In Englewood, annual parade celebrates past, not present

Strutting to the beat of a New Orleans-style brass band, above and below, was a musical high point at Englewood's Memorial Day Parade today.

Spectators gathered in front of City Hall on Palisade Avenue. As he does every year, Dwight Morrow High School graduate and attorney Frank Lucianna, 92, marched in today's parade.

Despite the construction of hundreds of luxury apartments on Palisade Avenue and on Route 4, plus multi-million dollar mansions on the city's East Hill, Englewood's downtown merchants continue to struggle. That's a story The Record of Woodland Park has never told.

The only businesses that thrive consistently are the realty companies and landlords, below.

On South Dean Street, Poached operates next door to a vacant storefront, above and below.

Charles Hamade's U Pie Company and Clam Bar on Palisade Avenue, opposite his old restaurant, is flanked by vacant storefronts.

Moosavi Rugs moved into the building where Mitchell Simon Co. operated a hardware store for seven decades, closing in February 2013, above and below.

Across from the old Mitchell Simon building, a storefront is vacant next door to Cassie's, one of the city's most popular restaurants.

North Dean Street has its share of empty storefronts, above and below, as counterpoints to the street's expensive boutiques.

An unwelcome addition to this year's parade was a group of the noisiest and smelliest motorcycles I have ever had the displeasure of seeing and hearing.

An Auburn Speedster was an oasis of calm when compared to the motorcycles, which are modified to make as much noise as possible.

The city's many black churches were well represented, but children attend public elementary and middle schools that remain segregated.

A new firehouse is being built next door the police headquarters and Municipal Court. Yet Englewood officials balked at the expense of turning the old Lincoln School into a community center.

--VICTOR E. SASSON

Finally, a news story on Englewood's racial divide

One of the many empty storefronts on Palisade Avenue in Englewood, a city of 30,000 that has always been divided by income and race. City Hall is reflected in the window of this shuttered restaurant.

Today's Page 1 story on "a divided Englewood" is likely the first time in decades The Record has acknowledged the city's long-standing racial and class divisions. 

Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, who lives on the city's wealthy East Hill, typifies white residents.

Borg sent his children to private schools, and the newspaper he owns, although located only 6 miles from Englewood until 2009,  has never been a force for change in the divided city or its segregated schools.

Today's story on neglect of the city ice rink is another sad chapter in a city dominated by wealthy white residents, including an influx of Orthodox Jewish families.

Simply put, they resent having to pay property taxes for public schools they don't use, and certainly don't want to pay higher taxes to repair the ice rink or turn the 100-year-old Lincoln School into a community center, because both are in a minority neighborhood.

Cat's meow

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes gives more ink to the search for kittens stuck in an Elmwood Park drainage pipe than she ever has to drivers killed in single-car accidents (Local front).

On L-5, a story about a lawsuit against current and former Hackensack police officers reports it was filed last week in "New Jersey" Superior Court.

Ex-staffer returns

Esther Davidowitz, who was a reporter at The Record in the 1970s, has been named food editor, replacing Susan Leigh Sherrill.

Two briefs credited to her appear today on BL-3 (one with a typo), and she was listed as food editor in a BL-2 box on Sunday.

Readers have been starving for better coverage of food and nutrition, including recipes that don't rely so heavily on artery clogging butter and cream or antibiotic-filled meat and poultry.

Davidowitz was editor in chief of Westchester Magazine, and former editor at two other magazines. First for Woman and Women's Day.

In the 1970s, Davidowitz covered local news out of The Record's sexually liberated Hackensack newsroom.

More road errors

Try as he might, Road Warrior John Cichowski can't seem to get it right, no matter what he fills his column with.

On Friday, in discussing the pivotal role of U.S. Sen. Frank R. Launtenberg, D-N.J., in improving transportation, Cichowski played fast and loose with the facts, as an e-mail to Editor Marty Gottlieb explains:

"When reminiscing and paying tribute to [the late] Frank R. Lautenberg, who was known as  'Mr. Transportation,' it would be nice if The Road Warrior did not dishonor his memory with false facts in his column of June 7.

 
"The Road Warrior incorrectly reported the original cost (which he grossly overstated in previous columns) of the Secaucus Junction rail station.

"He also FAILED to mention its full official name as the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station at Secaucus Junction.

"He also missed the creation of NJ Transit by close to a decade, and the number of NJ Transit lines that go to Secaucus Junction."

Read the full e-mail at the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Errors derail readers again

Columnist says F.U. to elderly drivers

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This is how John Cichowski prefers his old people -- waiting for a ride.

Liberty Mutual and many other insurance companies would like nothing better than if thousands of seniors gave up the keys to their cars. That would cut claims from the hundreds of accidents caused by elderly drivers and boost profits, even as it curtails their independence.


So can you imagine a more shameless performance by The Record's editor, Francis Scandale, and Columnist John Cichowski than today's lavish, front-page coverage of a Liberty Mutual-financed service to provide low-cost rides for seniors in North Jersey and other suburbs? 

Instead of identifying programs that can help seniors meet the challenges of driving as they age, Cichowski sells out to the insurers, just as the commuting columnist has sold out to car dealers by virtually ignoring mass transit.

Chick, as he is known in Woodland Park, actually left the office to attend a dog-and-pony news conference in Manhattan and donned bulky clothing that made him "feel as old as Methuselah," who was blind. I guess that's how he regards elderly drivers.

Of course, there is no refer in his story to today's L-1 story on an accident caused by an unidentified "grandmother" who crashed into the front of a day-car center in Pal Park when she mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal. In the past decade, the former Hackensack daily has covered hundreds of similar accidents with a photo and caption or a few paragraphs.

What will that limited ride program publicized on Page 1 do for thousands of seniors who need their cars every day to shop for food, take care of their spouses and grandchildren, and preserve their dignity?

Also on L-1 today, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado has her ninth story since Oct. 1 on the Police Department, elevating a disciplinary hearing into major news.


Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano also has an L-1 story today -- her first since Oct. 26 -- on a new schools superintendent who comes from a district that is "81 percent minority." But there is absolutely nothing similar in the story about Englewood, which has segregated elementary and middle schools, not even how many students live in the district.


Cichowski, Alvarado and Fabiano are inspired to do such a great job day after day by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her lazy minions, including Dan Sforza, Richard Whitby and Christina Joseph.

In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung has a lukewarm, two-star appraisal of Chef Ji's Moonjar in Fort Lee. She tells readers the restaurant is not appropriate for a "formal meal." I see that term a lot in her reviews, but can't imagine what a "formal meal" is.

Unfortunately, she long ago cheapened the two-star rating (good) by giving it to Bahama Breeze, a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant in Wayne.

There are no local restaurant health ratings in the paper today, but there is plenty of wire service copy on the right wine to drink with spicy meals and bar food.

Today's front page from the Newseum 

Rewriting reality

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Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in a Tenafly McMansion. The railroad station, above, is now a cafe.

A detailed story on Englewood schools, including test scores, leads the Local news section today, but something major is missing. How are readers of The Record of Woodland Park supposed to judge the scores if they aren't told the city's elementary and middle schools are segregated?

Are we to believe head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano -- in only her fourth Englewood story since Aug. 13 -- deliberately omitted mention of segregation? Or are they bimbos? What about Sykes' assistants, Dan Sforza and Christina Joseph, both of whom covered Englewood as reporters, as did Sykes when she worked for a weekly? Is this a conspiracy of silence?

After all, the black and Hispanic student body may have prompted their former boss, Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, to send his spoiled brats, Stephen and Jennifer Borg, to private schools when they were growing up on Englewood's East Hill. Greedy Stevie, publisher and father of four, now lives in a $3.65 million mansion in Tenafly, not Englewood.

I recall how a former Englewood reporter, Maya Kremen, would file stories on opposition by the Borgs and neighbors to the expansion of a Walnut Street home that was converted into a synagogue. I copy edited one of those stories and asked Sforza, her editor, why the Borgs' role wasn't mentioned. He said there was no room to do so in the short story. But subsequent stories, even longer ones, also omitted the Borgs.


Kremen wrote extensively about the effort to desegregate Dwight Morrow High School, which added Academies in 2002 to attract white students (it was 99.9% African-American and Hispanic at the time, according to one account). The city's ruinously expensive legal battle to get Englewood Cliffs to resume sending its students to the high school had fizzled.


But I don't recall Kremen ever writing about any effort to desegregate the lower grades, and Fabiano, who succeeded her, certainly hasn't even mentioned segregation. 

Fabiano's woefully incomplete story today -- on the search for a new school superintendent -- is hardly a subject worthy of L-1 coverage, unless Sykes had little else in hand. The page is dominated by sentencing of a former Sussex County school official. I can hear cows mooing.

The  pilot-poop paper story -- Page 1 news on Friday -- is back on L-3 today, filling the space of local news stories no one filed. But to show you it's not just the cops who overreacted, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin gives us a long editorial on A-13, calling the pilot foolish.

Hackensack readers get the third story this week on a cop's disciplinary hearing (L-7, amid other police and court news).

Sykes and her minions have been unable for years to inspire their reporters to cover their towns -- thoroughly and intelligently -- so they've resorted to blowing up photos of non-fatal accidents and other tricks to fill space, often giving the paper a tabloid vibe. They have the Borgs fooled, of course, but they aren't fooling readers one bit.

Unfortunately, Hackensack residents can no longer afford to ignore the weekly papers, lest they miss important news on the city budget and tax rate, the schools and even the high cost of the disciplinary hearings Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado attends religiously.

The Oct. 15 edition of The County Seat, the weekly paper published by the Zisa family, reports on the high school's newly renovated culinary arts lab. The story also reports the school has added "academy programs," including broadcast journalism and medical technology.

More than a third of Editor Francis Scandale's front page today is devoted to baseball.

Oh, that's not news

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It's 2010, and Englewood's elementary and middle schools are segregated. "Oh, that's not news," head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes says between shrieks of laughter rolling across the Woodland Park newsroom. Downtown traffic often is nightmarish, because the city has been glacially slow about installing turn lanes. "Oh, that's not news," Sykes says. An open-air police firing range rudely awakens hundreds of residents. "Oh, that's not news."


The only stories about the city's hard-working, God-fearing Jamaican community that appear in The Record are the occasional arrest or shooting. "Oh, that's not news," says Sykes, who has eaten her fair share of rum cakes from a Jamaican takeout shop on Palisade Avenue.


Two of the sub-editors working for Sykes once were assigned to cover Englewood as reporters. Dan Sforza broke no new ground and Christina Joseph apparently didn't know the city police use an open-air firing range, because she failed to notice that a round-up on such ranges that she was editing had completely omitted Englewood (map).


So, what is news in Englewood? Well, it's right there -- all over A-1 and L-1 today. Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano emerged from her journalistic hibernation long enough to report that a black bear spent a pleasant three days in the city before its capture on Tuesday. It's her first story about Englewood since April 22.


I lived in Englewood until 2007, and over the years saw a buck and doe, and wild turkey in the city, probably from the Palisades. They were enjoying the verdant East Hill estates. Was that front-page news? I didn't think so.


Englwood is one of the most diverse communities in Bergen County and a good reporter could probably write three stories a week about it. Now, readers get three stories a month, if that. Teaneck and Hackensack are no better off.


Today's A-1 story about lawsuits against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa is yet another example of how the Police Department is just about the only news Hackensack readers get from Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado -- apparently under orders from Sykes.


Why this story is on the front page is a puzzle in view of how the paper has abandoned and ignored the city where it was founded, and Alvarado's conclusions are arguable.


Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, North Jersey Media Group chairman and onetime publisher of The Record, has lived on Englewood's East Hill for decades, but has he or his newspaper ever done anything to improve life for all of its residents? Mac sent his spoiled children, Jennifer and Stephen, to private schools, such as the two in Englewood attended by most of the city's white kids, to the detriment of the public schools. Mac has also opposed the expansion of a Jewish congregation that bought a house on his block.


In the past, the paper's Englewood reporters have largely focused on integration efforts at Dwight Morrow High School, while ignoring the elementary and middle schools. In fact, a Sept. 20, 2008, editorial praising the high school for integration and academics completely ignored continuing segregation in the lower grades.



"Oh, that's not news."

What's wrong with this picture?

The front page of  The Record of Woodland Park today has a lead story on gay marriage, another on school funding and a large photo of  a racist and anti-Semite smoking a victory cigar after a mistrial. Why is this story on Page 1? Is it because over-the-hill Record reporter Mike Kelly was assigned to cover the trial in the city?

On Page A-2, a correction only serves to remind readers about the huge coverage of three families in far off Ringwood on the front page yesterday.

What's wrong with these pictures? More unusually large photos in the Local section tell you the lazy, incompetent editors failed for yet another day to assign any education, development or municipal stories about Hackensack and Teaneck, two of the premier towns in the paper's circulation area. (That's Teaneck Townhip Hall in the photo.)

On the front of Local, there are two photos of  a non-fatal truck accident taking up about half the page and inside, a third of the page is devoted to a photo of a vigil for drunken driving victims. When layout editors have to run photos this big, it means they were screwed by the Assignment Desk, run by Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes.

Also on the front, Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano has her fifth story since Oct. 30 about the teachers contract, but she has written nothing about how educators there propose to integrate elementary and middle schools. Of course, Publisher Stephen A. Borg didn't wait around for the solution, moving his family to Tenafly so his children wouldn't have to rub shoulders with blacks and Hispanics in Englewood, where he grew up in a Mac Daddy's East Hill mansion (smaller than the one young Stephen lives in now). Yet his wife Monica is Mexican.

Inside Local, Star-Ledger reporters filed two long Morris County fillers -- on an effort to save Greystone Park Psychiatirc Hospital and a pot trial. These stories would keep out Bergen County news, but there weren't enough Bergen County stories reported and written by Record reporters.

In Better Living, the pudgy, goy food editor, Bill Pitcher, has the nerve to highlight a wire service recipe for latkes made with butternut squash. That's food blasphemy.

'I'm not in this for the money'

When Stephen A. Borg took over as publisher of  The Record from his father, he called a meeting of the entire staff to introduce himself. No room in the four-story building on River Street in Hackensack was large enough, so it was standing room only when me and hundreds of others crammed ourselves into a second-floor space.

"I'm not in this for the money," said Borg, who was in his mid-30s. And then, in one of the most bizarre moments of my 29-year career at the newspaper, Borg projected a slide onto a screen to show us his home in Tenafly. It was an imposing mansion, painted white, with several columns in front.

I wondered what point he was trying to make. Was he so blinded by his privileged upbringing that he thought his home was modest, just like the ones many of his staff owned? I doubt that anyone else in that room in mid-2006, even top editors, owned a house as grandiose as young Borg's. I, for one, still lived in a cramped apartment on one of Englewood's noisiest streets.

Revealing personal details in a room full of poorly paid reporters is foolhardy. Soon, word circulated in the newsroom that Borg's house was worth nearly $2 million. But even that beautiful house wasn't good enough for Borg, his wife and children.

Many months later, Stephen Borg's mother called the head of The Record's photo department and asked him to take a photo of the young publisher's new house, a huge place with wings, also in Tenafly, so a painting could be made and placed over the fireplace.

Did Mrs. Borg know that Rich Gigli -- an assistant managing editor who ran the photo department and who had around 30 years' experience at The Record -- had been given his walking papers as part of a restructuring to cut costs?

When one photo staff member saw the photo, he speculated the new house cost $3 million to $4 million.

Borg grew up in a big house on the East Hill of Englewood, where his father, Malcolm A. Borg, still lives. Why did the younger Borg settle in Tenafly? Was he concerned about sending his young children to Englewood's segregated schools?