TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – What prompted the Oct. 14 protest demonstration before the Hotel Riviera can be found on an exterior wall of the century old 165-69 Clinton Ave. / 801-03 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. here as late as Oct. 24.
There is a giant poster along the Clinton Avenue side of the nine-story, 220-bed hotel building announcing a preliminary and final site plan application to be heard before the Newark Zoning Board of Adjustment Sept. 29. The poster, informing the public of site plan proposals, is a recent Newark zoning and planning board requirement.
Applicant 169 Clinton Ave. Development LLC – acting for owners Riviera Hotel Corp. and KS Group, of 45 Academy St., Newark – had proposed converting the hotel into a 99-unit apartment building with 2,077 square feet of street level retail/commercial space. The LLC also included expanding part of the top floor and opening a garden patio on its roof.
169 Development was asking the zoning board to consider the proposal under the Old Third Ward Urban Redevelopment Zone, which includes meeting a density requirement. The applicant was also asking the board for variances for insufficient parking lot space and exterior lighting onto that lot.
Newark’s first million dollar hotel, including a dining room and a street level drug store serving 300 beds, opened on the prominent Clinton Hill corner in 1922. M.J. “Father” Divine bought the Great Depression-affected hotel in 1949 for $550,000. The charismatic and controversial reverend, on one hand, desegregated the hotel but, on the other hand, forbade alcohol, tobacco and unnecessary mingling of the sexes on the property.
Riviera Hotel Corp. bought the building for $800,000 from Peace Mission Sept. 21, 2006. The building, according to posted property sale records, had gone through Peace Mission and four other previous owners for $1 earlier that day.
The zoning board, citing that the hotel should have been built for 60 rooms and a parking lot for 60 cars, denied 169 Development’s application. The Oct. 14 demonstration came out of a report that hotel management were threatening residents with eviction should they speak out on conditions there.
IRVINGTON – Township and Newark police detectives, when they find the thief who took a car in the former and abandoned it in the latter Oct. 18 will likely ask two questions:
“When did you see the baby in the back seat?” and “How long did it take you to dump the car?”
IPD officers, acting on the owner’s call, put out an all points bulletin on a grey Mercedes SUV with temporary Texas license plates last seen heading east from the 1100 block of Clinton Avenue at 8:10 p.m. that Tuesday.
Township police added that there was a baby asleep in the rear passenger seat when the thief, believe detectives, entered the unlocked and idling SUV. NPD officers found the Mercedes abandoned by the 10 block of their Osborne Terrace, at 10:15 p.m. The infant was found unharmed.
It has been to the observation of “Local Talk” that car thieves or carjackers bail out of a stolen vehicle the moment they see a baby or a child also aboard. They dump the car and its passenger to avoid additional charges of kidnapping.
Two hours and five minutes, this time, had elapsed between Irvington’s APB and Newark’s discovery.
EAST ORANGE – A city resident, barring any filed appeals, has started serving at least 17 years of a 20-year aggravated manslaughter sentence in a state prison since Oct. 25.
State Superior Court Judge Vincent J. Militello, from his Jersey City bench Tuesday morning, handed down a 20-year sentence on Thaddeus Williams regarding the Dec. 4, 2020 shooting of Aieshia McFadden. Williams, 39, has to serve at least 85 percent of his prison term under the state’s No early Release Act.
Williams was arrested by East Orange Police Plain Clothes Unit and Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office detectives here along Carnegie Street 7:10 p.m. Dec. 5, 2020. He was accused of shooting McFadden by Jersey City’s 217-19 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive at 8:30 the night before.
McFadden, 36, of Jersey City, was found there with a gunshot wound to her torso. McFadden had been walking to a store with her daughter. She was rushed to the Jersey City Medical Center, where she died at 9:10 p.m.
McFadden, the mother of four, worked in Lincoln High School’s cafeteria. Her oldest son had graduated from LHS in 2018.
Williams had pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter before Judge Militello July 22. He had been charged by HCPO attorneys with first-degree murder, criminal sexual contact and two second-degree weapons charges.
ORANGE – Whether the remains of a founding pastor will be going to St. Mark’s Historic Cemetery here, or to another Episcopal cemetery, or stays in a basement just over the West Orange border, is in the hands of the Diocese of Newark.
A Diocese of Newark official told “Local Talk” Oct. 25 that diocesan trustees have been searching for descendants of the late Rev. Benjamin Holmes to learn their wishes. The trustees, should they be unable to find Holmes’ heirs, may then be left to decide whether to move the rector’s coffin from the basement of the former St. Mark’s Episcopal Church or keep it there.
Volunteer workers renovating the burned out sanctuary and chapel buildings found Holmes’ unmarked crypt around May 1. They had been rebuilding the buildings’ roofs and interiors since St. Mark’s suffered a devastating Jan. 1, 2016 fire. A wall marker commemorating Holmes had been among the removed debris.
Benjamin Holmes (1797-1836) came from a Morristown parish to help start St. Mark’s in 1828. St. Mark’s founding predated the neighboring Erie Loop and West Orange’s 1863 independence from Orange.
Holmes’ parish, which would become the most affluent congregation in The Oranges in the mid-1800s, bought the eastern and southeastern sides of the First Presbyterian Church’s Old Burying Ground about .6 mile east on Main Street. Parishioners also contracted out the construction of St. Mark’s edifice, which would be completed in 1858.
Holmes did not live to see St. Mark’s completion. The then-Orange resident died Aug. 4, 1836 in the parsonage house and his body entombed under the chapel’s main floor. Records of Holmes’ burial had been long lost when the Newark Diocese eventually sold St. Mark’s to a Newark-based congregation in 2015.
The diocese still owns St. Mark’s Cemetery although there has not been a burial there since at least 2010. First Shiloh Baptist Church maintains the Old Burial Ground as part of purchasing “First Pres of Orange” from the Presbytery of Newark in 2016.
WEST ORANGE – A Valley section coffee cafe owner turned to GoFundMe.com so he could afford a kitchen fixture that the township health department recently said he needed to keep operating.
It took Oct. 14-24 for 192 donors to raise the $15,000 Harper’s Cafe owner Garan Dickson said he needed to install a kitchen oven hood that Township of West Orange Health Department inspectors said last month that he needed.
Dickson told a reporter Oct. 16 that he was baffled by the inspectors’ sudden requirement. The need for a hood had not come up in previous inspections since his opening Harper’s Cafe in October 2019. The longtime township resident had revived 134 So. Valley Rd., which had been vacant for 10 years.
Dickson got through the COVID pandemic by making some 5,000 lunches in the cafe for the hungry. What started out as a school lunch effort expanded, with help of his chef and volunteers, to aid the local elderly and food insecure.
Dickson, during the pandemic’s height, was taken to civil court by his landlord. The landlord said he was owed $30,000; Dickson showed that he had never missed a rent payment.
Council members Cindy Matute-Brown and William Rutherford had met with Dickson and representatives of the fire and health departments to resolve the “missteps” that had led to the $15,000 hood requirement.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The two-town public school district, a hometown Olympic fencer and a Muslim civil rights group are among the parties being sued by a former teacher this month over charges that she had removed a hajib from a student here last year.
Tamar Herman has filed a defamation lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court-Elizabeth Oct. 5 against SOMSD, fencer Ibthaj Muhammad and the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New Jersey chapter, citing “irreparable harm” and “relentless discriminatory treatment.” She has also filed a parallel suit Oct. 4 in U.S. Federal Court-Newark.
That harm, asserts Herman, has caused her to move out of her Maplewood home. The 20-year instructor, added attorney Erik Dykema, may not find another public school teaching job.
Tamar was a second grade teacher at Maplewood’s Seth Boyden School Oct. 6, 2021 when she said he had inadvertently brushed back the hajib of one of her students that was beneath a hooded sweatshirt. She said she moved the hajib back and profusely apologized.
The seven-year-old, upset, told her mother that her teacher tried to pull off her hijab. Her parents told their friend, Muhammad – who posted the accusations on her Instagram account.
CAIR-NJ also joined in the denouncing of Herman. SOMSD pulled Herman from the classroom and put her on administrative leave until the conclusion of their investigation. The school district soon received phone calls and email from people who wanted Herman’s immediate firing.
An investigation by the Maplewood Police Department was transferred to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. ECPO, saying it could not find enough evidence to pursue criminal charges, closed its investigation Jan. 18.
MAPLEWOOD – A memorial for Maplewood Chief of Police James DeVaul is to be held Oct. 27 here at the Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home, followed by his funeral at Maplewood Town Hall 11:30 a.m. Oct. 28.
DeVaul, 53, said Mayor Dean Dafis, had died at Allentown, Pa’s Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest Oct. 21. He was admitted with a serious illness there in Oct. 14. Dafis, that same Friday, promoted Deputy Chief Albert Sally as Acting Police Chief.
“We’re heartbroken and in disbelief,” said Dafis. “Jimmy led with deep conviction, challenging the old guard, transforming the department and bringing us closer together. We shall gather as a community in a forthcoming ceremony when we’ll celebrate his life and nearly 30 years of service to Maplewood.”
DeVaul, since his promotion to chief in 2018, supported the Community Board on Police that was founded that year. He was also an advocate for the Maplewood Restorative Justice Program for youth.
DeVaul, Columbia High School Class of 1987, attained a degree at nearby Union County College before joining the force in 1993. He was awarded several unit and command citations, including one in 2012 for “critical services provided to the public at great personal risk.”
Wife Krista, sons Jeramy DeVaul, Nicholas and Thomas DeLucy and Kevin McGowan; daughter Alexandra McGowan, brother Steven and father Robert DeVaul, Sr. are among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made to St. Judge Children’s Hospital.
BLOOMFIELD – Whether the former Friendly’s Restaurant here at 1243 Broad St. will be replaced by a combined Taco Bell / Wendy’s may be decided by the Bloomfield Planning Board in a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 2.
Finomus Bloomfield RE Holdings LLC, which owns Block 1088, Lot 59, had revised the traffic flow plan to their proposed fast food eateries at the last meeting. The No Left Turn sign – installed during Friendly’s 52-year run to prevent left hand turns onto southbound Broad Street – remains on the plan.
That No Left Turn sign may be critical to the planning board’s approval or denial. It was installed across Broad Street to curtail local traffic.
The restaurant site is adjacent to a 25 mph bend on Broad Street and an intersection with the western end of West Passaic Avenue. An eye doctor’s office and a Bloomfield fire station flank the site. The Brookdale Elementary School, Provident bank and a NAPA auto parts store are across the street.
The Friendly’s / eye doctor’s office used to be the site of the late 1700s Ward House. The house, then at 1255 Broad St., was moved to Macleod Lane in 1954 to make way for the Garden State Parkway.
The special public hearing is to be on Zoom, Facebook Live and cable television channels 30 (Verizon) and 35 (Comcast).
MONTCLAIR – Township Manager Timothy Stafford, as of 12:01 a.m. Oct. 26, has been put on paid administrative leave. Deputy Manager Brian Scantlebury will be working in Stafford’s stead.
Stafford’s leave came after midnight Wednesday when the Township Council approved Mayor Sean Spiller’s resolution on a split 5-1-1 vote before a packed Council Chamber audience. Councilman and former mayor Robert Russo, wanting Stafford’s firing, voted “No.” Councilman and Stafford critic Peter Yacobellis recused himself.
Spiller resolution will keep Stafford on paid leave “pending the conclusion of the independent employment practices investigation concerning the allegations and statements reportedly made by a council member in previously mentioned articles.” The passage refers to Yacobellis’ Oct. 19 statements that Township CFO Padjama Rao was the first woman township employee to make harassment claims public.
One of the news outlets that Yacobellis had talked with obtained a copy of an internal investigation report made on Stafford by Township Affirmative Action Officer Bruce Morgan last August. Morgan had found that Stafford had created a hostile work environment, including “yelling at Rao and banging on his desk” in response to the CFO bringing up certain financial matters.
Rao had filed an Oct. 17 complaint in Superior Court-Newark against Stafford and the township. The seven-year department head, in her 24-page complaint, accuses Stafford of harassment, creating a hostile work environment and retaliation after her recent whistleblowing over the recent fire department promotional exam controversy.
Some of the capacity gallery crowd carried “Corruption Has No Home Here” and called for Spiller’s resignation. Their boisterousness came after the council held a 2.5-hour executive session on Stafford’s status.
BELLEVILLE – Some people within and outside of the township are questioning Belleville elders’ authorizing studying the Irvine-Cozzarelli Memorial Home here as “an Area in Need of Redevelopment.”
The Township Council, on a 3-2-2 split vote Sept. 27, passed a resolution requesting the Belleville Planning Board to study 274-78 Washington Ave., its adjacent driveway at 272 Washington and the 163 Valley St. house behind it as an AINOR. The three lots include the 1887 Irvine-Cozzarelli funeral parlor/J. Cozzarelli Interior Designs building.
“Perhaps Belleville’s first funeral home,” said the Belleville Historical Society, “has a nationwide reputation for an interior with its artistic and architectural beauty.” Some of that interior has been the setting for several scenes in HBO’s “The Sopranos” series.
William J. Irvine, Jr. sold the business and building to James J. Cozzarelli, Jr. in 1972. The active business, on one hand, has been owned by the Cozzarelli estate since his death last year. Cousin Frank Cozzarelli, on the other hand, told a reporter Oct. 21 that the family has tried unsuccessfully to sell the company and property to other funeral directors.
An accompanying resolution, authorizing the Belleville Planning Board to accept a study escrow account from Englewood Cliffs’ Premier Developers, was adopted to the same roll call vote. Premier, whose lawyer call the property “blighted,” may be best known for the under-construction apartment building.
Mayor Michael Melham, Deputy Mayor Naomy DePena and Fourth Ward Councilman John Notari carried both measures. Third Ward Councilman Vincent Cozzarelli and At-Large Councilman Thomas Graziano abstained. First Ward Councilwoman Marie Strumolo-Burke and Second Ward Councilman Steve Rovell noted “no.”
The Belleville Planning Board is to study the idea of an ANIOR for the three lots and return to the council with its recommendations. The council will then vote on whether to apply the redevelopment designation – which may include demolition.
NUTLEY – A township man, whose name has a familiar ring to it, was caught up in a recent Hudson County Sheriff’s Office outstanding arrest warrant dragnet.
James Defazio, 43, was among the 33 people from 12 towns and three states who were picked up by Hudson County Sheriff Frank X. Schillari’s Sept. 24 “Operation Fall Sweep.” The arrests ranged from warrants on aggravated assault to probation violation.
Schillari said that Defazio was arrested that Saturday on a burglary warrant. Details on that incident, however, were not disclosed.
“Local Talk” readers may recall that Defazio was arrested at Lyndhurst Police Headquarters Sept. 2 He was charged as the suspect in a Sept. 1 nearby residential burglary and dropping some of the stolen items behind that Bergen County town’s municipal building.
Defazio had been remanded then to Hackensack’s Bergen County Jail on three counts of possession of stolen property plus a count each of burglary and theft.
