TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The life of former 13th Avenue School Principal Bert R. Berry, 92, who died on Oct. 12, may well have followed Jackie Robinson’s quote: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
Berry was Newark Public School’s first principal of the 13th Avenue Community School when it had opened in 1971. The building at 359 13th Ave. – which takes up most of the block bordered by South Eighth and Ninth streets and 17th Avenue – replaced the 1888 building at another location.
The modern four-story school still houses Kindergarten-Eighth Grade and has recently added a Pre-K class level. The now-10 classes brings the student body up to 619 plus 53 teachers.
Berry’s principalship of the Fairmount Heights neighborhood school spanned into his retirement in the 1990s. A 1971-91 span alone mathematically translates to 1,741 people being influenced by Principal Berry.
Berry and fellow retired West Side High School Principal Nathaniel L.J. Potts were among the honorees in the first13th Avenue School Reunion on Memorial Day, 2013. They were among the 300 former teachers, staff and students who came from as far away as Florida and North Dakota and filled a Robert Treat Hotel ballroom. Potts, 85, died May 21, 2016.
A celebration of Berry’s life was held 11 a.m. Oct. 19 here at the Whigham Funeral Home. It was simulcasted on Whigham 580’s Facebook page.
IRVINGTON – Union Township and Union County authorities are looking for the person who fatally shot an Irvington man in Union Center Oct. 16.
Union police officers said they had responded to gunshot reports along the 2000 block of Morris Avenue at 6:39 p.m. Sunday night. They found Emmanuelle Florestal, 26, lying with a gunshot wound to his chest along the avenue by Hendrix Place.
Florestal was rushed to Newark’s University Hospital, where he was declared dead later on Sunday night. Florestal’s funeral arrangements were not available as of press time.
House Fire Displaces 3
Irvington firefighters, with mutual aid help from adjacent companies, put out a house fire on the northwesternmost block of Lyons Avenue that routed its three residents here Oct. 15.
The first responding IFD units came to 871 Lyons Ave 8:40 p.m. Saturday, where they found smoke and flames coming out of one of its second floor windows. The incident commander promptly pulled an “all hands” second alarm. A third alarm was then called for on-scene mutual aid and station coverage.
The blaze, which was soon brought under control, damaged the 2.5-story 1916 wood frame house’s upper floors. Several real estate websites list three residents there. No injuries were reported.
EAST ORANGE – Relatives and friends of Kenneth Wilkerson have scheduled his funeral for Nov. 2 at a Brentwood, Md., funeral home while county detectives search for his fatal stabber here since Oct. 4.
East Orange police officers said they were making a welfare check on Wilkerson when they found him with “multiple stab wounds” in his apartment along the 200 block of South Burnet St. 9 a.m. Oct. 4. He was declared dead there at 9:30 a.m.; Oct. 2 was his set expiration date.
Kenneth Alan Wilkerson, Jr. who was born Sept. 28, 1981, is to have his life celebrated 12:30 p.m. Nov. 2 at Brentwood’s Ft. Lincoln Funeral Home, 3401 Bladensburg Rd.
Letrell Duncan Funeral
Slain East Orange Campus High School scholar-athlete Letrell Duncan was given his last rites before an overflow of mourners here at New Hope Baptist Church Oct. 15. The mourning crowd – including friends and community leaders – spilled out across Prospect Street, prompting East Orange police to close it between Dodd Street and Renshaw Avenue.
“We’re going to band together to support his family,” said Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green, “and support our community.”
Two people, including Duncan’s shooter, remain at large since Oct. 3. The Essex County Sheriff’s Office CrimeStoppers’ $10,000 reward for information that will lead to the suspects’ arrest, is still being offered.
ORANGE – A former city resident, who is serving a 160-year prison sentence for killing three females and the attempted murder of a fourth in 2016, was due to answer charges of another murder and hiding of a body here in 2016-19 before State Superior Court Judge Mark Ali in Newark Oct. 21.
Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, 25, was indicted by an Essex County grand jury March 30 on the counts of attempted sexual assault of a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and desecration of human remains. The jury found enough evidence to tie Wheeler-Weaver to the murder of Mawa Doumbia, 15, of Newark, to warrant a trial.
Doumbia was last seen alive by her father and sister when she left her Newark address Oct. 7, 2016. She had agreed to meet Wheeler-Weaver in person after having several online conversations. Her private memorial service has never been posted or published.
Wheeler-Weaver had used the same approach to meet the three other young women, solicit for sex, sexually assault and strangle them if they refused and dumping their bodies in abandoned houses in Orange or in West Orange’s part of Eagle Rock Reservation.
Remains that would later be identified as Doumbia’s were found by Orange police and ECPO Homicide Task Force detectives in the back of 120 So. Main St. April 9, 2019. Her corpse was left behind in a vacant part of a carriage house there.
Wheeler-Weaver, depending on his Wednesday plea before Judge Ali, is facing additional prison time in Doumbia’s case. A jury had found him guilty and was subsequently sentenced for the murders of Sara Butler, 20, of Montclair; Robin West, 19, of Philadelphia; Joann Brown, 33, of Newark and the attempted murder of Tiffany Taylor, 27, of Jersey City.
Both Brown and West’s bodies were found in vacant or abandoned Orange houses. Wheeler-Weaver had tried to set fire to West’s body and the vacant Highland Avenue dwelling Dec. 5, 2016 – the day before Montclair Police arrested him in a decoy entrapment.
WEST ORANGE – A 9 a.m. Oct. 22 visitation and funeral for Corrington Valentin, who was shot dead on a Watchung Heights street corner here Sept. 27, is to be held at the Bethany Evangelical Free Church at 30 Ashwood Terr.
Valentin, 21, was one of two men who were shot while they were leaving a corner delicatessen at 3 p.m. that Tuesday. Township police and county detectives believe that the duo was targeted by a shooter and a driver – both of whom remain at large.
Valentin, who was born in Newark’s Columbus Hospital Nov. 8, 2001, moved with his family from Union in 2015. “CJ” had attended Union’s Burnet Middle School and West Orange High School. He was known for enjoying basketball and dancing.
Valentin, in later years, became the guardian and caretaker for his grandmother, Suze Etienne.
Etienne, mother Sherline Jean Valentin and father Gaston Valentin are among Corrington’s survivors. Gaston remains in his native Haiti.
A reception has been set for 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Union’s Costa Del Sol.
SOUTH ORANGE – The public may peruse Village Hall’s latest incarnation as a restaurant and beer hall sometime around Nov. 1.
“Village Hall is expected to open – fingers crossed – in late October-early November,” said Village President Sheena Collum at the Village Trustees’ Sept 28 meeting. “Those are the target dates at this moment in time.”
South Orange’s elders, citing best possible use, had leased its 1894 building to Landmark Venues in 2015. Landmark, which has revamped and operated other eateries, had promised to make renovations to 75 South Orange Ave. in a historical context.
Village Hall had started life as South Orange’s fire headquarters before being converted to municipal administrative and legislative functions. Village Trustees had moved most municipal functions into the Haberman Building, 76 South Orange Ave., and been paying biennial leases since 2013.
Acting Village Business Administrator Julie Doran said she has recently walked through the building and that her issuing a temporary certificate of occupancy is a matter of “some remaining issues. Doran succeeded the outgoing longtime BA Adam Loehner on July 1.
MAPLEWOOD – Township Mayor Dean Dafis has named Maplewood Police Deputy Chief Albert Sally Acting Chief during Chief Jimmy DeVaul’s hospitalization.
DeVaul, said Dafis Oct. 14, temporarily promoted Sally since “Maplewood’s Top Cop” “suffered a medical incident” that Friday. DeVaul, a 29-year squad member and chief since 2018, “was transported to a local hospital and remains with his family.”
Sally has a similar tenure to DeVaul. The 21-year member of the force was promoted to deputy chief in 2018.
Both DeVaul and Sally’s 2018 promotions were the result of a top brass shakeup in the wake of how MPD officers handled the herding of some post-July 5, 2016 Memorial Park fireworks attendees to the Irvington border. Many of the channeled youth were actual Maplewood residents; some of whom complained of rough police treatment.
Longtime police chief Robert Cimino, who was put on leave, resigned in August 2017.
“The thoughts and prayers of Maplewood are with Chief DeVaul and his family,” said Dafis. “Jimmy’s highly regarded in our community.”
BLOOMFIELD – It appears that part of the Sacred Heart School property at Bloomfield Avenue will be redeveloped, pending the township planning board’s decision on a site plan application presented by CityMD.
CityMD, as represented by Calli Law, presented their plans for the former First DeWitt/ Sovereign/Santander Bank building at 665-667 Bloomfield Ave. Oct. 11. The walk-in emergency care provider wants to remove the bank’s drive-through ports and reconfigure the existing customer parking lot off Liberty Street to 14 customer spaces. The owner has fenced off that parking lot, to prevent free parking, last month.
What CityMD/Calli is also asking pertains to 677 Bloomfield Ave. The applicant wants to use the paved eastern end of the school property for 22 employee/non-customer parking spaces. The medical center would usually have eight employees on the property.
The proposal will otherwise not affect the two-story office building, at 673 Bloomfield Ave., between the lot and the bank/would-be medical office.
The paved lot at 677 Bloomfield is currently used by an active day care center, which also uses the former Sacred Heart School building. The Archdiocese of Newark has also leased out the western paved area to O’Boyle Landscaping for the latter’s truck parking.
Sacred Heart School, which held its last religious classes in 2002, has been the subject of a “conceptual plan” for a four story apartment building last year.
GLEN RIDGE – The sudden Oct. 1 resignation of an incumbent Glen Ridge Board of Education member has shaken up both the school board lineup and the campaign for the Nov. 8 General Election.
Dr. Heather Yaros-Ramos, without official explanation, has stepped down after nine years and three terms on Oct. 1. The other seven members Yaros-Ramos has left behind will review resumes received here Oct. 1-7 and are to pick her interim successor at their Nov. 9 meeting.
The interim member will be a member through the board’s Jan. 4 reorganization meeting. It is not clear whether her resignation was made before Essex County Clerk Chris Durkin can remove her name from the Nov. 8 Election Day ballot.
Who will ultimately succeed Yaros-Ramos will be up to participating registered borough voters. Tricia Akinwande, Darius K. DeHard, Elisabeth Ginsburg and Steven Lord remain on the ballot. Sole running incumbent Ginsburg and newcomer Akinwande – and Yaros-Ramos – received the borough’s Civic Conference Committee, on Sept. 1.
Borough, Montclair Lift Water Emergencies
Glen Ridge Mayor Stuart K. Patrick and Montclair colleague Sean Spiller lifted their respective separate nonessential water use emergencies .2 and 3 p.m. Oct. 15. They issued their water state of emergencies after a 72-in. North Jersey Water District Commission main had broken in Nutley on Nov. 7. Both the borough and the township relied on Passaic Valley Water Commission’s supply from Cedar Grove and Verona until the break was repaired.
Up to 130,000 North Jersey and affected Newark Water Supply customers from 12 other towns in three counties – including Newark, Belleville and Bloomfield – also endured low water pressure for the duration.
MONTCLAIR – The recent real estate website posting of 369 Claremont Ave being up for sale had prompted perhaps an unexpected response here Oct. 16.
About 100 interested people came out Sunday afternoon to keep the James Howe House intact and be placed on the township’s register of historic places. The 800-square-foot two-story house, built around 1780, is also known as the “Freed Slave House.”
One of the township’s first houses was built by William Crane – as in Montclair forerunner “Cranetown” – and is named after the township’s first freed slave. Maj. Nathaniel Crane bequeathed the house to James Howe and his family in 1831. It has also been called “George Washington’s Wayside Home” on the belief that the Revolutionary War general had briefly set up his campaign headquarters there.
369 Claremont, after being in the Howe family for 60 years, was the residence of a mother and two children as late as 2013. It was rented out then by Robert Van Dyk, who also owned an adjacent nursing home.
The Friends of the Howe House has been talking with the property owner while raising money to purchase the around 222-year-old house.
At the worst, a purchaser seeking demolition of the Howe House will have to go through the Montclair Historic Preservation Commission.
BELLEVILLE – Mayor Michael Melham, during Oct. 11’s Township Council meeting, revealed just where the just-appointed consulting professional planner would be studying for redevelopment.
Melham said that CME & Associates, of Medford, was being hired to study “371 and 411 Main St.” The mayor was responding to resident and former councilman Mario Drodz’s request for details.
That address, which was not spelled out on that Tuesday night’s agenda, is better known as the former Kmart building that had ended its 42-year run here by April 15, 2021.
JLL Retail, which had been offering the 5.95-acre site as up for lease, had placed concrete blocks at 333 parking space lot’s entrances. “Local Talk” had noticed a drilling company from Collingswood taking some 40 ground sample cores from the lot this summer.
Although the former Eastwood Wire site remains in private hands, the Township Council passed on its request to the Belleville Planning Board to see if the property can be cited as a “Condemnation Area in Need of Redevelopment” in October 2021. That request was passed, 5-2, with council members Marie Strumolo-Burke and Steve Rovell dissenting.
It appears that studying 371-411 Main St. for “CAINOR” has either not been done by the planning board or been scheduled for a public hearing.
