventory up for auction July 7.
WEST ORANGE – Levin Management can focus on what will take Kmart’s space in West Orange Plaza now that Essex County is consolidating its COVID testing and vaccination centers.
Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo announced on May 8 that the West Orange COVID center here at 235-51 Prospect Ave., will end its 18-month run. The remaining supplies and personnel will be folded into the still-active Livingston COVID center, in Livingston Mall’s former Sears store.
What had been five testing and vaccination centers at the pandemic’s height are now down to Livingston and Essex County College in Newark. Sites at Newark (Donald M. Payne Technology High School) and West Caldwell (West Essex Technology High School) closed when public demand ebbed.
The Livingston COVID Center, 112 Eisenhower Pkwy., will be open 2-7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays. NJTransit’s No. 70 and 73 bus routes and Morris County Metro’s 873 bus serve the mall.
The county also has mobile testing and vaccination sites at: * NEWARK: Hall of Records (between parking garage and Veterans Park) 3-7 p.m. Tuesdays. * EAST ORANGE: City Hall Plaza 3-7 p.m. Fridays. * IRVINGTON: Municipal Building, Beasley Civic Square, 3-7 p.m. Thursdays. * ORANGE: City Hall 3-7 p.m. Wednesdays.
Details are found at EssexCOVID.org or (973) 877-8456.
West Orange Plaza was Kmart Plaza until the department store turned off its blue light here Feb. 2, 2020. The shopping center took on its anchor store’s name since it had opened as EJ Korvette’s Plaza in 1960. It was also Caldor Plaza in between.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The village and township’s recent respective seasonal and permanent gas leaf blower bans got at least tristate attention on a New York City radio station April 29.
WNYC’s Brian Lehrer was talking about the rise of regulations against leaf blowers and other internal combustion engine-powered landscaping equipment with Montclair writer Jessica Stoltzberg when he took a call from “Nancy from Maplewood.”
“Nancy” soon identified herself as Maplewood Township Committeewoman Nancy Adams. Committeewoman Adams said that she and her four colleagues passed an ordinance April 19 that banned leaf blowers powered by two-and-four-stroke-cycle i.c. engines as of Jan. 1. The ban also includes similarly powered lawnmowers and edgers.
South Orange’s Board of Trustees, added Adams, passed an ordinance, 4-2, on April 25 that banned i.c. blower use May 1-Sept. 30. Both ordinances had been considered by the elders as far back as 2016.
Adams, who said she found herself “doing homework for three years,” cited those unregulated emissions from a gasoline or gas/oil mix blower over 30 minutes are equivalent to a late-model Ford F-150 pickup truck being driven for 1,100 miles.
Adams agreed with Stoltzberg in the said devices’ detriment to hearing and insect and small animal life. The committeewoman said that there is a landscaper association that lobbies against ban ordinances on economic grounds.
Both Maplewood and South Orange’s ordinances sets operating hours for “turbine” and electric leaf blowers. Maplewood’s fines are $100, $200 and $500 – with the loss of operating license.
BLOOMFIELD – The proposed replacement of the closed Friendly’s restaurant at 1243 Broad St., was on its May 10 agenda for continuance – but was not heard.
New owner and applicant Finomus Bloomfield Holdings LLC had asked the board to keep its hearing postponed to June 14. It appears that Finomus is still working on its vehicular in-and-out traffic plan for Broad Street.
The request was made May 7 – the same day the May 10 agenda was posted and published.
Finomus, on its April 12 introductory hearing, wants to replace the 53-year-old closed Friendly’s with a 3,000-square-foot building for a Wendy’s and Taco Bell. It is seeking variances for signage and a drive aisle. It is making a traffic study in light of the parcel’s location to the Brookdale Elementary School, a firehouse, northbound Broad’s northwestern bend and its merge with West Passaic Avenue.
1243 Broad St., also known as Block 1088, Lot 59, is in a B-2 zone. B-2 prohibits a drive-through window and 24-hour operation.
The last Friendly’s in “Local Talk” land quietly closed on Dec. 17.
GLEN RIDGE – The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office may announce the identities of two people, and maybe more, who were killed in The Glen while being pursued 5 a.m. May 10.
Essex County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Katherine Carter said that “multiple people were killed” when the silver two-door Hyundai Elantra sedan with handicapped Pennsylvania license plates left eastbound Bloomfield Avenue just past the Ridgewood Avenue intersection and plunged down The Glen’s embankment. The car, which had been pursued from Montclair, ended up against two trees near The Glen Gazebo.
The Attorney General’s Office took the investigation’s lead because the crash involved a police pursuit. Acting Attorney General Matt Platkin rolled back part of Gurbir Grewal’s 2020 restriction of police pursuits to 12 crimes. Platkin, in May, allowed police to pursue suspected car thieves.
Other details, including which law enforcers were pursuing and how the pursuit began, remain unavailable as of press time. What was clear was that thousands of local and commuting persons’ routines were detoured and/or delayed while AG and other detectives conducted their forensic investigation.
Bloomfield and Ridgewood avenues are at the borough’s center. Three of Glen Ridge’s schools, two banks, its commuter rail station and bus stops, the Municipal Building/Police Station/Ambulance/Public Library complex and post office are at or just off that intersection.
Borough police and ECPO’s Homicide Task Force promptly closed Bloomfield Avenue Between Ridgewood and Hillside avenues. Buses on NJTransit’s 11, 28 and 29 bus routes plus DeCamp’s buses and the Glen Ridge jitneys experienced up to 15-minute delays. Access to the Glen Ridge Station’s platforms was also limited that Tuesday morning.
The crash reminded those of a Mercedes that went off eastbound Bloomfield Avenue. across from High Street, and struck a light pole and a tree Nov. 26, 2018. Galo G. Flores, 25, of Harrison and Carlos Nieves, 20, of Newark, died at the scene. Montclair police told Acting Essex County Prosecutor Stephens that they were trying to pull that car over.
MONTCLAIR – The Montclair Public Schools have implemented mandatory masking at two of its schools plus masking in a classroom each in two others May 4-13.
Schools Superintendent Jonathon Ponds called for the “Masks On” order throughout Montclair High School and Buzz Aldrin Middle School after April 29-May 3 test results were reported.
Three staff members and 36 students at MHS had tested positive for a COVID virus variant those seven days. Three members and 22 students at Aldrin Middle tested positive that same period.
Students and staff in one classroom at the Hillside at Watchung elementary schools are to also wear masks May 4-13. Two staff members and 15 students tested positive at Hillside; one staff member and 16 students at Watchung had tested positive.
The test results reflect what Ponds called “an uptick in COVID-19 cases” in the district. He issued the partial reversal of the March 7 “masks optional” directive after consulting the district’s head nurse and the Montclair Health Department.
The district’s case increase parallels what Montclair Health had found over a two-week period April 22-May 5. The number of townshipwide positive cases rose from 98 April 22-28 to 128 April 29-May 5.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Public Schools’ athletic and human resources departments are reviewing the resumes of those who would succeed Jermain Johnson as its head football coach while you read this.
BPS had posted a “help wanted” notice on its website May 3-12. It is hoped that the Board of Education Trustees will receive candidates’ resumes for their May 16 meeting in the hope of selecting a finalist June 20 with an eye on starting the successor on or by July 1.
Johnson, who led the Buccaneers to a 19 win, 16 loss and 2 tie record 2018-21, was approved as the Montclair Mounties’ head coach by that district’s board of education May 4. The Bloomfield native starts work July 1.
The Bloomfield High School Class of 1991 and Montclair State University graduate also takes his certificates in physical and special education with him to Montclair Public Schools.
Johnson came to BHS in 2018 – and a squad that had not seen a winning season record since at least 2003 – from being Wayne Hills High School defensive coordinator. He was part of the WHHS Patriots 2016 team that won an NJSIAA sectional championship.
The former BHS Bengal and MSU Red Hawk player was also one of their assistant coaches. The former New Jersey Red Dogs Arena Football League player helped the BHS Buccaneers to a 7-3-0 record – the first winning one in at least 17 years – in 2019.
Johnson succeeds interim coach Pete Ramiccio, whose Mounties broke even at 5-5. Ramiccio, who succeeded longtime coach and mentor John Fiore, is moving to Berkeley Heights’ Governor Livingston High School. Fiore, who took 2021 off, becomes Elizabeth’s head coach next season.
NUTLEY – Those who pass by 285 Nutley Ave., on the corner of Whitford Avenue, may want to take a good look or a picture of the 142-year-old house – for it will likely not be standing by year’s end.
The nine-member Nutley Planning Board, except for a sole dissenting vote, granted a Final Major Subdivision” application on the .48-acre lot May 4 to codevelopers Jeff Blank and Joseph Haines.
The board’s approval also permitted for several C2 variances, including lot setback and width. In the eyes of critics, they also signed the 1880-built 2.5-story house’s death warrant.
Blank and Haines, who bought the property for $600,000 Dec. 31, had sought to demolish the house on Block 4201, Lot 12 and subdivide it into three lots for up to three smaller houses.
The Nutley Historical Preservation Committee, at the meeting, asked the board to consider how other neighboring multiple-unit houses have affected the Nutley Park neighborhood’s character. The committee spokesperson acknowledged that having 235 Nutley Ave. registered as a historical landmark would be the only barrier against demolition.
A 1,418-signature petition to deny the variances was also presented to the board.
