TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said that foul play had been ruled out regarding the homeless man whose body was found in the Hotel Divine Riviera here on Jan. 29.
A Riviera employee altered an on-duty Newar police officer about an unresponsive man he had found in one of the hotel rooms at 1:59 p.m. The officer, who was working at 169 Clinton Ave. at the time, called for first responders.
The man was declared dead at the scene at 2:25 p.m. Neither NPD nor the Regional Medical Examiner or the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services have disclosed the man’s cause of death as of press time.
That the homeless man was found unresponsive in one of the former hotel’s 220 rooms may come as a surprise to some observers. It appears that its latest owners, the KS Group, has reopened the 101-year-old, eight story Clinton Hill building as a temporary shelter.
KS, after buying the building for $8.5 million last April, sent out its then inhabitants and had boarded up its first floor windows and doors. How the new owners evicted the residents brought an outcry from them and community activists.
The prior owners ended their 17-year run here after the Newark Central Planning Board denied their plans to convert the 220 dwelling units into 99 apartments Sept. 25, 2022. The applicants offered 12 parking spots when their density would have required 99 – but the hotel has been long limited to a maximum 60 spaces.
IRVINGTON – State Superior Court Judge Michael J. Ravin sentenced a Bloomfield man Tuesday to a 35-year state prison sentence for his part in a fatal 2022 shooting of a gas station attendant here.
Lamar Sommers, 36, is to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence before being considered for parole or early release. A Superior Court-Newark jury had convicted him of first-degree murder and two second-degree weapons offenses in the death of Jahque Benbow, 23, on May 11, 2022.
The jury found Sommers guilty of driving two other men to within a block of the service station that night. He waited in the car while one of the other men shot Benbow five times and drove them away from the scene.
ECPO Assistant Prosecutor Felicia Garnes noted that station bystanders fled the scene when the shots rang out. Benbow became a father, added Garnes, when his baby was delivered hours later on May 12, 2022 – but will never experience it.
EAST ORANGE / BLOOMFIELD – A city man arrested and charged in Bloomfield – twice – for the serial shoplifting of two CVS Pharmacies in the township Jan. 24 and 27.
Bloomfield Police supervisors said that Rhett Ellis, 59, was identified by the loss prevention officer of the CVS at 331 Broad St. in the North Center section, Jan. 24. The LPO agent told responding BPD officers that the suspect had concealed some merchandise and left without paying.
BPD officers apprehended a man, later identified as Ellis, nearby and brought him back to the drugstore for confirmation. He was then taken to Bloomfield Ralph Colasanti Law Enforcement Headquarters for processing and released with a court date.
Police officers may have asked, “You, Again?” to Ellis after he was picked up in connection with a shoplifting from the CVS at 250 Glenwood Ave. Jan. 27. This drug store, on the site of the Gordo electric factory, is part of a strip mall where Town Centre and Watsessing meet.
That store manager told arriving officers that the man had concealed cosmetics and detergent in a bag and left without paying. Ellis was arrested on site, processed at headquarters and released with a second court date. He is alleged to have stolen $1,000 worth of goods from both pharmacies.
ORANGE – Another link to Our Lady of the Valley High School and St. Venantius was lost with the recent death of Edward C. D’Antonio, 76, Valley High School Class of 1966.
Although D’Antonio was born in Jersey City July 18, 1947, he, parents Rocco and Rose and sisters Amelia and Lucyann soon moved to Orange. The D’Antonios became members of St. Venantius Parish on 275 Central Ave.
Eddie attended St. Venantius School and was promoted to Valley High. His obituary and tributes on Facebook told of his liking to play baseball on Central Field – which was the home baseball diamond and football gridiron for the Valley Knights teams.
It is not clear whether D’Antonio was a Valley High baseball player as of press time. He did graduate to become a USAF Reserve member and to work as a respiratory therapist at Summit’s Overlook Hospital. Ed and Dr. Linda D’Antonio soon moved to Berkeley Heights to be closer to Overlook and to raise sons Christian, Justin and Kristopher and daughters Jennifer and Megan.
Ed and Linda last moved to Manahawkin in 1999 – where he had died Feb. 9. Twelve grandchildren also survived him. Paul Ippolito – of Summit, not its original Orange – arranged his Feb. 15 Funeral Mass and entombment at White Cedars Memorial Park.
Both Valley High School and St. Venantius had closed by 1981. Valley High’s gymnasium is being temporarily used by Cleveland Street School during the latter’s own renovations. St. Venantius School is now Iglesia Mision Cristiana; the rest of the parish replaced by a 2000s apartment complex at Central Avenue and South Center Street.
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange Public Schools Board of Education, in a special Jan. 30 meeting here at its headquarters, unanimously appointed Dr. Dia Bryant to the resigned Jennifer Tunnicliffe’s seat.
Detroit native Bryant, said WOPL administrators, was among 15 people who sent in their resumes. She had been Education Trust-New York’s executive director before resigning to spend more time with her family. Her previous experience includes being a teacher, a school founder and the special assistant to New York City’s Public Schools’ first deputy chancellor.
Dr. Bryant earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Kalamazoo College, her masters in math education from Brooklyn College and her doctorate in education leadership from the Harvard School of Education.
Bryant succeeds former board president Tunnicliffe, who resigned Jan. 4. The doctor had agreed to serve until Jan. 1, 2025. The Bryant née Tunnicliffe seat will be added to the November Board of Education Election ballot along with the two scheduled seats held by Brian Rock and Eric Stevenson.
Newcomer Maria Vera was inaugurated to her first term at the same meeting.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Essex Fire Department and up to two neighboring departments on mutual aid responded to a pair of village house fires Feb. 5-6. The fires left three firefighters injured and two dogs dead.
The first SEFD unit, Rescue 1, showed up at a Redmond Road house at 11:40 a.m. and its captain found fire and smoke from the residence’s left side. SEFD Fire Chief Jose Alverez said that the captain promptly pulled two more alarms.
All SEFD hands plus units from Irvington, East Orange, Orange and Union soon arrived at the scene. Units from Newark covered both town’s stations.
Although all inhabitants got out, two dogs had died at the scene. Three firefighters were injured; two were treated at the scene and a third taken to RWJBarnabas Health Cooperman-Barnabas Hospital for further treatment. The transported firefighter is to return to duty this week.
SEFD Engine 83 responded to a 911 call from a Seton Place house Feb. 6 and its captain found smoke and flames coming from its basement. Mutual aid was called: units from Irvington, Orange and Union came to the scene while units from Newark, East Orange and West Orange covered SEFD stations.
While all residents were evacuated without injury both houses are deemed uninhabitable. The SEFD Fire Marshall is investigating the fires’ causes.
MONTCLAIR – Township elders hailed Montclair Police Officer Scott McGrath Jan. 31 for rescuing a motorist – in West Orange and while off duty – Oct. 5.
McGrath was driving on West Orange’s Eagle Rock Avenue Oct. 5 when he noticed a traffic jam ahead of him. That back up was caused by a stationary car at the head of the line — and its four-way hazard lights were on.
As McGrath approached the car, its driver, Michelle Moriarty, met him and pointed to his front seat passenger. James Brown was slumped over unconscious.
McGrath immediately applied CPR on Brown and called West Orange 911. He performed CPR for three-to-five minutes until a West Orange Police officer arrived and took over. McGrath assisted until local medics transported Brown to a local hospital.
Brown improved to where he was taken off a respirator Oct. 8. He suffered no signs of brain damage and has complete feeling in his extremities. Medics believe that he had suffered a heart attack.
At-Large Councilman Roger Terry and Police Chief Todd Conforti presented McGrath a proclamation of merit for his heroism.
BELLEVILLE – Township elders and officials are examining comments made by residents Jan. 4-Feb. 9 regarding an application of state Green Acres funding for a Belleville Municipal Stadium Complex improvement project. The comments included a public hearing held in the Township Council Chambers Jan. 23.
The township wants to use a combination of municipal funds and those to be acquired from the Green Acres program to make improvements on the stadium to Belleville High School’s east. The upgrades, should Belleville receive the state funding, would include renovating the stadium’s grandstand, build new offices for the Belleville Recreation Department and create ADA-accessible restrooms.
The renovations will be made on the 1930’s WPA-era concrete grandstand on the east side of the stadium’s older football gridiron. The proposed improvements will not affect the more modern gridiron and one-quarter-mile running track between it and BHS itself.
Neglia Engineering and Construction Management Services were contracted to upgrade the “in between” football field and running track in time for the April 18, 2023 recreation start. It was a 2021-23 $5.2 million project to help repair some three decades of maintenance deficiencies.
The new running track, for example, replaced a cinder track from the 1930s. Conditions were so bad that the Belleville High School track team had no home track 1986-2023.
NUTLEY – Traffic, including Transit’s No. 74 buses, were detoured around Lambert Square the morning of Feb. 5 while first responders and contracted towers freed a tractor trailer truck that was wedged under a Franklin Avenue railroad bridge.
A Nutley Police Department report said that a northbound truck got wedged beneath the former Erie Newark Branch bridge north of High Street before dawn that Monday. While the bridge suffered a scrape, the Met Express Freightliner’s trailer was structurally bent.
The truck was dislodged by lunch time while cargo from the wrecked trailer was transferred to a second Met Express truck from its Saddle Brook headquarters. A contracted heavy-duty tow truck at the scene waited to uncouple and dislodge the trailer.
There are four 12′-4″ Low Clearance warning signs posted around the bridge: one in each direction five feet before the bridge, a northbound sign at the corner of East High Street and a fourth facing southbound on the bridge itself.
Nutley had a Franklin Avenue Station a block west on High Street before the Erie ended passenger service in 1966 and was replaced by a medical office building by 1997. Norfolk Southern uses the branch into Clifton’s Allwood section about once a week; it used to serve Hoffman-LaRoche here until it moved away in 2013.
I’m sorry to hear about the closure and partial boarding up of the Hotel Riviera. It had its problems but was one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever visited. Sorry also to hear about the homeless man if it isnt fake news.