TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Wilson Avenue School pupils, parents and staff had found boarded up windows on the Alyea Street side of the building – the last vestige of an Aug. 29 fire there – on Sept. 5’s First Day of School for Students.
Firefighters had contained a fire that was first called in 3:17 a.m. Aug. 29 to a first-floor classroom/multipurpose room later that Tuesday morning. Ten Newark Fire Division units attacked the blaze from the Alyea Street side and from the school’s center courtyard.
Alyea, between Ferry and Patterson Streets in The Ironbound section, was closed during the firefighting. Any delays on NJTransit’s Nos. 1 and 25 routes were not reported. There were no reported injuries.
The fire happened the day before teachers were to report for orientation and staff development and a week ahead of First Day of School. Newark Public Schools maintenance workers and cleaning contractors worked through the Labor Day weekend to make repairs.
Workers opened what windows that firefighters had not left opened and set up extractor fans to clear out smoke. A contracted cleaner’s work truck was seen parked on the courtyard, presumable to help with removing materials damaged by water and soot in adjacent classrooms.
The Wilson Avenue School opened in 1881 as the Hamburg Avenue School. It and the street were renamed after then-President Woodrow Wilson in 1917. The Kindergarten-Eighth Grade school has had several additions over the decades.
The fire’s cause remains under investigation.
IRVINGTON – Irvington Police’s Deputy Chief of Internal Affairs is to go before a Clifton Municipal Judge – not in official capacity but to answer an Aug. 18 DWI charge – there 1 p.m. Sept 26.
Township Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said he had Francisze Piwowarczyk, 48, of Irvington, suspended from duty once he had learned of his arrest. Bowers also had the Irvington Township Ford SUV Piwowarczyk was in early that Friday towed back here from Clifton’s impound lot.
CPD officers on patrol said they were patrolling Route 21 North when they noticed a southbound black four-door Ford SUV with a lot of sparking from its undercarriage at 2:30 a.m.
The officers, when they stopped the vehicle, found that its entire left front wheel assembly – including tire, wheel and brake rotor — was missing and the surrounding bodywork damaged.
Officers, while calling for a contracted flatbed tow truck, said that “the driver showed signs of intoxication” and conducted field sobriety tests. Those field tests confirmed officers’ suspicions and charged Piwowarczyk on Driving While Intoxicated. He was released into the custody of a friend later that day.
Piwowarczyk is being represented by Caldwell attorney Patrick Toscano. The IA Detective Sgt. was promoted to deputy chief Oct. 28, 2019. IPD’s insurance carrier has written off the SUV as totaled.
EAST ORANGE – Five firefighters were injured and local Upsala Heights traffic was detoured while city and Orange firefighters quelled a house fire here Aug. 29.
Officers at the East Orange Fire Department Doddtown Station No. 3 were first informed of a fire at 426 Prospect St. at 2:30 p.m. that Tuesday. The incident commander found heavy smoke and fire coming from the 2.5-story wood frame house’s upper floors and pulled two more alarms.
All EOFD hands plus an engine and a ladder unit from Orange quickly provided mutual aid. The intersection of Prospect Stret and Renshaw Avenue was closed, prompting city police to divert traffic – including NJTransit buses on the Nos. 34B and 94 routes.
Although the fire was brought under control by 3:30, five firefighters suffered minor injuries. They were treated at the scene but were also brought to local hospitals for assessment.
426 Prospect, on the intersection’s northeast corner, was found vacant. The 1910-built house, which was last sold in 2007, had been taken off the real estate market in 2022.
ORANGE – Those who can find at least one of the five taverns here owned by the late Harriette “Chickie” Carbone may want to make a toast in her honor.
Carbone, 85, was a one-time Orange mayoral candidate while owning several Orange and West Orange businesses who had retired to Mayfield, Pa. She died there Aug. 11.
Born Harriette Grosman in Newark Dec. 16, 1937, Carbone moved to the Orange Valley and opened H.M. Carbone & Co. tax preparation office. The 30-year licensed real estate agent and accountant opened Brady’s Bunch along Valley Road, the Operating Room and Recovery Room near Orange Memorial Hospital, Top Shelf and the Rubicon Pub.
Carbone became New Jersey Tavern Owners vice president and secretary for the Orange Chamber of Commerce. She advocated for women’s rights and health issues through the Women’s Health Corporation.
Carbone was among three candidates challenging then-incumbent Orange Mayor Paul Monacelli in the May 1988 nonpartisan election. The election was landmarked by a majority of participating city voters choosing attorney Robert Brown – who became the city’s first African American mayor.
Voters gave Carbone five percent of the vote, behind future mayor Mims Hackett.
Daughter Laurie, daughter-in-law Marion and caregiver Megan are among Carbone’s survivors. Memorial donations may be made to the West Orange Animal Welfare League.
WEST ORANGE – Although the new West Orange Public Library’s grand opening at 10 Rooney Circle has been reset now to around Oct. 15, those who have been shepherding the Essex Green Plaza neighborhood building’s renovation see the new date as the most realistic.
Mayor Susan McCartney, Assistant Business Administrator Peter Smeraldo and DPW Supervisor Lou Reynolds said, on Sept. 8, that the transfer of books and reference materials from its 80 Main St. temporary library to 10 Rooney is to start on Sept. 11. The shelving is to be completed on or by Sept. 30.
10 Rooney – a 1970s office building that used to be headquarters for Lincoln Technical Institute and Beatrice Foods (as in Dannon yogurt) – had been under conversion since Feb. 27.
The project had June 30 and July 15 completion dates. Supply chain delays, however, had caused some. heating and air conditioning components to be back ordered until now.
Feb. 27 was when WOPL reopened at 80 Main after closing its 64-year-old home at 46 Mt. Pleasant Ave. on Feb. 1. The 1959 split-level building and 1979 extension are to be replaced by a five-story senior citizens apartment building. That building has the provision for a library branch – which would be the first since WOPL closed its Tory Corner Branch at 242 Main St. in the 1980s.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Although a predawn fire at a Maplewood house brought all South Essex Fire Department hands plus mutual aid from seven other departments to the scene, injured four firefighters and seriously damaged the 2.5-story building, the two-town department’s chief said the actions of a township police officer prevented further damage.
SEFD Chief Joseph Alverez said that the first call of a fire from 39 So. Pierson Rd. at 1:50 a.m. that Thursday came from a Maplewood police officer who was driving by while on patrol.
The unnamed officer told firefighters that smoke and flames were coming from the house’s second floor and attic. The policeman added that the house, going by a construction sign in a front window was vacant and under renovation. The MPD officer also checked the houses flanking 32 So. Pierson – and found them vacant.
“If that patrol officer wasn’t doing his job, we would’ve had three houses burning before someone realized it,” said Alverez. “Hats off to the MPD.”
Engine 32 from SEFD’s Boyden Street fire station was the first to arrive – and confirmed the MPD cop’s observations. The incident commander pulled a Signal 11 for mutual aid while officers began knocking down the fire.
Units from West Orange, Orange, East Orange, Irvington, Montclair, Millburn and Union joined their SEFD colleagues to the College Hill section scene. Newark Fire Division sent a battalion chief, engine and ladder truck to cover SEFD’s Dunnell Road station. MPD officers barricaded the block and diverted traffic.
The South Orange First Aid Squad treated four firefighters at the scene for a knee injury, a shoulder injury and a pair of minor burns on the backs of two necks. A PSE&G crew arrived to shut off 39 So. Pierson’s gas and electrical lines. Alverez said that the fire’s cause remains under investigation.
BLOOMFIELD – The Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office has charged a Newark man on Sept. 8 with death by auto in the Sept. 1 Jersey City collision that killed passenger and township resident Daniella Rosario.
Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said that Rosario and a second passenger of a 2018 Audi that was being driven by Gabriel Melo, 21. Rosario was killed and Melo and the second, 23-year-old male passenger were injured when the Audi had struck the rear of a tractor trailer truck on NJ Route 139 West’s ramp to US Rt. 1-9 North at 2:15 a.m. Sept. 1 and rolled onto its roof.
Although all three Audi occupants were rushed to the Jersey City Medical Center, Flores was pronounced dead at 2:54 a.m. Flores, who was born in Paramus Oct. 15, 2001, had recently moved from Haledon to Bloomfield.
The once-Ridgewood Ben & Jerry’s ice cream server is survived by parents Rosanna Clase and Daniel Rosario, brother Christian, sisters Shannen and Gabriella and grandparents Manuel and Annie Rosario, Heriberto Clase, Cesar Collado and Carmen Caberea, among others.
Melo was initially charged by Jersey City police with a traffic summons. The 53-year-old truck driver was uninjured.
Rosario was Interred in Paramus’ George Washington Cemetery after a Sept. 8 visitation and Sept. 9 at the Vander Plaat Memorial Home. A GoFundMe.com page has been established to help with her funeral expenses.
Melo, who remains in the Hudson County Correctional and Rehabilitation Center, had his first Superior Court-Jersey City appearance set for Sept. 13.
MONTCLAIR – The Montclair Public Schools administration and board of education had reassured parents – on both sides of the Sept. 6 dais – that the first day of no school bus assignments experienced by some Sept. 5 “will be resolved on or by Noon Friday (Sept. 8).”
MPS Superintendent Jonathan Ponds and Transportation Supervisor Sheila Maurice more than apologized and took responsibility before the board and audience that Wednesday meeting. They presented a reason why some parents had not received bus assignments for their children on the district’s Genesis portal as promised for Sept. 1.
The district had switched from using the Routefinder Pro transportation system software to Routefinder Plus in August. That transition had apparently lost information of some students. MPS employees, once they had discovered the mishap, had been tracing and adding the missing data.
The angered parents at Sept. 6’s meeting included Board Member Alison Silverstein, who said her two children were not assigned a school bus Sept. 1.
Appointed by Mayor Sean Spiller Aug. 23, 2020, Silverstein’s name is among the nine who are on Nov. 7’s election ballot for three BOE seats.
Ponds and Maurice are to present a complete report on the file loss and recovery at the Sept. 18 meeting.
GLEN RIDGE – An all points bulletin by the Glen Ridge Police Department here Aug. 23 helped their Bloomfield colleagues nab two theft from auto suspects from New York City the same day.
The GRPD “heads up” described two males who were seen looking for unlocked car doors to open and perhaps enter. The suspect’s descriptions matched those of the two men who were later seen by BPD officers. along their Cleveland Terrace.
Bloomfield officers detained Rafael Martes and Jasah Frazier, both 18 while checking on motor vehicles parked along Cleveland Terrace. They found four cars whose interiors had been “rummaged through.”
Martes and Frazier were put under arrest when “they had contents from those vehicles in their possession.” The duo were taken to BPD headquarters to be charged with theft from autos and released with a municipal court summons.
It is presumed that both police departments informed the affected car owners of the suspicious activity and the thefts from autos.
BELLEVILLE – A township woman, who had vowed to Kearny police Aug. 27 that she would kill herself before getting arrested again, may be instead extradited to Lakewood, Ohio.
Two Kearny police officers, responding to a Walmart report of a woman leaving with unpaid concealed items, caught up with the suspect while she was walking westward in the store’s parking lot. The woman, instead of following officers’ call to stop, began fighting them – during which she uttered her vow.
The suspect – identified as Gloria Flores, 59, of the Silver Lake section – was handcuffed but kept kicking the officers until she was put in a Kearny police headquarters-bound cruiser. Flores was found with $572.07 worth of merchandise, a pair of scissors and various “drug paraphernalia.”
The Kearny Walmart loss prevention officer pressed the following charges against Flores: robbery, possessing drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest and aggressive assault of a law enforcement officer. A records check found that she was also on a National Criminal Information Center database from the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood.
Flores had previously been on Bloomfield’s blotter June 7. She was accused of shoplifting items from the Franklin Square Shopping Plaza’s Stop & Shop by the Belleville border, leaving – and returning to try to steal more.
Flores, as of Sept. 5, had been remanded to South Kearny’s Hudson County Correctional and Rehabilitation Center.
