Main Street high-rise construction driving everyone crazy

A diesel-powered pile driver is hammering steel beams deep into the ground at Main and Mercer streets in Hackensack, above and below, where a 14-story apartment building will rise, only a block or so from the old headquarters of The Record. The Borg family's property along River Street has been approved for 700 residential units, but they haven't announced a development deal yet. 

An employee of Rainbow Castle Preschool, which is next to the site, said the noise is driving everyone crazy, but that the children have grown accustomed to the repetitive thud that can be felt inside the building.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you walk along the 100 block of Main Street in Hackensack, you can smell the diesel fumes and hear the loud crashing noise from a pile driver on the biggest construction site in the city.

Everyone from children attending a preschool next to the enormous pit to lawyers down the block are being driven crazy by the constant hammering of steel beams into the ground.

This site, where a 14-story apartment building will rise, is the second major project in Hackensack's ambitious downtown rehabilitation plan.

The first, at 94 State St., has already started leasing, according to a sign on the 222-unit residential building.

"You can hear the constant hammering from the pile driver at the big site," says a lawyer whose office is on the same block. "I can hardly concentrate."

At Merit Trophy, employees had to clear the shelves, because "things were falling," the lawyer said

On Sunday, The Record's Better Living section promoted a cranberry chocolate chip ice cream sold at Ice Cream by Mike on Main Street in Hackensack, but the store was closed, below.

The sign says, "Closed for repairs." 

'New life'

The 382-unit building at 150-170 Main St. is expected to take up to 30 months to build, and will include 7,500 square feet of new retail with outdoor seating and dining. 

The storefronts, which will face Main Street, are "expected to breath new life into the area," city officials say.

That may be the only consolation in view of the impact the construction noise is having on established businesses, law offices and restaurants. 

Art of Spice, an Asian Indian restaurant, is across the street at 159 Main St., but it's closed on Mondays.

At Casual Habana Cafe, 125 Main St., where a $10 all-you-can-eat lunch buffet is served, employees said the pile driver didn't bother them or customers because the music playing on the sound system drowned out the noise.

Rainbow Castle Preschool is on the edge of the construction pit.

A sea change?

On Monday, only a couple of days after The Record named a new editor, readers did a double take at all of the municipal news filling Local, a section that has been dominated by Law & Order news for far too long.

Most of the stories were from Teaneck, Bogota, Leonia and other Bergen County towns, and stories about Passaic County towns appeared on L-6.

Instead of the usual gee-whiz shot of a vehicle rollover on L-3, a beautifully composed photo by freelancer Jim Anness showed a man sitting on a bench in brilliant sunshine, his feet in snow, with the Hudson River and George Washington Bridge in the background. 

One step back

Unfortunately, today's Local section seems to be a return to business as usual, with the third sensational story in a row on a husband charged with killing his wife all over L-1.

But the section also contains two local obituaries (L-1 and L-6), and municipal stories from a number of towns.

What hasn't changed is that Editor Deirdre Sykes and Managing Editor Dan Sforza continue their boycott of Hackensack news.

Went south?

Todd South, the reporter formerly assigned to the city, was promoted to another beat, and Sykes and Sforza haven't replaced him.

That may mean the newsroom is short of staff as a result of Publisher Stephen A. Borg's many economies -- from moving printing of the paper out of Hackensack to a major downsizing to completely abandoning the city in 2009.

Borg also has denied raises to newsroom employees for more than 5 years, even as he and his family have prospered.

The wage freeze has been cited as a factor in the recent departure of two star reporters, Shawn Boburg and wife Stephanie Akin.

Page 1 politics

In another bad sign, Sykes is continuing her predecessor's obsession with politics, wasting a huge amount of front-page space on the Iowa caucuses today and Monday.

An A-1 story or column from Iowa by political reporter Charles Stile appears both days, but a reader of the paper says his story on Governor Christie's dismal showing is not accurate.

Stile, the paper's chief Christie apologist, claims the GOP bully "was tied for seventh place" with three other also-rans (A-1); the reader and other media say Christie finished 10th.

Now, Stile will try to convince readers Christie has a far better chance in New Hampshire. 

But with crackpot Ted Cruz's victory in Iowa, the presidential election is all but decided, because America certainly will pick a Democrat to move the country forward over a Tea Party conservative who wants to turn back the clock.

$850 is chump change to Hackensack real estate moguls

How many weeks or months has this storefront on the 200 block of Main Street in Hackensack been vacant? The sleepy shopping street is showing few signs of renewal, even though city officials have approved a downtown redevelopment plan.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Today's Page 1 story in The Record has readers speculating about just who could have lost $850 on Main Street in Hackensack, and not even tried to recover the money.

Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports the cash was awarded to James Brady, the formerly homeless man who found the money and turned it in to the Police Department, where it laid unclaimed for six months (A-1).

Jerry Lombardo, president of C.J. Lombardo Company at 355 Main St., appears to have money to burn, judging by the long-vacant storefronts owned by his real estate concern.

The same can be said for the principals behind the Alexander Anderson Real Estate Group of 14 Bergen St., which has its sign on a great many vacant buildings on or near Hackensack's Main Street. 

Big killing?

Are these and other real estate companies stockpiling empty properties, hoping to sell them to a developer who will demolish them and build residential and office buildings?

Lombardo also is chairman of the Upper Main Alliance, a public-private partnership that has failed miserably to revive Main Street in the years after the 2008 recession and the pullout of North Jersey Media Group and The Record.

The only other story on Page 1 today is about same-sex couples winning the right to marry in New Jersey, starting on Monday (A-1, A-6 and A-7).

Am I the only one who thinks this is way too much coverage for an estimated 24,112 same-sex couples in the entire state as of 2011?

On A-2 today, readers will find two more embarrassing corrections.

Christie's follies

A story on A-3 makes clear Governor Christie's decision not to set up an online marketplace under the federal Affordable Care Act is hurting New Jersey residents who have been stymied by technical glitches on the federal site.

On the same page, a story about a $38 million shortfall in state tax collections is more evidence the GOP  bully's repeated veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires is wrong for New Jersey (A-3).

In a letter to the editor today, Jeff Kirshbaum of Oradell calls U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz "a fraud and a clown," putting into perspective media fascination with the Tea Party crackpot (A-11).

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski answers questions from drivers who are as befuddled as he is, and if past columns are any guide, most of his advice is worthless (L-1).

Editors tell Obama, local-news readers to go to hell

One of the free Bergen County shuttles that brings attorneys and visitors to the courthouse from The Record's old headquarters on River Street in Hackensack. Some intrepid lawyers don't wait and lug their briefcases across a heavily trafficked street with few crosswalks. I expect to read soon about an attorney who gets mowed down by a lead-footed driver rushing home with a huge slab of ribs from Costco Wholesale.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Thirty or so members of the wacko Tea Party have brought the nation to its knees.

But The Record still legitimizes their demand that President Obama "negotiate" the Affordable Care Act, the far-reaching law that is the answer to the prayers of tens of millions of Americans.

What's next? Negotiating Brown v. Board of Education and a woman's right to an abortion?

Let's hope Sen. Ted Cruz and fellow radicals end up destroying the Republican Party, and take Governor Christie and other conservatives with them.

More divisive politics

Meanwhile, The Record can't break the habit of reporting everything in terms of politics, as Herb Jackson's Page 1 column shows.

OK. Editor Marty Gottlieb did send Mike Kelly, the columnist with the shit-eating grin, to talk to poor people in Paterson (A-1).

Healthy interest

But Gottlieb and Kelly keep on missing the big story:

Millions of Americans, who have at least three months to sign up for health insurance that goes into effect Jan. 1, are so desperate for protection they are crashing the online health-care exchanges in many states.

The success of Obama's Affordable Care Act has become evident in just two days.

And if the law can deliver lower prices and savings, it will be a godsend to millions of working poor and employees of greedy companies like North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

Cost of policies

Since I left The Record in 2008, I have been buying health insurance for my wife and son from North Jersey Media Group.

This year, I am paying $1,004 a month to cover them -- more than my monthly pension payment.

I also buy insurance from Horizon for my mother-in-law, who lives with us, that costs about $521 a month.

I hope to save a lot of money by buying those policies on the health-care exchange in New Jersey -- once the dust settles.

I didn't plow through all the boring copy from Kelly today, so don't know if he actually found anyone who was able to buy an affordable policy and saved money.

Sforza can't keep up

As usual, today's paper is front heavy, with little to interest local-news readers, thanks to a lame job by Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who is panicking in the absence of his boss, Deirdre Sykes.

Sykes has been out of the Woodland Park newsroom for more than five weeks with a mysterious ailment.

The front of Local today is dominated by a road-rage incident between motorcyclists and the driver of a Range Rover in Manhattan, not North Jersey.

The only story out of the busy Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack is the ongoing saga of the Hudson News inheritance battle (L-1).

Teaneck and Hackensack news have gone missing.

Rice is univeral

On the Better Living cover, a story about rice omits any mention of how the staple is prepared by people from the Middle East, including Syrians, Egyptians and the Sephardic Jews who originated in that part of the world (BL-1).