TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The American Red Cross Essex County chapter is supplying temporary housing and immediate needs, including food and clothing, to the 10 families displaced by a June 8 fire here in the Roseville section.
The first Newark Fire Department units – Engine 15 and Ladder Truck 7 from 271 Park Ave. – needed only a minute to arrive at 260 North 6th St a block south after getting a fire call at 6:10 p.m. Saturday. The incident commander noticed heavy smoke and flames coming from the three-story 1909-built house and pulled a second alarm.
Newark Fire and police units closed North 6th Street between West Sixth Avenue and Park Avenue. An engine, used to pump water, took up Park Avenue’s eastbound right hand lane.
Firefighters checked the building’s basement for residents and found no occupants; 25 or 26 people, depending on the record, had self-evacuated. The fire was brought under control by 6:30 p.m. No injuries were reported.
The June 8 fire was among 22 that first responders and the American Red Cross had fielded statewide June 1-10. The reports include a June 5 fire at Irvington’s 27 W. Avon Ave. The local Red Cross said that their resources are starting to strain and may soon ask for the public’s help.
IRVINGTON – One of the six individuals honored as the Irvington High School Athletic Hall of Fame inductees came up twice to accept honors at its May 16 ceremony – one for himself and one for his late father.
IHS head wrestling coach Kyle Steele was first called up to accept his own award onto the induction stage at Nutley’s Mamma Victoria’s in Nutley that Thursday night. He was enshrined for his work in launching and guiding the IHS Blue Knights girls flag football team to two Super Football Conference championships in its first four years. Members of those flag football teams were among the Hall of Fame’s guests.
Steele then came up to the podium to accept father Ralph’s HoF plaque. Ralph Steele, a longtime IHS sports public address announcer, was hailed for his starting the Irvington Golden Knights Pop Warner Football program. The elder Steele died in March 2023.
Other individual inductees include:
- The late Nashawn Brooks, Class of 2019. The football and wrestling star was killed in a 2021 car crash.
- Yvonne Bradford, Class of 1990, soccer and track and field standout.
- Bruce Essing, 1998-2008 IHS Athletic Director.
- Randy James, Class of 2006, outstanding track and field athlete.
The 1975 varsity football squad was inducted as a team. The Blue Knights’ 7-3 regular season did not include an eight-game winning streak that began in the 1974 season. They became the first IHS gridiron players to reach the NJSIAA playoffs and was ranked as high as eighth place by Essex County sports writers that year There were 18 members of that squad plus members of 1974-76 teams who also played that playoff year in attendance.
Brooks’ father, Reggie Toran, received the Irvington Varsity Club’s Milton “Mickey” Wiener Mentorship Award for his work with Irvington’s student-athletes and the community.
EAST ORANGE – The city, like its Newark neighbor, will be enforcing a curfew June 21 through Sept. 2.
City Public Safety Director Maurice Boyd Police Chief Phyllis Boindi and Recreational and Cultural Affairs Director Jamal Pearson, at their June 4 announcement, said they will be coordinating enforcement efforts among themselves plus the city’s fire and OEM divisions. They will be stepping up patrols and inspections throughout the city and target “hotspot” locations. OFD personnel will resume distributing fire and smoke detectors – including those for the hearing impaired.
Unaccompanied minors 16 years old and younger are not to “be in a public place” in East Orange on those overnights 11:30 p.m. – 5:30 a.m. This enforcement, established by a 1997 ordinance, was written to be year-round.
None of the speakers that Tuesday said whether they will have parental notifications and social worker follow-up like Newark has outlined for this summer. Bindi, while declaring that the curfew is not “a one-size-fits-all solution,” added that police officers will use sensitivity and compassion “that require an adaptable approach.”
The “aggressive enforcement,” like Newark’s curfew, accompanies a “Safe Summer Initiative”.. Pearson unveiled a slate of events, ranging from “pop-up” block parties, “Adopt a Park” events, “Cardio with Cops” fitness sessions, basketball games, Police Athletic League Safe Haven and Police Explorers programs, boys and girls mentoring, summer camps and sports clinics.
ORANGE – Three Newark men and their lawyers are exploring their next move since a Newark federal grand jury, on June 10, posted a bill of indictment regarding the armed robbery of a pharmacy here on Jan. 16.
Reginald Ware, 52, Nyiron Williams, 22, and Jamon Crosby, 35, were each indicted of carrying, showing and using a firearm during a crime plus committing a Hobbs Act robbery and conspiracy thereof.
The jury had found that the evidence against the trio was sufficient to hold a criminal trial. The federal Hobbs Act, established in 1940, covers robberies and/or extortion affecting interstate or international commerce.
U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said the trio were accused of pulling up to the unnamed drug store Jan. 16 and, minutes apart, entered the pharmacy while wearing masks. Ware and Williams, holding handguns, approached the cashier and demanded money. Crosby, also armed, joined to demand cell phones from the employees.
Before the trio could leave with the cash, cell phones and “at least 10 bottles of prescription medication,” Orange Police officers were waiting for them in the parking lot. They were sent on a silent alarm signal, alerting the OPD headquarters dispatcher.
This was the incident Orange Police Chief Vincent Vitiello described to the City Council at the latter’s meeting that night. Vitiello, for example, said that all nearby schools were put into “shelter-in-place” lockdowns.
The suspects did not get far. Ware was grabbed in the parking lot and Williams apprehended two blocks away. Crosby was caught while he was “breaking into a residence.”
Vitiello said that the threesome were connected to the guns left behind at the store and in the car. The drugs and cash were recovered in the car – which was reported as stolen from Hillside.
WEST ORANGE – Township planning board members have set a continuance of its June 6 public hearing on replacing vacant Revolutionary War era house with a. three-story apartment building at 410 Main St and Park Drive North, for July 10. Its application approval or denial may hinge on whether four left turns make a right.
410 Main St. Holdings, LLC, of Jackson, wants to build the apartment building on 410’s lot plus two adjacent lots on Main and PDN’s southwest corner. An interior parking garage and retail/commercial storefront space are among its features.
410 Main Holdings bought the namesake vacant house for $500,000 May 12, 2023. The 1.5-story wood frame house was built in 1778 when that part of Main Street was part of the Valley Road Indian trail. Its vernacular design was not listed as a West Orange historic site.
It is not clear whether neighbors on Park Drive North and South had presented their petition to the planning board opposing the prospective building’s traffic plan June 6 or will do so on July 10. 410 Main Holdings has placed its garage entrance along Park Drive North – a one-way west bound street.
While garage-bound traffic has a mostly easy way to enter (there may be a question of northbound Main Street traffic taking a left-hand turn onto PDN), exiting traffic will have to make a loop onto Park Drive South to get onto Main Street.
SOUTH ORANGE – Village Tax Assessor Ellen Maigieri is accepting bids from prospective purchasers of the South Orange Water System now through 10 a.m. June 25.
Maigieri, as the village’s qualified purchasing agent, had held a pre-bid conference June 4 and had accepted questions until June 7. What bids that are submitted on or before June 25 are to be publicly unsealed – and the lowest responsible bidder recommended to the Village Council – at a to-be-announced date.
It is not clear whether the village is expressing a desire to replace its water system owner and/or operators or is exploring its options in advance of its contract with New Jersey American Water. While the village and the water provider signed a 30-year water sales agreement in late 2016, their 10-year operation and maintenance contract are up for renewal or expiration Jan. 1, 2027.
South Orange switched its water system operation and maintenance to NJAW from the East Orange Water Commission Jan. 1, 2017. The village has largely drawn its water from NJAW’s Canoe Brook Reservoir and wells in Millburn ever since.
The village and NJAW, in advance of the Jan. 1, 2017 switch, built interconnections. South Orange Water’s interconnections with EOWC and Newark Water remain but are only used in emergencies.
Sixty miles of village-owned water mains – including 3,000 valves and 600 hydrants – serve South Orange’s 4,570 customers.
MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education, at its special June 4 meeting, more than approved Jason Bing as its next Superintendent of Schools.
Bing, who was the finalist from among a pool of 40 applicants, is getting June 20 as his first day at work here – 11 days earlier than his just-approved contract’s July 1 date.
Bing’s current employer – New York’s Dutchess County Board of Cooperative Educational Services – is allowing his early leave. He will also double at SOMSD June 20-30 as its District Supervisor of Special Services. The SOMSD school board’s selection, after a four-month search, brings a familiar name to others in “Local Talk” land.
The Bloomfield Public Schools hired Bing, after two years as Great Meadows’ super, Jan. 1, 2011 and signed a five-year contract with him. He, however, resigned May 1, 2013 after a 2013-14 school budget battle that would have led to district-wide staff layoffs.
Seton Hall University may also recall Bing as a Sister Rose Thering Fellow of its Jewish-Christian and Holocaust / Genocide Studies. He was the first certified master teacher in Holocaust Studies by Rutgers University.
Bing, a Union High School graduate, also was superintendent at Barnegat before going to New York’s Hudson Valley. The University of Massachusetts-Amherst graduate started teaching in the North Plainfield schools before taking up administration in the Phillipsburg and Jersey City districts.
Bing’s critics, however, have “a thing” about his name. He names himself as “Jason Schetelick” on his LinkedIn page. That page has not been updated to reflect that he had been a super at Bloomfield and Jersey City into 2021.
BLOOMFIELD – Those who normally deposit or cash their checks at Provident Bank’s Brookdale Branch here at 1260 Broad St., will have before 3 p.m. Aug. 30 to do so before Provident closes it for good.
Depositors, thereafter, will have to go three miles south to Provident’s Town Centre Branch at 11-13 Broad St. (The former Bloomfield Savings Bank building.) Check cashers will also have to do the same. They may go to other Provident branches and/or online and mobile banking options.
Provident had completed its absorption of Lakeland Bancorp May 16, ending a merger process which began on Sept. 26, 2022. The combined Provident Financial Services currently has 140 branches in New Jersey and parts of New York and Pennsylvania.
The new Provident will have a combined $24.5 billion in assets. Provident stockholders now own 58 percent of the new entity and Lakeland shareholders 42 percent.
“For our customers, we’ve provided this notification well in advance of these closures,” said the Provident spokesperson. “Discussions with affected employees in advance of the external notifications.”
1260 Broad St. is among the 22 branches statewide slated to close on Aug. 30. Provident’s single branches in Belleville, South Orange and West Orange and the four in Newark remain open. Lakeland’s sole “Local Talk” branch at 356 Franklin, St. Nutley is likely to be rebranded as Provident.
MONTCLAIR – What has long been known as St. Paul’s Church at 205 Glenridge Ave. reopened for the first time in 20 years May 31. The building, constructed in 1896 but was vacant and deteriorated since the 2000s, however, has a new calling.
Daysi de Dios had moved her Houss Freya apothecary store from Valley Road in Upper Montclair to the closest sanctuary before Memorial Day. De Dios, who started her business online in 2017 before going “brick and mortar” in 2020 intends to move into the rear of the single story 3,300-square foot structure once all of its renovations are complete.
Township records indicate that 205 Glenridge Ave. was bought in 2022 from another private owner. It had been owned by Pulpit Realty in 2015 with the intention to build a three-unit apartment house.
St. Paul’s started life in 1896 as St. Eric’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, built by Swedish immigrants. It became St. Paul’s in 1927.
A Seventh Day Adventist congregation kept St. Paul’s name when they bought the building in 1965. They had stopped worshipping there before selling it to a private owner for $400,000 in 2008.
The architect for Pulpit had argued before the Montclair Historic Preservation Commission in 2015 that the building’s foundation was undermined by neighboring excavation and the structure was “not salvageable.” The commission did not award pulpit a certificate of appropriateness, which would have been St. Paul’s death warrant.
BELLEVILLE – Town Manager Anthony Iacono, on June 4, announced that Leonard Averhoff has been promoted as Interim Recreation and Cultural Affairs Director for the time being.
Iacono’s promotion of Averhoff came 12 days after he had dismissed longtime director Tom Agosta. The temporary promotion also came eight days after a capacity City Hall Council Chamber crowd inquired Iacono and Mayor Michael Melham of Averhoff’s termination.
It is presumed here that Averhoff will continue until Iacono, with Township Council approval, vets and hires Agosta’s successor. It is not known whether Averhoff is among those candidates being considered.
There had been scarce information on why Agosta was fired. Melham, at the May 28 council meeting, said that Agosta’s status was at the discretion of the township’s CEO – Iacono.
Averhoff, before May 24, was a part-time Belleville Recreation Sports Coordinator since 2019 and, since 2023, the holder of a doctor in education from Seton Hall University.
Averhoff’s LinkedIn resume includes being a full-time Port Authority of NY and NJ police officer 2007-19, a part-time FDU School of Administration instructor, a Hudson County Sheriff’s Officer 2003-07 and an elementary Hoboken school teacher 2001-03.
NUTLEY – Those who want to pay respects to Sgt. A.M. Vreeland here at a cemetery here has had an easier time of doing so since his May 22 headstone’s recovery. Those who visited Vreeland’s marker before May 18 would have easily missed it since it had sunk behind a patch of weeds to a foot above ground level.
That was how Grace, Bethany and Emma McGuire found the tombstone while at the cemetery May 18 and called for their father, John. The foursome were part of Nutley VFW Post 493 who were out cleaning veterans’ gravesites and decorating them with American flags before Memorial Day. The ritual goes back to the first Decoration Day on May 30, 1868.
John McGuire, incoming Post 493 commander and head of the Nutley Veterans Council, took one look, recorded Vreeland’s site and called for backup. He returned May 22 with an assembly of volunteers, including the Nutley Fire Department and DPW.
A DPW backhoe loader operator and NFD firefighters took turns digging out and lifting Vreeland’s headstone. They, in the presence of Mayor John V. Kelly III and DPW Commissioner Mauro Tucci, refilled the cavity, anchored the headstone and planted an American flag.
Post 493 and the Veterans Council take turns annually cleaning and decorating Nutley’s three cemeteries that hold veterans’ graves.
“We try to keep the flags up until July 4,” said McGuire. “This year, we’re going a little more above and beyond. I hope that, by including my daughters. They’ll someday continue the legacy on their own.”
It appears that Sgt. Vreeland – going by the headstone’s material, age, and style – may either have been killed in action or a veteran of one of America’s conflicts 1846-98. That period spans the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American with the Civil War between them.
