Showing posts with label Hudson Lights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hudson Lights. Show all posts

Sunday, December 8, 2019

In 2019, The Record's slide toward mediocrity didn't slow

CIVIC PUZZLE: On Oct. 26, a business district group and the borough of Fort Lee unveiled this nonsensical sign, which they called an "arts installation," near the massive Hudson Lights development, leaving hundreds of residents to scratch their heads on its meaning and wonder just how they can "be" Fort Lee. 


By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- After lunch at Hiura, our favorite Japanese restaurant in Fort Lee, my friend Arthur drove us to a small park in the massive Hudson Lights development.

He pulled over and I opened the window to make a couple of photos of a sign he told me about a few weeks earlier:

"Be FORT LEE."

"What does that mean?" Arthur had said over and over again.

I couldn't shed any light on its meaning or how one could "be" Fort Lee, but when I got home, I Googled "Be Fort Lee" and found a statement from a business district group and the borough labeling the sign an "arts installation."

Then, I read this:

"The iconic installation signals the Borough's recent renaissance and serves as an aspirational invitation, to residents and visitors alike, to fully experience its enlightened cosmopolitan lifestyle so uniquely situated in a friendly community environment."

What idiocy.

The Record

Did The Record, the once-great local newspaper in Hackensack, report installation of the sign at the controversial high-rise/retail development or ask business and borough officials what the hell it means?

I no longer subscribe to the print edition or NorthJersey.com, which you cannot search unless you do.

But I do see the paper at least once a week, and the local news from Paterson and other towns in Passaic County continues to dominate the Local section, to the chagrin of readers in Bergen County, the heart of the circulation area.

The Sports section usually is twice the size of the Local news section, and both are filled with typos, errors and tortured writing.

The Borg family sold The Record to Gannett on July 6, 2016 -- a date that will live in infamy -- for nearly $40 million in cash, and laughed all the way to the bank.

The Sasson Report 

Here are posts from my omnibus blog, The Sasson Report, on The Record, (201) magazine and the Borg family: 






The following post on redevelopment of downtown Hackensack includes details about the Borg family's plans for nearly 20 acres at 150 River St., where The Record's headquarters once stood:




Sunday, May 15, 2016

Searching another Sunday edition in vain for local voices

One of the charms of Hackensack's Fairmount section is this shady alley off of Prospect Avenue, but the neighborhood also is plagued by noisy business jets heading for Teterboro Airport.


By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Another Sunday edition of The Record almost completely ignores the concerns of the vast majority of North Jersey residents.

A front-page story on the alarming number of assaults on vulnerable patients at Bergen Regional Medical Center, which treats the neediest, certainly is important (A-1).

But why -- in more than two full newspaper pages -- doesn't the story ask and answer the question on most readers' and taxpayers' minds:

Why does Bergen County still own a hospital -- the state's biggest, no less?

Rail commuters continue to scramble for seats aboard crowded NJ Transit trains, so why is Staff Writer Christopher Maag going on and on today about a safety system called "positive train control" (A-1)?

And why does political columnist Charles Stile think anyone is interested in his boring assessment of Senate President Stephen Sweeney's chances in the 2017 gubernatorial election (A-1)?

Local news?

Don't look for local news today.

Another Road Warrior column on the MVC, and a huge graphic on the redevelopment of Fort Lee dominate the Local front.

Long-time Fort Lee residents have been very vocal in their opposition to the Hudson Lights project, but you won't hear any of their voices today (L-1).

Inside the section, there are stories from Waldwick, Oakland, Ramsey, Bloomingdale, Haledon and Pequannock, but nothing from Hackensack.