Editors rediscover North Jersey's remarkable diversity

This 222-unit apartment building on State Street, a few blocks from Hackensack City Hall, is scheduled to open this year, becoming the first to test officials' belief that such residential development will revive Main Street businesses.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Martin Gottlieb, Columnist Mike Kelly and others at The Record continue to try readers' patience with their repeated attempts to make something out of nothing. 

On Page 1 today, behold the second part of "AFTER THE FIRE," a series in search of a coherent theme.

Today, The Record celebrates "a remarkable diversity of people at the Avalon at Edgewater apartment complex" (A-1).

And, below that story, you'd think Kelly was writing about the Colosseum in Rome when he declares "an era had passed" with the closing of the Izod Center (A-1).

The wonder isn't that the burned-out word pusher had nothing else to write about, but that Gottlieb continues to give this kind of drivel front-page play.

From dream to nightmare

Staff Writer Nicholas Pugliese studied at the American University in Dubai and played pro soccer in Afghanistan.

So, I guess it's appropriate he was chosen to tell the story of the many educated immigrants displaced by the Jan. 21 fire at the Avalon apartment complex in Edgewater that exposed the danger of cheap, all-wood construction in a so-called luxury building.

But you wouldn't know that from his first half-dozen paragraphs -- yet another retelling of the American dream playing out in North Jersey, a really old story not worthy of all this flag waving (A-1).

The headline calls the Avalon tenants "a complex community," but that is certainly the wrong word. 

The text declares "its tenants hailed from nearly every corner of the globe," but names only four of them, including California.

What escapes Pugliese and whoever edited his overlong story into a parody of immigration to America is that tenants like those at the Avalon aren't invested in their community and few of them vote in local elections.

So, I'm glad none of them died, but really, the story of the Avalon inferno is how it exposed the inadequacy of state fire codes to protect apartment tenants from a fast-spreading, potentially deadly fire.

More road kill

Citing numerous mathematical errors in the March 15 Road Warrior column, the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers has a suggestion for the editors of The Record.

Buy Staff Writer John Cichowski a calculator.

And in his March 10 column, Cichowski more than tripled the number of potholes state officials said they were going to repair, according to the Bloopers editor:

"Road Warrior is once again frequently delusional, incompetent or memory impaired while continuing his misinformed and clueless trek for worst potholes.

"Road Warrior indicated that the New Jersey Department of Transportation will have filled 1 million potholes after completing their repair work from this winter based on what he heard at a DOT press conference.

"Yet, every other news report from that press conference indicated that the DOT commissioner had stated that the DOT will have filled 300,000 potholes after completing their repair work.

"While reporting about the number of potholes on Route 4, he indicated that this highway was also 'newly paved.'

"Route 4 has not been newly paved and readers are constantly complaining to the Road Warrior, who publishes their complaints, asking him when the pothole plagued Route 4 will be repaved."