Route 4 apartments haven't saved downtown Englewood

Empty storefronts in downtown Englewood, above and below, persist despite the construction of hundreds of luxury apartments on Route 4 and others on Palisade Avenue. A new residential project reported in The Record today isn't expected to change that significantly.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record has never bothered trying to shed light on Englewood's segregated schools or its fading downtown.

Even when Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg  -- who lives on the city's East Hill -- was publisher, reporting about the small city was superficial at best.

Today, Staff Writer Stephanie Noda says work has begun on a 195-unit apartment complex "that will become one of the city's first new tax ratables in years" (L-1).

That's all it will become, if the past is any guide.

No benefit

Two luxury apartment complexes, Towne Center on Palisade Avenue and The Sheffield on Route 4, were built about six years ago, but the city's fading downtown hasn't benefited.

More apartments went up on Route 4, opposite The Sheffield.

Even when a free shuttle ran between the complexes and downtown, restaurants and merchants continued to struggle.

Once you get past the clunky headline on today's story, you still won't find any discussion of downtown Englewood, as if it is on the moon.

"Operations

begin on

apartment

complex"

What "operations"? Is the headline writer referring to surgery on the complex?

Councilman Wayne Hamer calls the site of the new apartments "attractive," ignoring the relentless assault of road noise and pollution.

The new apartments will be built in front of The Sheffield, where tenants will lose their view, but may gain a little peace and quiet from the complex acting as a buffer to Route 4 noise.

Irrelevant news

In the last week, The Record's front page has looked like the Christian Science Monitor.

Story after story on Catholic high school football teams, and today, a big story on the Vatican (A-1).

Like the vast majority of readers, I am not gay, seeking a divorce, Catholic or the parent of a high school football player, so how are any of these stories relevant to me and so many others?

Paper backs Christie

A long front-page "ANALYSIS" on the history of the state's pioneering Transportation Trust Fund backs Governor Christie's refusal to sign an increase in the gasoline tax to revitalize the bankrupt source of road-repair and mass-transit money (A-1).

"Christie's stance seems to make political sense: Just last week, a poll ... found 58 percent of New Jerseyans oppose a gas tax increase" (A-6).

But Staff Writer Christopher Maag reported earlier in the story the gasoline tax is "heavily subsidized by out-of-state drivers but mostly benefits New Jersey drivers" (first column on A-6).

And do we really want Christie doing what is "political" or do we want the governor to act in the best interests of the region, such as our need for expanded mass transit to ease crushing traffic congestion?

And shouldn't The Record's editors be pushing for a viable road-and-bridge repair fund, not endorsing Christie's regressive policies?

Celeste is one of the shuttered businesses along Englewood's Engle Street, just two blocks from Palisade Avenue.

Englewood update

After I wrote this post, I had lunch in Englewood, and was shocked to see all of the empty storefronts on Engle Street, a block or two from Palisade Avenue.

Two of the shuttered businesses are Celeste, a high-end women's clothing store, and Dean Street Greenery, a flower shop that is featured in a photo slide show on the city's own Web: 

See: cityofenglewood.org/

The Record's local assignment editors, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, have ignored the health of downtown Englewood, Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns.

They send reporters to cover mall retailers, who reward the paper with hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue.

Was this the entrance of Celeste, above and below?

The former Dean Street Greenery, above and below.

This restaurant closed.

Another empty storefront. Are downtown Englewood rents too high? The Record doesn't know or care.

Family: Black teen was shot in the back

Image via Wikipedia
No changes in the local-news operation have been apparent since ex-Timesman Marty Gottlieb took over about three weeks ago as editor of The Record of Woodland Park. 

The biggest news on the front page of The Record today also serves as a sad commentary on the supremely lazy assignment desk working under the dead weight of Editor Deirdre Sykes.


In the two months since Malik Williams, 19, of Garfeld was killed by police, Sykes and her flunkies have merely regurgitated all of the questions surrounding his death without making any attempt to go beyond the prosecutor's handout.


Columnist Mike Kelly, who wrote a book about a similar police shooting in Teaneck, merely pushed hundreds of words around, shedding no new light on the death of Williams, who had an infant son.


Shot twice in back


Now, according to a story on Page 1 today, the family's attorney says Williams was shot twice in the back by the two police officers involved. The teen was shot a total of "five to six times."


However, today's story, like past accounts, doesn't go beyond details released by Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, who said Williams "had armed himself with unspecified tools."


Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi, who Sykes has reduced to an ambulance chaser, came up with a potentially prize-winning photo of a distraught woman standing in front of a multi-family home destroyed by fire (A-1 and L-3).


Of course, Zehawi also has covered scores of fender benders and other minor accidents that Sykes used as filler when her sniveling sub-editors couldn't come up with legitimate local news.


Quote of the week


Hackensack readers will find only a story on the front of Sykes' Local section on the closing of a building's parking garage after city officials expressed safety concerns.


The story does contain the quote of the week from Construction Official Joseph Mallone, who noted one city engineer put his hand right through a rusted steel beam:


"They [building managers] said everything was all gumdrops and rainbows and everything was OK," Mallone told Staff Writer Stephanie Akin (L-1).


That's funny. This is exactly what Sykes has been telling Editor Marty Gottlieb about her local-news operation since he arrived about three weeks ago after many years at The New York Times.


Smell the coffee


Let's hope Gottlieb wakes up and smells the coffee, especially when it comes to local news and the lame columnists who work for Sykes, including Kelly and Road Warrior John Cichowski.


Does the large graphic on the "angle of the sun" really add anything to another L-1 story -- a report on a 74-year-old crossing guard knocked down by the car of a driver who said he was blinded by sun glare?


What a waste of space. But I guess there was no other news available to fill the hole.


A third L-1 story today reveals federal taxpayers have to shell out $18 million to soundproof Henry P. Becton Regional High School from the roar of business jets, including the sleek machine that cossets the rear ends of Chairman Malcolm A. Borg and his pal, real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson.

More stale news on the front page

Image via Wikipedia

The Record finds a treasure trove of ready made stories in census data.

The Record of Woodland Park continues to mine Census 2010 data for Page 1 stories that confirm what readers have known for months, if not years.

Incomes fall for N.J. families

Today's lead headline comes from the flagship publication of North Jersey Media Group, which went on a firing spree, consolidated its two daily newspapers and totally abandoned Hackensack.

The most important local news is pushed down below the fold. Readers learn Republicans in Congress are playing politics with disaster relief for storm- and flood-ravaged New Jersey (A-1).

Below that, a refer to an A-17 story reports young American soldiers in Afghanistan ask doctors not to save them if their sexual organs get blown off.

That's curious, because Editor Francis Scandale seems to be doing just fine years after he was castrated by the real power in the newsroom, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes.

On A-2 today, a correction notes the Hackensack police union president was misidentified in an L-3 story on Wednesday, but a second error on the location of the Social Security office in Hackensack wasn't corrected.

Rich list

Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg apparently is no longer on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans (A-8). How could he be -- with a spoiled son who sucked out $3.65 million of the company's money to buy a bigger house?

Today's Local news section is a yawner, what we've come to expect from Sykes' desk.

Last Friday's paper

Why is it lead-the-paper news that a Garfield neighborhood contaminated for nearly 30 years is now on the Superfund list -- when that might mean another 20 to 30 years will pass before it's cleaned up?

Staff Writer Mary Jo Layton refers to "Hackensack officlals" and "Hackensack" several times in her A-1 scoop about doctors lured to Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.


But she's not referring to the city; she's talking about Hackensack University Medical Center. She loads her poorly written lead paragraph with so much information,  "Hackensack" appears in it three times.


Readers would be stunned if Liz Houlton's news copy desk actually did some editing.

On the Local front, why is the Road Warrior writing about the sale of flood-damaged cars, in place of the consumer columnist, Kevin DeMarrais?

By limiting the back story, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung is able to report Khole Bistrot in Fort Lee serves only organic meat, but she runs into trouble describing the whole fish she sampled, using "bronzini," the plural (Better Living centerfold).

In the data box, she tells readers "prices are quite high for many items," so the restaurant isn't appropriate for "those on a budget." Duh.

Did the Borgs meddle in the news?

Image via Wikipedia

A Gulfstream business jet. Is there a link between a Sunday column and the Borgs?

A woman who is a wealthy dealer of $10 million to $50 million business jets seemed a strange choice of subjects for Kevin DeMarrais, The Record's long-time consumer columnist.

DeMarrais usually reports on credit card fees, supermarket prices and the ups and downs at the gasoline pump to help readers get the biggest bang for their buck.

But his "Your Money's Worth" column on the front of Sunday's Business section told the tale of Rebecca Posoli-Cilli, president of Hackensack-based Freestream Aircraft. 

Under a photo of the businesswoman in a hangar with one of those sleek jets, the caption says she "learned that even a stellar standing can get lost in cyberspace."

DeMarrais went on to relate a lawsuit, a settlement and stale information on the Internet, and how the businesswoman hired a firm to get positive information about her moved to the top of Google searches. Happy ending.

Now, it seems, Chairman Malcolm A. Borg may have had something to do with getting what amounts to a million dollars worth of free publicity for a business-jet dealer who has been hurt by the recession. 

Or did his son, Publisher Stephen A. Borg, or his daughter, Vice President and General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg, ask the Business news department to do the story?

The elder Borg apparently is a client of Posoli-Cilli's and his testimonial appears on a Web site, along with that of Ralph Lauren and other movers and shakers who uses these enormously expensive and wasteful business jets.

Here is the link to the testimonials, including the one from Mac Borg: 

 

Rebecca ... was the best thing that happened to us

DeMarrais' sell-out can be read here:

When your reputation is on the line

Hasn't DeMarrais and the Woodland Park daily put its reputation on the line? What other stories appearing in the paper are about the Borgs' friends and business acquaintances?

Of course, the other question is why do the Borgs need a private jet at their disposal? Let's hope it's not just for beating the traffic out to their place in the Hamptons.