TOWN WATCH
MONTCLAIR – Decamp Bus Lines, after 155 years’ service by a family’s six generations, will park their remaining buses here at 101 Glenwood Ave. and cease operations on Feb. 28.
Company President Robert Decamp announced on Feb. 4 that a combination of rising bus purchase and insurance costs plus difficulties in hiring bus drivers have led them to garage their buses for good. Decamp had been relying on charter and casino bus runs since getting out of the commuter fixed route business on April 7, 2023.
Decamp’s casino bus runs and its phone number will be transferred to Panorama Tours of Wallington. It is presumed that their remaining green, orange and white rolling stock will be parted out to other companies and the former Public Service garage will be sold off.
Decamp tried to bring back six of its eight interstate bus routes to New York Port Authority Bus Terminal in the wake of the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic. They found that their ridership was down 20 percent from 2019 levels in part because riders were reporting to physical work two or three days a week.
Feb. 28 would end the state’s oldest bus company, which started with horse-drawn wagons between Newark and Roseland in 1870. Decamp switched to motor coaches in the 1920s. It enjoyed the early 20th century growth of Hudson River crossings and highways to where it had 250 employees running or maintaining 175 buses in the 1950s.
New Jersey’s highway building boom into the 1980s had placed those roads about six miles apart from the commuter rail lines. The state, through NJDOT and NJTransit, started finishing railroad projects abandoned by the private railroads in the 1960s. Improvements like the re-electrification of the Morris & Essex Line and the Montclair and Secaucus/Kearny connections began to put dents in Decamp and other private bus lines’ ridership.
“The state can go to the taxpayer for more funds,” said then-Decamp Vice President Gary Pard while watching from his office the Montclair Connection being built in 1999-2002. “We have to watch every penny.”
NEWARK – Newark police and ECPO detectives are looking into the circumstances of how and why a municipal worker had entered Newark City Hall before 8:25 a.m. Feb. 6 – but never left the building alive.
Newark Public Safety Director Eugene Miranda said that police officers were told “of a sick or injured man” inside 920 Kenneth A. Gibson Blvd./Broad St at 8:28 a.m. that Thursday. Responding officers found the municipal employee there “unresponsive.”
The otherwise unidentified man was declared dead there at 8:50 a.m. His body went across town to the Regional Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy and medical tests.
The director would not confirm or deny that the deceased was a Corey McGill as one news provider had carried. Miranda only added that the death is not being considered as suspicious.
“Local Talk” will forward any details when they are made available.
IRVINGTON – An investigation by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office continues on the circumstances of an Irvingtonian’s fatal car collision there Feb. 4 while his family conducts a GoFundMe.com fundraising page.
Relatives and friends of Makiano Francois, 36, have started the fundraiser for his funeral expenses. That service, as of press time, only has a Feb. 20 date.
Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone said that Francois had died at New Brunswick’s Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital from injuries he had suffered from a crash at 12:07 a.m. that Tuesday at US Rt. 1 North and Grandview Avenue.
A preliminary investigation has found that Francois’ black Mitsubishi had been rear ended by a Ford Explorer driven by a 48-year-old Brooklyn man. A video crew from the nearby News12NJ headquarters recorded both vehicles being towed by a pair of George Logan Towing flatbed trucks. Logan, of North Brunswick is MCPO’s contracted tower.
The Ford driver had been treated for minor injuries and was released from RWJ University Hospital. Rt. 1 North had been closed between the exit ramp from Interstate 287 to Amboy Road until 5 a.m. for the accident investigation and debris clearing. There are no further details as of press time.
EAST ORANGE – Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green saluted a longtime resident on the federal Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday observance for her 108th birthday – even though the honoree now lives outside city limits.
Inez “Rose” Rosalie Alick Elliot (no known relation) turned 108 on Jan. 20 while resting at Madison’s Pine Acres Healthcare and Rehabilitation center. The longtime Calvary Baptist Church member and East Orange Police School Crossing Guard lived with husband William “Bill” Elliot here for 23 years. Green and Madison Mayor Robert H. Conley personally delivered their birthday greetings that Monday in the company of Elliot’s relatives and friends.
“As a mayor, it fills my heart with pride to celebrate this incredible milestone of living 108 years on Earth,” said Green. “Ms. Inez is truly a remarkable woman and it’s so fitting that we’re able to honor her on the same day that we recognize the powerful work of Dr. King.”
Elliot was born in nearby Summit’s Overlook Hospital Jan. 20, 1917 as the only child of Bermudian parents. Rose went on to marry Bill Elliot, a disabled veteran, in 1957 and moved to East Orange. Although Rose and Bill did not have children of their own, they raised goddaughter Rosalind Johnson and sister-in-law Pearline Elliot Whitney’s two sets of twins since the 1950s.
Rose moved to Madison when Bill died here in 1980. She kept on reading, making arts and crafts, playing cards and taking occasional trips to family in Bermuda and Montclair. She had been celebrated on her 100th birthday, in 2017, by Green the city’s Park Avenue St. John’s United Methodist Church and the late Lt. Gov. Sheila Y. Oliver (D-East Orange).
“It (the birthday) reminds us all of the importance of living with purpose, cherishing each day and valuing the legacy we leave for future generations,” said Green. “This achievement is a testament to the strength, resilience and wisdom that comes with a long life.”
Elliot is New Jersey’s oldest living woman; a 117-year-old woman in Georgia holds the national record. Rose has invited her celebrants for her 109th birthday next year.
ORANGE – Those who were looking to celebrate Mardi Gras 2025 March 4 here at the Hat City Kitchen may want to book elsewhere at least for this year. HCK had closed by Jan. 1, apparently ending a 15-year run here at 459 Valley St. The restaurant, bar and music venue had succeeded Ricci’s in the Valley Italian Restaurant and Lounge in 2010.
HANDS, Inc.’s property management still has the restaurant among its Orange and Orange Valley holdings. One real estate website has the 4,000 square foot eatery listed as an investment opportunity and Wikipedia.org has it as “permanently closed.”
HANDS bought the Valley and Forest streets southwestern corner property in 2010. It had “Creosoul” cuisine – a combination of American Standard, Southern, Cajun and Creole cuisine. (It had lately held “Tacos and Tequila Tuesdays.”) The live weekend bands usually played jazz, rhythm and blues and Southern rock. Yelp.com has 25 pages of mostly favorable reviews of the Valley Arts District landmark going back most of the last 15 years.
HCK – named in tribute of the hat industry here – had closed in 2019 for a renovation and a management change. Although food and beverage hospitality, like most retail, has had a challenging post-pandemic boom, no indication has been given on the place’s future.
Contemporary real estate directory listings have the 2.5 story corner building constructed after 1952. Ernest A. DiRocco, who lived nearby at 286 Forest, owned and operated DiRocco’s Park View Inn from at least 1961 to 1980. “Local Talk,” while attending Forest Street School in 1964, remembered the inn, the barber shop next door at 461 Valley, the triangular city park with a World War One artillery gun in place, the school crossing guard and the family dog waiting to take him home.
DiRocco’s inn became the Jailhouse Pub and Pizzeria by 1985 and Ricci’s Restaurant/Ricci’s in the Valley by 1995.
WEST ORANGE – Mayor Joe Krakoviak and the Township Council may have given their final say on their eight-months-old in the works ordinance to ban fundraising “pop-up” house parties at their Feb. 11 meeting.
Krakoviak, at their Jan. 28 meeting, passed an introduction that would revise fines on homeowners who host such popup parties. It also spells out what a residential pop up party is:
“A party for profit including any event/gathering” at a residence “whereby the owner, occupant and/or operator solicits or advertises the use of the residence where the guests pay for tickets, wristbands or other form of entry or for food or alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages.”
Neighbors of those holding the pop up fundraising parties told West Orange elders that they were subjected to late night noise and/or loss of parking space.
“The purpose of the (added) sections is to provide recourse for the township if such pop-up parties occur in the future,” said Councilwoman Michele Casalino Jan. 28, “and to put the public on notice that the same is prohibited as a health and safety concern for the public’s general welfare.”
SOUTH ORANGE – Memories of longtime village firefighter Thomas C. Mercadante, 100, linger after his last rites were held in Middletown Jan.16 and after the South Essex Fire Department had put away its mourning bunting.
SOFD Capt. Thomas Charles Mercadante, who was born Aug 25, 1924, died in Belmar, surrounded by his family, Jan. 8. He was a Post-World War Two village firefighter and fire inspector until his 1995 retirement.
Mercadante came to the village after his 1945 honorable discharge. He enlisted with the U.S. Army and was deployed in the European Theater. The M-1 Rifles and 37th Motor Vehicle Assembly member received “Good Conduct” and other honorary medals.
Mercadante married childhood sweetheart Rose in 1947 and moved here to raise daughter Geralyn and sons Thomas Craig, Joseph and Stephen. He also became a local Knights of Columbus St. Vincent de Paul Society member.
Mercadante moved to Belmar after his beloved Rose’s death in 2017. Son Thomas Craig predeceased him in 2015. Granddaughter Ariana and grandson Garrett also survive him.
His Funeral Mass was held at Middletown’s St. Mary Mother of God Church. Memorial donations may go to St. Vincent de Paul Society:, ssvpusa.org.
MAPLEWOOD – A defamation lawsuit filed by a former South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education member against a fellow former colleague and at least two other “Friends of Frank” officers is circulating in New Jersey Superior Court-Newark since its December filing.
Township resident Elissa Malespina and her attorney, James H. Davis III, in their 57-page filing, are accusing former board member Courtney Winkfield, “Friends of Frank” officers Rachel Fisher and Stephanie Nasteff plus unnamed “Friends” members of making “false statements about me (that) have caused damage to my reputation, career and personal well-being.”
Malespina said that “Friends of Frank” – created to support Columbia High School Principal Frank Sanchez during his January-June 2024 suspension by SOMSD administrators – had circulated what she said were mistruths over a draft internal Sanchez report that she had brought to the Maplewood Police Department’s attention that January.
Sanchez was being internally investigated by a school-district consultant over the veracity of a report of his 2023 altercation of a then-15-year-old girl in a CHS hallway. Malespina had admitted forwarding the draft report to MPD, saying that she was required by law to do so.
MPD forwarded that report to ECPO, which became part of the basis of their Jan. 3 arrest of Sanchez on felony child endangerment. That count was dismissed in Superior Court, allowing SOMSD to reinstate him in June. There is a misdemeanor simple assault charge against him to be heard in Maplewood-South Orange Municipal Court.
“Friends of Frank” has raised funds in 2024 for Sanchez’s legal defense bills. Maplespina lawyer Davis has represented SOMA Black Parents Workshop on several cases; SOMA BPW has supported the 15-year-old student’s account.
Winkfield, Fisher and Nasteff are meanwhile represented by Morristown attorney Zachery Wellbrook, who called Malespina and Davis’ claims were “demonstrably false.” Malespina said that she and Davis had offered the named defendants an opportunity to apologize before filing last December.
BLOOMFIELD – To say that things were “popping” before 224 Broad St. here Feb. 6, which brought Bloomfield Fire Department and Public Service Electric & Gas trucks there, would be accurate.
Units from Bloomfield Fire Headquarters, according to that Thursday’s blotter, were summoned to the North Center address at about 10 a.m. The caller said that there was an underground electrical vault fire with “multiple minor explosions.” BFD, in turn, called on PSE&G.
Fire and utility trucks descended on 224 Broad and promptly detoured traffic. Buses on NJTransit’s No. 72 and 709 routes were affected.
Public Service, once firefighters extinguished the blaze, determined that no safety concerns existed. While one utility truck made repairs, the crew of another truck surveyed neighboring addresses.
Several buildings, whose evacuated occupants said they had smelled a burning odor, were found to have some elevated carbon monoxide levels. Those levels were brought down after BFD personnel used their ventilation fans.
224 Broad is a newly-built four-story 17 unit apartment building. The new structure was approved by the Bloomfield Planning Board in early 2022.
GLEN RIDGE – The1974 Ralston Purina Meow Mix commercial jingle will live on after its borough resident creator has passed on. Ronald Donato Travisano, 86, died Jan. 21 after a short illness in Cedar Grove. Travisano, wife Frances and their four children lived at 276 Ridgewood Ave,1971-85 while he was partner with Jerry Della Femina at their ad agency.
It was at Femina, Travisano & Partners where he came up with the “Meow Mix” commercial, where a filmed house cat is dubbed to sing” “Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow/Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow/ Meow-MEOW-Meow/Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow.” Its end tag line is “The cat food cats ask for by name.”
The either amusing or annoying jingle earned a 1974 Clio Award for Travisano and his agency. What “The New York Times” called “one of the best known and readily sung commercial jingles” is still used by Ralston Purina.
Born in Newark in 1938, Travisano was raised in Kearny, where he met and married Frances Bogiovanni. The couple first moved to 111 Raab Ave., Bloomfield in 1969 before calling the borough home. He and Della Femina formed their agency in 1967.
Travisano left Della Femina in 1985 to pursue television commercial production through 2001. He personally directed hundreds of commercials from all six populated continents under the Travisano, DiGiacomo Films banner. He and the outfit earned several Cannes Fil Festival Silver and Gold Lions awards.
Travisano moved to Cedar Grove after his beloved Frances’ death in 2017. Sister Laura Sammarco also predeceased him. Sons Vincent, Philip, Ronald, daughter Laura Hurley, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild are among his survivors.
A Jan. 24 visitation at Kearny’s Armitage & Wiggins Funeral Home was followed by the Jan. 25 prayer service at North Arlington’s Holy Cross Cemetery Mausoleum Chapel No, Three. Memorial donations may go to Good Grief Family Support Center, 38 Elm St., Morristown 07960.
