TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Those University Hospital trailers that occupy the block bordered by Bergen, Market and Cabinet streets and 12th Avenue, recently said the hospital’s CEO, will be gone by this time next year.
What was meant to be temporary medical offices when erected for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Hospital in the late 1960s, said CEO Ed Jimenez to the Municipal Council Oct. 8, will be replaced by a new building to help University Hospital to meet current needs.
Jimenez added that the new building is part of a $1.8 billion, nine-year renovation and expansion of University Hospital’s mostly 1973-era campus buildings. The State of New Jersey allocated the first $2i5 million in March to start work.
The emergency ward, for example, will be expanded by at least 30 percent. Jimenez said that the ward was built when Newark had six hospitals and Essex County another seven. They are respectively down to three and four.
“When they designed the ER on the first floor, they projected 50,000 patients,” said the hospital president. “Fifty years later, 110,000 patients (on) the same real estate. No one thought that there would be no updates years later or this many people coming through the doors.”
The trailers went up while the then-Martland Hospital and the city were negotiating a community service component. That pact killed the Interstate 70 connector between I-280 and I-87 and created the UMDNJ medical school.
University Hospital was separated from UMDNJ’s renamed Rutgers Medical School in 2013. Rutgers, more recently, merged their Newark and New Brunswick medical campus, sending some Newark area patients to the latter.
University Hospital, a Level One Trauma Center, remains open to patients regardless of income and/or insurance status.
IRVINGTON – Township officials and representatives of the 21st Street Redevelopment Group broke ground on a $100 million housing and community center project in the East Ward here at 5 Standard Pace Oct. 17.
The “Sankofa Enclave at Twenty First Street” is to feature mixed housing. A five-story building is to contain 240 affordable housing units as the project’s second phase. Five of the units are earmarked to support young women who are aging out of foster care.
The enclave’s main building is to share space with 15 two-family homes. Those five houses are to be the first structures built in the three-to-five-year project. A four-story 30,000 sq. ft. community development center, to be open for all of Irvington but focused on programming for girls and women, is to follow.
21st Street Redevelopment Group is a public-private partnership between township and corporate entities. Two of the parties – Thatcher Duncan Group LLC founder Nana Duncan and Dr. Vika Gupta of Akshay Investment LLC were at the groundbreaking.
The partnership makes financing from the public and banking sectors possible. Some of the $100 million includes the remnant of the $2.6 million in USHUD grants awarded to Irvington and Brand New Day in 2010. Brand New Day and the township had projected 30 single family homes back then.
Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss said, at the groundbreaking, that Irvington resident will get first choice in residency and with construction jobs.
EAST ORANGE – An off-duty city police officer, said Newark law enforcers became a victim of an armed “Bump and Jack.” in one of its neighborhoods early on Oct. 19.
Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said that the policeman was driving on Broadway when his vehicle was rear-ended at the Second Avenue intersection at 4:37 a.m. Saturday.
The EOPD officer pulled over and got out to inspect damage – and met three masked men with their handguns pointed at him. They demanded his keys and personal effects.
Frage said that the officer complied, and the suspects drove away with his car from the Lower Broadway crossroads.
It is not clear as of press time whether his service gun was in his vehicle at that time. Descriptions of the three suspects, the “bumping” car and the stolen vehicle have not been released as of press time.
ORANGE – City and Essex County elders saluted an Orange Valley restaurant owning and operating family for their 35 years’ service Oct. 15-16.
Salvatore Granata Jr. and Sr. received proclamations hailing their work with Bella Italia Ristorante from the City Council and the Essex County Board of Commissioners at the latter’s chamber in Newark Oct. 16. They also received a proclamation copy which Council President Adrienne K. Wooten and her colleagues had passed at the meeting the night before.
Orange’s two-page Resolution 487-2024 in part states that Salvatore Granata, Sr. came from Southern Italy in 1972 and worked his way from sous chef to executive chef and owner of Bella Italia in May of 1989. Son Salvatore Granata, Jr. has continued casual dining with exceptional service.
“Bella Italia became known for its innovative recipes, gracious hospitality and exquisite catering services, making it one of New Jersey’s most popular dining and catering facilities, welcoming guests from North and South Jersey as well as New York,” read Orange’s proclamation.
County Commission Vice President Tyshammie Cooper, of East Orange, in presenting her colleague’s proclamation added, “The Granata family embodies the spirit of community and service. Their impact on Orange and the surrounding area goes beyond just running a business – they’ve become a cherished part of our culture.”
“The Sals” were joined by several other distinguished Essex County Italian-Americans in the county’s salute that Wednesday night. They included Bloomfield mayor-turned Assemblyman Michael Venezia, Maplewood Madelaine Hicks and Montclair Chief of Police Todd Conforti as part of the commission’s 30th Annual Italian-American Heritage Month Celebration.
Bella Italia is an advertiser and a venue host for “Local Talk” events.
WEST ORANGE – Bringing Target into West Orange Plaza’s anchor space took a step forward when the department store and Levin Management Corp., of Plainfield, signed a lease Oct. 10 to occupy the 211,500 square foot landmark space by next autumn.
The lease will more than clear out the remnants of Kmart, Kohl’s, Caldor and EJ Korvettes. There will be an enlarged loading dock in the back, among other renovations, to upgrade the space that was largely vacant since 2020. (Essex County opened a temporary COVID testing and vaccination site here that summer.)
Those coming to the estimated October 2025 grand opening may also see some other West Orange Plaza improvements, approved by the township’s planning board Oct. 5, 2023, under way.
The 32-acre shopping center’s vast parking lot will be broken up by traffic islands for pedestrians and tree canopies. The first EV charging stations will expand to 45 in three years. The former bank building now occupied by Verizon by the southeast corner will have three new stores next to it.
The current Mavis Tire center on the lot’s northside will broken up into 11 store separated by a pedestrian plaza. Another three stores are to go on a concrete island pad alongside Prospect Avenue. The build out would be completed in 2026.
But will the Target store keep its anchor crown? The Whole Foods supermarket (formerly Pathmark and Hills) is to enlarge to 311,000 sq. ft.
Neither party said why it took a full year since WOPB approval to sign the lease. What is now West Orange Plaza at 235 Prospect Ave., opened on the former Horn golf driving range and ice cream stand in 1957.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – A State Superior Court-Elizabeth appellate judge panel has dismissed two libel lawsuits filed by a former South Orange-Maplewood School District teacher against two Muslim rights organizations Oct. 15 — but allowed a third, against a noted township fencer to proceed.
The three judge panel that Tuesday ruled that former Seth Boyden Elementary Demonstration School teacher Tamar Herman “is a public figure and must prove that statements made against her were malicious.”
Judges Thomas W. Sumners, Jr., Ronald Susswein and Stanley L. Bergman, Jr.’s ruling, which upheld a lower court ruling, that dismissed libel suits against NJCAIR and one other group. They meanwhile greenlighted Tamar Herman vs. Ibtihaj Muhammad to proceed.
Herman had filed suit against the three defendants Oct. 3, 2023. She also has a separate suit against SOMSD’s administrators and board of education.
The chain of events started in 2012 when Herman noticed a girl in her classroom wearing a pullover hooded sweatshirt and tried to pull its hood back. She had testified that she moved the hood back when she had noticed the hajib the girl was wearing underneath.
The girl told her parents what had happened – who, in turn, told their friend Muhammad. The Olympic medal-earning team fencer, a Boyden and Columbia High School alumnae, posted on Instagram the next day that the teacher had pulled off her hijab.
Muhammad’s message was picked up by NJCAIR and the other group, launching a social media barrage against Herman and the school district. The school board put her on immediate administrative leave. Herman said that her home had to have police protection.
BLOOMFIELD – Bloomfield Police Department detectives – and not those from the ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force as of press time – are continuing their investigation of a Newark motorcyclist’s fatal Oct. 14 crash.
Bloomfield Public Safety Director Samuel DeMaio said that some of his officers responded to several Broughton Avenue residents’ 11 p.m. 911 calls that Monday of a motor vehicle accident.
Arriving officers found a man -identified as Cristobal C. Moronta, 42 – lying on the ground with severe injuries. It had appeared that he had been thrown from his bike. Moronta, despite BPD officers and local EMS aid, died at the scene.
Last rites for Moronta, who was born Oct. 12, 1982, were held at Newark’s Alvarez Funeral Home Oct. 21-22. Mother Juana and daughters Marielys and Mia are among “Cris’ ” survivors. A GoFundMe.com page has been set up for funeral expenses and as the daughters’ college fund.
BPD did not call their county colleagues since they found no suspicious activity in the accident. Details of where the crash happened along Broughton nor of any other damage have not been disclosed as of press time.
MONTCLAIR – The Glenfield Middle School PTA, with state PTA supervision, will be holding an Oct. 29 0r 30 vote here to replace its board.
The new election will also be overseen by Interim GMS PTA President Jeremy Pohlwattana, who was installed by PTA members at their Sept. 25 meeting. Members present that Wednesday night ended a contentious meeting by voting 59-0 to remove incumbent president Dee Thompson.
Thomson, post Sept. 25, said that “a disgruntled group of vigilante individuals brought their family and friends to interrupt the meeting. They interrupted the meeting enough that no business could be conducted. We had no choice but to adjourn the meeting before it could officially begin.”
NAACP Montclair Branch President and former PTA president Diane Tyree-Anglin, who was at that meeting, said Glenfield PTA sessions are rarely contentious. She considers the ouster or disruption as “miscommunication and a poor transition.”
Thompson was elected to a two-year term in May 2022. Her critics said that her “corrosive leadership” has led to a lack of transparency of the PTA’s finances. Six board members had resigned and Thompson had stayed on without calling for a May 2024 election.
“While I’m disappointed on how we got here, I’m excited about the path we’re about to take to strengthen our Glenfield PTA community and to temporarily lead us to resolution,” said Pohlwattana. “I’m happy to take on the role of interim president. I assure you that our children and mine are in good hands.”
BELLEVILLE – Township firefighters finished what a “runaway boiler” at Carmer Avenue started in evacuating a residence there on Oct. 15.
The first BFD units responded to calls of smoke coming from a house on the avenue’s 70 block at 10 p.m. that Tuesday. Evacuated residents said they were also experiencing high heat “and loud noises.”
All BFD hands, concerned about a possible boiler explosion, ran hose lines to the building’s basement, taped off a perimeter and called PSE&G. One of the utility’s work truck crews soon arrived to shut off the boiler’s gas feed line.
Fire units from Bloomfield and Nutley arrived at the scene for mutual aid. Other units from Orange, West Orange and Montclair supplied BFD station coverage.
There were no reported injuries. The state’s heating season began on Oct. 1.
