Life on the Peninsula Summer 2017
Working Out With PETE AMADEO
Hooked! Bayonne Box Cold Case Fifth-Grade Phenom Java Joints Senior Softball
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Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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features
20
COVER
36
Working Out With Pete Amadeo
Cover photo by VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
16
Cold Case
20
Bayonne Box
23
Development
24
Hooked!
Who is Bayonne’s Jane Doe?
An architectural archetype
What’s going on in Bayonne?
16
Anglers cast their lines
DEPARTMENTS
8
Contributors
10
Editor’s Letter
10
Dates
26
Sports & Fitness
28
Java Joints
24
Senior Gals Softball
28
Another Cup ‘o Joe
30
People Power
32
On the Waterfront
38
Entertainment
40
Education
Mickey McCabe
All Aboard!
30
Gabby Beredo
46
Midtown Community School
44
Helping Hands
46
Watering Hole
48
Dining Out
50
Dining Listings
Family Friendly
Starting Point
San Vito
4 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
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201.339.1742 Bayonnesmilecenter.com Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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Life on the Peninsula PUBLISHERS Lucha Malato, David Unger EDITOR IN CHIEF Kate Rounds GRAPHICS STAFF Lisa M. Cuthbert Pasquale Spina Terri Saulino Bish Alyssa Bredin Ines Aldaz COPYEDITING Christopher Zinsli ADVERTISING MANAGER Tish Kraszyk SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Toni Anne Calderone-Caracappa Ron Kraszyk ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Jay Slansky John Ward CIRCULATION MANAGER Roberto Lopez CIRCULATION Luis Vasquez ACCOUNTING Sharon Metro Veronica Aldaz
Summer 2017 Vo l u m e 0 3 • N u m b e r 0 3 A Publication of The Hudson Reporter
Bayonne Life on the Peninsula is published by the Hudson Reporter Associates, L.P., 447 Broadway, Bayonne, NJ 07002 (201) 798-7800, Fax (201) 798-0018. Email bayonnemag@hudsonreporter.com. Subscriptions are $10 per year, $25 for overseas, single copies are $7.50 each, multiple copy discounts are available. VISA/MC/AMEX accepted. Subscription information should be sent to BLP Magazine Subscriptions, 447 Broadway, Bayonne, NJ 07002 Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or other unsolicited materials. Copyright ©2017, Hudson Reporter Associates L.P. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited.
Bayonne – Life on the Peninsula is a publication of The Hudson Reporter Associates, L.P. 447 Broadway, Bayonne, New Jersey 07030 phone 201.798.7800 • fax 201.798.0018
6 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
GUARDING YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE
BCB Community Bank has the products and services you find at a major national bank but with the hometown service and caring that lets you know you’re important to us. We are ready to serve all your banking needs including: Savings and Checking Accounts, CDs, Residential Mortgages, SBA Loans, Lines of Credit and much more. Serving communities throughout New Jersey & New York. Learn more at BCBCommunityBank.com l 1-800-680-6872
Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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DELFIN GANAPIN TERRI SAULINO BISH
ALYSSA BREDIN QUIRÓS
MAXIM RYAZANSKY RORY PASQUARIELLO
HANNINGTON DIA
C O N T R I B U T O R S
B L P
TARA RYAZANSKY
VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
ALYSSA BREDIN QUIRÓS TERRI SAULINO BISH
is an award-winning graphic designer, digital artist, and photographer, capturing many of the iconic images featured in print and online publications across Hudson County. You can view more of her work at tbishphoto.com.
is an award-winning designer and photographer. Her work is featured in numerous publications, including Hoboken 07030 and Jersey City Magazine. You can see her full portfolio at tbishphoto.com.
VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
=1 part snark+1 part accidental genius+200 parts supersonic talker. Oh, and he sometimes does this writing thing.
has studied publication design, photography, and graphic arts. “I’ve been fascinated by photography for almost 20 years,” he says. One of his jobs as a construction project manager is to photograph job sites.
DELFIN GANAPIN
MAXIM RYAZANSKY
RORY PASQUARIELLO
TARA RYAZANSKY
HANNINGTON DIA
is an editorial assistant at the Hudson Reporter. In his spare time, he is immersed in contemporary geek and pop culture and has contributed to a small geek culture blog called We Are Geeking Out. is a local journalist living in Jersey City Heights. He grew up in Morris County, went to school in the Hudson Valley, and now his writing appears every week on his neighbors’ doorsteps.
8 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
is a photographer whose work has been exhibited in galleries and published worldwide. A recent transplant to Bayonne, he spends his spare time trying to figure out the best pizza place in town. is a writer who recently moved from Brooklyn to Bayonne. She works as a blogger for Nameberry.com and spends her spare time fixing up her new (to her) 100-year-old home.
Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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Hasta la vista, couch potatoes! Judging from this issue, Bayonne folks are into sports. Consider: We have a story about fishing from various locales in Bayonne. Avid anglers come in all shapes and sizes, from older guys, who know the best spots to a school fishing club. In our “Working Out With” section, Hannington Dia plays baseball with Pete Amadeo, supervisor of Bayonne’s Department of Recreation. But wait. There’s more! Victor Rodriguez and I went down to Veterans Stadium on a beautiful spring evening to watch Bayonne’s Senior Softball women. Don’t be put off by the word “senior.” These com-
DATES
2017
petitors are tough and have been at it for a long time. On a more serious note, Tara Ryazansky chases down a cold case. It has a Bayonne connection, and authorities still don’t know who she is. Rory Pasquariello, meanwhile, chases down the phenomenon of the Bayonne Box, an architectural style popular in Bayonne that has resonance outside the city. There’s a lot to appreciate during a Bayonne summer: festivals, concerts, dining al fresco, hanging out in our parks, and boating on our waters. Enjoy it while you can. As Bayonne native George R.R. Martin said, “Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.”
Want your event listed? Please email us at bcneditorial@hudsonreporter.com and put “Bayonne Magazine calendar listings” in the subject line.
10 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
EDITOR'S LETTER BLP
PHOTO BY MARIE PAPP
ONGOING Bayonne Farmers Market, Fitzpatrick Park, Avenue C and 27th Street, Tuesdays, 27 p.m., through October. The Hudson Toastmasters Club, Bayonne Public
Library, 697 Avenue C, first and third Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Toastmasters International encourages the art of public speaking and develops leadership skills. Guests are welcome. continued on page 15
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Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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12 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
HUDSON COUNTY’S PENINSULA CITY IS ON THE MOVE!
Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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14 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
from page 10
Book Worms Wanted, Senior Center, Avenue B and 56th Street, every Thursday, 12:30 p.m. Do you like to read? Do you enjoy discussing books? We read a variety of books which the library gets for us. You do not have to be a senior to join. Give us a try; new members are always welcome. For information, call Ralph at (201) 437-9608. St. Henry Flea Market, (201) 339-0319. St. Henry hosts a flea market on the third Saturday of every month 9 a.m.-3 p.m. in the Pine Room (basement) of the school. Enter via the parking lot. Tables are $20 for one, $25 for two. Call Barbara Silvay at (201) 339-0319. Kings Knight Chess McCafe, McDonalds, 25th Street, Wednesdays, 6-8 p.m. Kings Knight Chess will provide chess instruction for youth, adults, and seniors. Free meals for youth. The Bayonne Women’s Club, Grace Lutheran Church, 826 Avenue C, first Thursday of every month, 7 p.m. For more information, please like us on Facebook at Bayonne Women’s Club.
Free Caregiver Support at the Bayonne Public Library, family caregiver meetings for those caring for loved ones who have serious medical conditions, disabilities, or are unable to care for themselves. Grief support group for those dealing with the loss of a loved one who was once under their care. Home care worker free educational workshops. For more information, call (917) 952-1420. Chair Yoga for Seniors with the Division of Recreation 56th Street Senior Center. Every Wednesday 10-11 a.m. For information, contact the 56th Street Senior Center at (201) 437-5996.
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Bayonne Feral Cat Foundation Cat & Kitten Adoption Days, 533 Broadway between 24th and 25th Streets, Wednesdays. Companion Animal Rescue and Education (CARE) adoption days, PetValu, 307 Bayonne Crossing Way, Sundays, 1-4 p.m. For more information, contact CARE at (201) 436-6595, or contact Pamela Lindquist at (201) 436-6484. Andrean’s Senior Club is looking for new members 55
continued on page 18
Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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Who is Bayonne’s Jane Doe?
The enduring legacy of a cold case BY TARA RYAZANSKY PHOTOS BY MAX RYAZANSKY
N
estled in a jughandle off Hook Road is a small hill. It’s close to the neon lights of nearby businesses, but hidden from the highway, strangely isolated despite its proximity to Route 440 where tractor trailers roar by. In 2007, several feet off the shoulder, the body of an unidentified female was found among the weeds. A decade later, she is still known only as Jane Doe. Leo Campbell, owner of Leo Campbell Tank Service LLC, was on his way to the police station to pick up parking passes on the clear afternoon of Oct. 18. He was running behind schedule after an appointment took longer than expected; he was in a rush to catch up on his work. He came down the hill near Lincoln Community School and made a right into the jughandle. Across the median something in the brush caught his eye. “It looked like a mannequin,” Campbell recalls. He drove by the area quickly, but what he saw was compelling enough to make him circle back. He stayed in his vehicle and looked into the distance. He saw a human form with long black and copper braids. Convinced that she wasn’t a mannequin, he drove to the police station and reported what he’d seen. Struggling to describe the exact area, he offered to drive there so that the officer could follow him.
16 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
Leo Campbell at the site where he spotted the body.
Once they arrived, Campbell was told to stay in his vehicle. He watched as the officer walked up the small hill and looked into the weeds. The cop’s body language confirmed it for Campbell as he watched him call it in. Soon Detective Bill Napier arrived on the scene. While securing the scene, Napier had no idea that this case would remain unsolved for the duration of his career with the Bayonne Police Department. He retired in 2011 after more than 30 years on the force. At that moment he was hoping her ID or cellphone were nearby waiting to be discovered. “It’s hands off until the medical examiner gets there,” Napier says. “You’re not going to move her or turn her over to see if she’s got a wallet in her pocket. You don’t want to contaminate anything.” Napier is a tall and somewhat stoic man with a careful, measured way of speaking. His story is peppered with “maybe,” “possibly” and “potentially”; in this case there are no definites. Napier emphasizes that he isn’t speaking on behalf of the Bayonne Police Department, but merely sharing his personal thoughts about the case.
Where is she from? “I don’t think she’s from around here. If she were, somebody would be making noise about this, somebody,” Napier says, mentioning that local news stories in the days follow-
“
It looked like a mannequin.” — Leo Campbell
ing the discovery of Jane Doe would have alerted family and friends if she had been a missing Bayonne local. “There’s no science to back it up, there’s no smoking gun, but it’s my theory that she was dumped there by some overthe-road truck driver because the area that she was in was an industrial part of town,” Napier says. “My theory is that someone who was on the way to someplace used that area to dump her, and you could surmise that it was in the middle of the night that she was dumped.” She could have been a victim of sex trafficking, an adult sex worker, a transient, or simply someone from a busy metropolitan area with no close ties to anyone who would report her missing. Napier says that Jane Doe could be from anywhere in the world. In fact, this case put him in touch with agencies all over the United States and in the Caribbean. The connection to the Caribbean was explored when an island police agency phoned Napier because it was investigating the case of a missing young woman. Those officers saw the information about Bayonne’s Jane Doe in a police database and wanted to check her dental records against those of their missing person. It wasn’t a match, but it is a testament to the way police detectives look far and wide to solve a case. Information about Jane Doe is in police and FBI databases that help agencies match the missing to nameless Jane and John Does. These databases have helped the Bayonne Police Department eliminate hundreds of potential matches in this case.
How to identify her Who is she? What they did determine at the time was that she was a black female with an approximate age of 16 to 20. She stood at between 5’2 and 5’5 and was around 118 lbs. The Bayonne Police Department said that there was no indication of a hitand-run. Though homicide is suspected, her cause of death is unknown because the body was badly decomposed. “We spoke with Leo,” Napier says. “There are no other witnesses. It’s not like it’s in the middle of a neighborhood where you would be knocking on everybody’s doors to find out what they saw or what they didn’t see. There’s nothing. There’s no point of reference. There’s not a lot to work with, with the lack of witnesses and the lack of physical evidence.” This occurred prior to the 2011 development of the Bayonne Crossing Shopping Center. The police did inquire at the few surrounding businesses but found no leads. Napier points out that most local drivers who wanted to go southbound on 440 from Hook Road at that time would take Avenue J to 22nd Street, making this side of the jughandle seldom used and all the more desolate. As the crime scene was processed, it became clear that this case wouldn’t be open and shut. With little evidence, Napier had to rely on his instincts and logic.
The New Jersey State Police is a resource. “NJSP.org has a whole file on unidentified dead persons, and our Jane Doe is in that file of unidentified dead persons for Hudson County,” Napier says. “There’s a forensic mockup of what she looks like that was done by an anthropologist working for the state.” The website also features images of Jane Doe’s stained clothing, which include plastic jewelry and socks with teddy bears printed on them. Details like these make Napier believe that Jane Doe is on the younger side of her estimated age. “I could be mistaken,” he says, “but I think she’s a kid. It’s a shame.” Napier is still moved by the case of Jane Doe. Director of Public Safety, Bob Kubert, who was chief of police at the time that the body was discovered, recalls that they spoke about the unsolved mystery upon Napier’s retirement. “I think this case stayed with him,” Kubert says. “I don’t lose sleep over it, but as far as unfinished business, you want to see it get closed, and if she was the victim of a homicide, you want to see that person held accountable for his or her actions,” Napier says. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder in New Jersey. She deserves a name, she really does. I’m sharing this sentiment, I’m sure, with everyone that I worked with; we all want to identify her.” Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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from page 15
years old and over. Group meetings on the first and third Thursdays of the month at 4th Street and Story Court. Contact Dottie at (201) 858-4104.
DETECTIVE BILL NAPIER
The public is always a silent witness when it comes to cold cases. Tipsters can contact the Bayonne Police Department Missing Persons Unit at (201) 858-6925 if they have information that can help piece the case together. The new detectives on the case are Bayonne detectives John Ballance and
“
There are no other witnesses. It’s not like it’s in the middle of a neighborhood where you would be knocking on everybody’s doors to find out what they saw or what they didn’t see.” — Det. Bill Napier Melissa Morales. They continue to compare Jane Doe’s fingerprints against those of missing girls and women. The mystery continues to puzzle the next generation of detectives, and they carry on the hope that Napier has for discovering Jane Doe’s true name. “Our feeling here is that we’re not prepared to give up trying to identify her,” Detective Ballance says, adding that they will work on it for as long as it takes. “Time doesn’t come into it. We will never stop.” “Never have we had an investigation where we can’t put the biggest piece of the puzzle together,” Napier says. “In most investigations you can put the biggest piece of the puzzle together, and it’s the smaller pieces that you struggle with to resolve a case. In this case the biggest piece of the puzzle is missing, the piece of the puzzle that says, ‘Who is she?’” —BLP
Bayonne Girl Scouts seeks adult volunteers to help lead troops after the membership drive at Mt. Carmel Parish Center, 39 East 22nd St. For more information, contact Registrar at (201) 339-1845. Pastor Victor Llerena, LSW, will host a series of free workshops, “Healthy Families,” on Tuesdays at the Polish American Home at 29 West 22nd St. Discussions will include conflict resolution, effective parenting, mental health, building stronger relationships, and more. Call (201) 339-3902. Bayonne Feral Cat Foundation is looking for volunteers and foster homes for pets. If you would like to help, please contact Kathy at (201) 8232363. Can you help Hudson County Animal League with the cost of caring for homeless felines by clipping cat food and litter coupons? Send them to P.O. Box 3589, Jersey City, N.J. 07303 or P.O. Box 4332, Bayonne, N.J. 07002. They are also looking for foster parents to foster an animal until their forever home is found. For info, call Kathleen at (201) 895-3874 or
18 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
Charlene at (201) 2001008. For the youth group, for community service hours or for adults, contact Lorma Wepner at (201) 4377263. Hudson County Animal League Adoptions, every Sunday, 12-4:30 p.m., Fussy Friends, 148 Newark Ave., Jersey City, (1/2 block from Grove Street PATH). For information, call Kathleen, (201) 8953874; every Sunday 13:30 p.m., Petsmart, 400 Mill Creek Mall, Secaucus. For information, call Charlene, (201) 598-0952 or Kathleen, (201) 8953874; Petvalu, 307 Bayonne Crossing Way, Bayonne. Every Saturday, 12-4 p.m. For information, call Charlene, (201) 8950952 or Kathleen, (201) 895-3874. Joyce-Herbert V.F.W. Post 226 Museum seeks military history, military memorabilia and military paraphernalia, and donations to support the growing military museum. All items are either donated or loaned to our museum. The contact persons for donations are Commander Glen J. Flora and Director and Senior Vice Commander Joseph Kennedy. The museum at 16 West Ninth Street is open Saturdays, 12-4 p.m. Young at Heart Seniors meet on the second and fourth Fridays of the month at 12:30 p.m. at the Senior Center at West 4th Street.
AUGUST
9
Summer Movies at the Library: Boss Baby, Bayonne Public Library, 697 Avenue C, 1-3 p.m. Summer Sounds by the Bay Concerts: Radio Nashville, DiDomenico-16th Street Park, Lower Ampitheater, Avenue A and Newark Bay, 7 p.m. This new-wave country act covers every country music hit from today’s top artists including Carrie Underwood, Lady Antebellum, Blake Shelton, Band Perry, Miranda Lambert and many more.
16 Summer Movies at the Library: Sing, Bayonne Public Library, 697 Avenue C, 1-3 p.m. Summer Sounds by the Bay Concerts: The Cameos, DiDomenico-16th Street Park, Lower Ampitheater, Avenue A and Newark Bay, 7 p.m. This talented oldies group creates and performs their own unique renditions of the most popular songs of the ’50s and ’60s with a little of the ’70s for good measure. They blend together a special mix of smooth vocal harmonies with captivating musical energy to bring a modern and sophisticated feel to this fabulous music of years gone by.
20 Phyllis & Adelaide are running a funfilled bus ride to the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City. Cost is $35 per person with a $25 Slot Play return and $5 food coupon. Bus leaves at 10:30 a.m. from East 35th Street. There will be refreshments and raffles. For information or to purchase tickets call Phyllis at (201) 339-4517. Purchase tickets in advance; all proceeds will benefit various charities in Bayonne.
23 The Prime of Life’s Trip to Atlantic City Resorts. The cost is $30. Also there will be a Thunderbirds air show on the same day. For information, call Peggy at (201) 437-6350 or Alma at (201) 492-7226. Summer Sounds by the Bay Concerts: The Nerds, DiDomenico-16th Street Park, Lower Ampitheater, Avenue A and Newark Bay, 7 p.m. It’s pure overthe-top entertainment when The Nerds come to Bayonne,
bringing the sand and boardwalk atmosphere! Playing the hits of classic rock and roll, The Nerds deliver an exciting, edgy and totally fun show. Break your glasses, fix them with a band aid and come out to enjoy New Jersey’s zaniest bunch of cover rock stars.
SEPTEMBER
16
Bayonne High School Class of 1987’s 30 Year Reunion, The Chandelier, 1081 Broadway, 7-11 p.m. Cost is $76 per person. Spouses are welcome. Open bar, hot food, dessert, and DJ. All checks are to be sent to Lisa DeMonaco at 43 East 21st St., Bayonne, NJ 07002. Please include maiden name and phone number with check.
24
Phyllis & Adelaide are running a funfilled bus ride to the Sands Casino, Bethlehem, PA. Cost is $35 per person with a $30 Slot Play and $5 food coupon.
Bus leaves at 10:30 a.m. from East 35th Street. There will be refreshments and raffles. For information or to purchase tickets, call Phyllis at (201) 339-4517. Please purchase tickets in advance; all proceeds will benefit various charities in Bayonne.
28-29
26 DECEMBER 1 Golden Ages of Bayonne’s trip to Annie Get Your Gun, the Westchester Theater, Elmsford, NY. Trip includes transportation, lunch, and show. Bus will leave at 9 a.m. For information, call Loretta at (201) 3393956.
Golden Ages of Bayonne’s trip to A Playhouse Christmas 2017, Hunterdon Hills Playhouse. Trip includes transportation, lunch, the bakery, dessert buffet, and the show. Bus will leave at 9:30 a.m. For information, call Loretta at (201) 339-3956.
Golden Ages of Bayonne’s overnight theater trip, Lancaster, PA. We will watch Pippen on Sept. 28 at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater and Vegas Legends on Sept. 29 at the American Music Theater. Night accommodations will be at the Fulton Steamboat Inn. Bus will leave at 9 a.m. For information, call Loretta at (201) 3393956.
OCTOBER
7
BHS Class of 1967’s 50th Reunion. Please join us and spread the word. Call Anna or Joan at (201) 8233777 or email bayonnehighclassof67@gm ail.com.
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Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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The Bayonne Box is a one- or two-family detached home, set back from the sidewalk.
PHOTOS BY VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
THE BAYONNE B O X An architectural archetype
BY RORY PASQUARIELLO
N
ew Jersey often gets a bad rap, Bayonne especially. During the housing boom of the mid-2000s, which culminated in a global financial crisis in 2009, residents of Newark began associating their cross-river neighbor with a common boxy housing structure they viewed as anathema to their urbanist vision for Newark. The “Bayonne Box,” a one- or twofamily detached home, usually three stories, set back from the sidewalk for off-street parking, are bountiful in Newark, Bayonne, Hudson
County, and many cities across the Tri-State. The city of Newark was adamant about charting a new course in housing policy. It hosted a housing design symposium at the historic Newark Museum in 2007 titled “Transforming the ‘Bayonne Box’ into a new house for Newark.” Urbanists preferred newer, taller mixed-use buildings, the kind now standard in Bayonne’s development boom. The most desirable existing housing stock remains the same across the country—pretty brownstones and row houses.
20 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
With the Newark revivalist movement came talk about changing the zoning laws to decrease required parking spaces from 1.5 spaces per dwelling to one, which it eventually did, as did Bayonne in June of this year. The “Bayonne Box” became a case study in poor urban planning. If Newark residents envision a dense, walkable, public-transitoriented city, then it’s true that the box stood in their way. Bayonne has a similar vision, but the box remains curiously absent from the discussion.
Design and Perception The aesthetic appeal of the box is subjective, but its critics make valid points. The box, while creating offstreet parking, discourages density, encourages vehicle ownership, can be an inefficient use of space, and a concentration of them can lead to traffic congestion and less-walkable communities. However, Bayonne
house: ideal conditions for illegal apartments that pose serious safety hazards to occupants. Bayonne residents never shared the same distaste for the box as those in Newark. On the contrary, Bayonne residents seem proud of their city’s architectural characteristics and embrace the suburban-urban lifestyle afforded by its vehicle-
the average working family could purchase a home and a car, attend college, and move up the economic ladder. The favorable economic conditions gave way to the largest population boom in American history—the baby boomers. These new families needed housing, a lot of it, and they wanted cars.
Off-street parking makes the ice. Bayonne Box an attractive cho
built its boxes long before the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail was constructed in 2000, which opened the city to higher-density development. Newark, meanwhile, had long been a transit hub. Boxes have long exterior walls. The space between the lots, called a “sliver side yard,” is so small that it’s virtually unusable except for trash storage, and wastes space. Think of how much space all those side yards combined would amount to. Boxes have also become a bane for housing inspectors. Common box floor plans have large family rooms, or recreation rooms, that are independent from the rest of the
friendly philosophy. Sit in on any city council meeting where a new development is discussed, and residents will turn out in droves, arguing that new development doesn’t fit in a community of traditional Bayonne housing.
Birth of the Box The box was not born from centralized urban planning, but rather from a strong demand for housing and vehicles in the decades after World War II. With the rest of the developed world buried in rubble, the Greatest Generation who fought the war took advantage of the booming economy. For the first time in American history,
This generation was also the last to embrace intergenerational housing. The younger generation would grow up to rent half the box, and eventually inherit the property altogether. The floor plans made ideal apartments for either generation, zoning laws be damned. Over the next few decades, cities across the country built more housing without adjusting zoning maps to create larger lots. Developers were limited to building on standard 25-by-100 square-foot lots, which created the “boxy” shape. To accommodate the simultaneous explosion of vehicle ownership, boxes were set back from the street
Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
21
Bayonne Boxes were seen as an improvement over tenement buildings.
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail connected Bayonne to the rest of urban New Jersey that residents and developers began thinking otherwise.
When the Dust Settles
to replace what might have been a front yard with a driveway, a very different design than the traditionally more desirable brownstones and row houses that come right up to the sidewalk. Density was not a priority of city planners at the time. Bayonne was much more spread out in the 1960s than it is now. Boxes were seen as a large improvement over the dense, yet decrepit, tenement buildings that were being torn down by the block to make room for boxes. This era saw a massive expansion of highways and disinvestment in public transit, making off-street parking more valuable than ever.
While boxes were being built, Hudson County was going through its own revival, centered on historic homes, termed by historians as the “Brownstone Revival.” Investors flooded into neighborhoods like Hamilton Park and Paulus Hook in Jersey City, and downtown Hoboken, to buy up existing housing stock. Meanwhile, boxes were marketed to the “working class.” Newark has for a long time seen itself as a bona fide city, the largest in the state, a center of commerce and transit. But Bayonne has historically been comfortable in the grey area between city and suburb. It was not until 2000 when the
22 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
When the housing market collapsed in 2009, much development in cities across the country came to a screeching halt, including that in Bayonne. Now, still in recovery, the housing market has changed. Most new developments in Bayonne are luxury rentals marketed to residents with above-average incomes, the antithesis of boxy houses designed to expand affordable home ownership. Today, the Bayonne Box, the kind native to Bayonne, is more valuable than ever, as property values countrywide are at all-time highs. At one time, boxes were for low-to-moderate income blue-collar families. A box on the market only a few years ago may have attracted a couple of bidders and commanded a generous price, but now those homes have many bidders competing for a limited number of homes in Hudson County. Here’s the kicker— with driveways. Homeowners whose taste in housing has changed over time have been modifying boxes across the county, tearing off plastic paneling and replacing it with a more stylish material, like wood paneling. They might replace the windows with bay windows, repaint the garage door, and tear off the black railing on the balconies in favor of something more posh. Some box owners convert the garage into small businesses, like a daycare or office. Design can only suppress utility so much, and the needs of increasingly diverse communities change. So, too, will the box’s purpose. The alliterative Bayonne Box makes a good mark for new urbanists who prefer a bike lane to on-street parking, a light rail station to a highway entrance, or simply just enough housing to accommodate everyone. Here in Bayonne, residents are still on the fence. —BLP
A Changing Peninsula 16 D 15 14
13 C
12 10 9 11
7 6
4
5
8 B
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Stations in Bayonne A. 8th Street
C. 34th Street
B. 22nd Street
D. 45th Street
Here are some major developments in Bayonne 1. The Promenade
A 44-acre village of townhouses, apartments, a marina, commercial space, and four parks
2. 26 North Street
A 22-story, 244-foot tall tower with 3,900 square-feet of ground-floor retail, and 170 apartments
3. Hudson Flats
A five-story, 38-unit apartment building
4. 19 East
A six-story, 138-unit apartment building
5. 222 Avenue E
Five stories, 70 units, and 74 feet tall
3
6. Sky Lofts South
Six-story, 90-unit apartment building
7. Sky Lofts North
Six-story, 100-unit apartments
2
A
8. Prospect Ave and 22nd St.
Plans not finalized; allowed up to eight stories and 180 units
9. 172 Avenue F
Six-story, 180-unit residential building
10. Avenue F & 32nd St.
Plan not finalized, allowed up to six stories and 180 units
11. 477 Broadway
Eight stories, 72 units
12. Avenue C and 30th Street
Five and a half stories, 30 units
13. MOTBY
Huge developments, including commercial, residential, and open space.
1
14. 688 Avenue E
Five stories, 65 residential units
15. 46th and Broadway
10 stories, 107 feet tall, 69 units
16. 180 W. 54th Street
180-units with commercial space on the ground floor
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Tom Wahlers and his brother Brendan Photo by Victor M. Rodriguez
Qaid Muhammad (left) with friend Ali Photo by Victor M. Rodriguez
Hooked!
Anglers cast their lines in Bayonne waters
O
Photo of Aaron Nieves, courtesy of Aaron Nieves
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n any given afternoon between February and November, you can find Aaron Nieves fishing from County Park in the waters of Newark Bay. Aaron, who’s a 17-year-old student at Snyder High School in Jersey City, prefers to fish in Bayonne. His father drops him off after work; it’s more convenient than fishing in downtown Jersey City. “Sometimes if you’ve had a hard day at work or school, fishing is peaceful,” he says. “The stress is released. You can see people walking or running, and you can meet people.” Aaron used bunker to catch the striper in the picture on this page. But what he’s really hoping for is striped bass. “The meat’s more tasty,” he says. “I eat the fish that I catch.” He scales, guts, and fillets the fish himself. “I looked on YouTube to see how to fillet a fish. I just watched once or twice.” Now he’s an expert, but he usually lets his mother do the cooking. “Once a week, I eat what I catch,” he says. “It’s safe to eat the fish, but you can’t eat crabs because crabs are bottom eaters and eat everything that falls to the bottom. Striped bass migrate and eat what we give them, like bunker.” Aaron fished for the first time with his cousin a few years ago. “He took me fishing, and I liked it,” he recalls. “It’s exciting to feel the fish pull, you bring it in, and you feel the adrenaline.” Fish that are too small—less than 28 inches—are thrown back.
Seventh grader Natalie Winters Photo by Jim Foote
“Fish is more delicious when you catch it yourself,” he says. “When you spend time and have fun catching it, it’s a good feeling.”
TAKE IT FROM A PRO That’s a sentiment Captain Akira Hayashi would agree with. Hayashi, a Bayonne resident who has been fishing in town for 20 years, captains fishing charters in New York Harbor and Sandy Hook. If you don’t want to fish from a boat, Hayashi suggests fishing off the piers in County Park, Veterans Park, and First Street by the bridge. He adds fluke or summer flounder to the striped bass and bluefish that anglers report catching off Bayonne. He also uses bunker as bait as well as bloodworms. Hayashi likes the challenge of fishing. “It’s not easy,” he says. “You’re in nature, and you can’t control nature. It’s exciting to challenge nature. You’re fighting the fish, and when you win, it’s very exciting.”
SCHOOL OF FISHERS Anthony Altobelli teaches seventhgrade Special Education at Midtown Community School. He’s 30. He’s a firstyear teacher in Bayonne but has been an avid fisherman his entire life. When he asked Principal Christina Mercun if
he could start a fishing club, “she supported it 100 percent,” he said. The only question is, would he be able to muster the requisite10 kids to join. “Thirty kids showed an interest,” Altobelli said. “They came running to sign up.” It was easy to pick a fishing hole. Veterans Stadium bulkhead was within walking distance of the school. “I talked to numerous people in the fishing industry,” Altobelli said, “and they all said that Bayonne was a great place to fish.” A buddy in a tackle shop offered to donate the fishing rods. A bluefish was the first catch. “Everyone wanted to take a selfie with the fish,” Altobelli said. Midtown Community’s fishing club was a great success. The fisherkids will reconvene in the fall.
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE Qaid Muhammad is another Jersey City guy who likes to fish in Bayonne. “In Jersey City at Liberty State Park, the fish aren’t biting,” he says. “You don’t have the flow like you have in Bayonne, the currents, cleaner water, whatever.” Like Aaron, he catches bluefish and striped bass, but prefers the latter. The water is “cleaner than most people think,” he says, “but I usually soak the fish in vinegar for a couple of minutes before I cook them.”
Sixth grader Vasily Schirta Photo by Jim Foote
Qaid has been fishing for more than 50 years. He grew up in New York City, fishing with his father in Long Island Sound, Montauk, New Rochelle, City Island, and Coney Island. “I love it,” he says. “The water is therapeutic and helps you calm down and deal with issues a little better. Good people are drawn to the water.” He also uses bunker as bait, along with sandworms, lugworms, and clams. “Fishing is almost spiritual,” he says. “My father took me fishing when I was small.” He taught me “how important it was to be near the water. I learned to look more at solutions instead of focusing on problems.” Qaid thinks that being a good fisherman is like being a good salesman. “You have to learn not to be aggressive and have patience,” he says. He relates that he always had trouble catching blackfish until he got some advice from an “old Spanish man,” who said, “You’re not feeling the fish. There should be no slack in the line. It’s an intuitive feeling. The manual is important, but you need to feel a connection to the fish.” After this advice, Qaid caught about nine blackfish. Qaid points to the religious symbolism of fish, citing Jonah’s unfortunate sojourn in the belly of the whale, and Jesus’s promise: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Qaid says, “On the ocean you think more about God than at any other time.”—Kate Rounds
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. . . gs
a r t …for E x I n n i n senior
women’s softball
BY KATE ROUNDS PHOTOS BY VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
I
t’s hard to imagine a more beautiful Bayonne setting than Don Ahern Veterans Memorial Stadium. This exquisitely renovated facility is set against the alluring industrial backdrop of Newark Bay with its container cranes seemingly set alight by the setting sun. This was the scene that greeted me on a perfect spring evening when On the Rocks (OTR) took on the Starting Point Diamonds. It was a bit windy as the powerful Kelela hit fungoes to her Diamonds teammates. But you could tell that a little wind wasn’t going to deter these women. The phrase “senior women’s softball” conjures images of ladies hitting the sandlot at the local assisted living facility. Not! These women are seasoned athletes, many of whom have been playing the game for decades. Take Mary Borrella-Cerreta. A Bayonne native, her first team was the Unico Debs. Her father, who was president of Unico, agreed to sponsor the girls, who were students at St. Andrew’s Elementary School. “I was the youngest of three girls and the closest thing to a son my father had,” Mary says. “My sisters didn’t show any interest at all, but I fell in love with baseball.” She currently teaches sixth grade at Walter F. Robinson School and has been playing for the On the Rocks team for 24 years. The team is known as OTR because the full name is deemed not appropriate for teachers. Playing softball is a family affair. Mary’s daughter, Catherine, has played for OTR for 20 years, and Mary’s ex-husband, Michael, coached varsity softball at BHS. When she was 12, Mary played for the legendary Coach Don Ahearn, who started the Junior Girls League. At the time, girls were not allowed to play Little League with boys. Ahern pitched, and the girls played the field. Ahern said something that influenced Mary’s athletic life: “You’d make a great coach,” he told her. The reason? She’d change his lineups. Her baseball and softball coaching credits would later include Saint Andrew’s, where she coached for 12 years, winning nine city championships, and four CYO county championships; PAL; Little League; Holy Family; and Dr. Walter F. Robinson Elementary School, where she coached the Lady Royals from 1992 to 2014. Two current OTR players coach at Marist and BHS. Mary loves to talk shop, like the times she intentionally walks a batter to load the bases and set up a force. The pitcher might
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Laura Ayala of The Diamonds (Left) and Mary Borella-Cerreta of On The Rocks. Left: Nae - The Diamonds Bottom: Sharon Walsh - On The Rocks get pissed but is happy when they get the force. “I’ll be the bad guy,” Mary says. What is it about softball that keeps adult women coming back each spring? “You can play it forever, and you don’t even have to be good at it,” Mary says. “It brings a sisterhood to the field. We know when someone is having a baby or a wedding. It’s a wonderful feeling when springtime arrives.” Women’s softball is also a social activity. The OTR team used to go to the Big Apple after games, but after the Big Apple closed, the team is now happy to join the Starting Point Diamonds at the Starting Point. “We’re friendly rivals,” Mary says. You have to be age 15 and a freshman in high school to play, but there is no upper age limit. Girls who were rivals on high school teams are now playing together.
Diamonds are Forever Laura Ayala is a veteran with the Starting Point Diamonds. An accountant by day, she’s now 54 and has been playing since age 6. She played with Saint Andrew’s, and then when she went to BHS, she jumped right into the varsity, skipping junior varsity altogether. She also played for Jersey City State. Though she usually pitches, she considers herself a utility player. “I prefer not to catch, but I will if I have to,” she says.
Left: Samantha Maggio On The Rocks Tanya - The Diamonds
She’s played basketball and was a shotputter in high school, “but I didn’t care for that.” Softball is her true love. She pitches fast balls and curve balls on the inside and outside of the plate. “I’m a good jammer and have a good changeup,” she says. For a pitcher, she’s pretty good at offense, too. “I single every time or walk, depending on who’s pitching. I prefer fast pitch.” What she really likes is the camaraderie. “I love being around a group of friends, meeting new ones who grew up with the same interests I have. Some teams are aggressive, some play for the fun of it all. At the end of the day we go out to the bar.” Is it nerve-racking?
championships. She won the MVP trophy when she was age 32 and playing for the Positively Fourth Street team.
Rec-ing Crew Bayonne Supervisor of Recreation Pete Amadeo has been on the job for nine years and with the recreation division for
15. “My first assignment on my very first day, I was handed the softball folder,” he recalls. “Enjoy.” And enjoy they did. Currently, there are five teams in the women’s league: On the Rocks, Starting Point Diamonds, Vamps, Most Wanted, and Fully Loaded. If you’re talking name creativity, Most Wanted and Fully Loaded have it over wussy bird names like the Cardinals and the Blue Jays any day of the week. “Some games are really intense,” Amadeo says. “The championships draw tremendous crowds. It’s great softball, sometimes with extra innings. But at the end of the day everyone is having fun playing the game they love.” The season starts in April and ends in June. The six-inning games are played Monday through Thursday. In February, an awards ceremony is held for the teams. For more information, email bayonnerec @aol.com.
The Final Score As for the game on that beautiful evening in early May? “It was a crazy game,” Laura reports. “We always have at least one chaotic inning when we forget the fundamentals.” She admits to making a coaching error, too, but in a back-and-forth nailbiter they were ahead 16 to 13 at the top of the fifth, and the rest is history. “It was a slugfest,” Mary confirms. “The Diamonds won 18 to 17 in a two-and-ahalf-hour contest.” The teams didn’t get
Barbara - The Diamonds
Kelela - The Diamonds
Virginia Lancellotti - On The Rocks
“When you’ve played as long as I have you can relax and enjoy it,” Laura says. “Just remember the fundamentals. In a championship game, after the first five pitches, it’s like any other day, just a day in the park.” Her team has won seven consecutive
to the Starting Point Bar & Grill until about 9:45. “I had a single and a run scored,” Mary says. “Not bad for a 62year-old girl!” Not bad indeed. — BLP Kim Vulcano - On The Rocks Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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Lattes, laptops, and the new face of Bayonne BY TARA RYAZANSKY PHOTOS BY MAX RYAZANSKY
B
ayonne is evolving. Luxury condos are on the rise. Soon a 10-story building will tower over Broadway where mom-and-pop shops once stood. The cafés that are popping up around town reflect the young urbanites, who are moving into these properties. You could always find a decent cappuccino here, thanks to the Italian-American community, but café character was hard to come by. Now Bayonne is peppered with cozy cafés where you can become a regular, enjoy conversation with friends, or set up your laptop office. Does the $5 latte complete with a foam heart mean that Bayonne has made the leap from blue collar to urban professional?
WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS … Perk Up owner Neil Bojarski wanted to start a business after moving back to Hudson County from Las Vegas. When he asked his daughters what type of business, they said a coffee shop. He was onboard, taking a class at Kobrick Coffee Company, where he learned how to brew coffee and expertly steam milk. He opened his first shop at 317 Broadway because he noticed the development in the neighborhood. Bojarski brought his lifelong best friend, Brian Collins, who has a culinary background, into the business as manager soon after the 2015 opening. “I’ve been in a kitchen doing food since I’ve been 13,” Collins says. “I love what I do.” He gestures with pride toward a display case of sandwiches with roasted veggies and thick mozzarella. He’s the foodie, and Bojarski is the Joe expert. Bojarski also has an eye for design. The place has custom gas pipe lighting fixtures, artfully drawn chalkboard menus, and a vintage-looking tin ceiling. Another standout detail is a gigantic safe that serves as a side table. The safe reads,
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Bake ‘N Brew’s Michael Mossaad and Johanna Lara
“Massarelli,” the family name of the original building owners who had a pharmacy for many years. “It shows a little history,” says Collins, who lives in Bayonne. “We’re new, but we don’t want to change this town; we want to be a part of it.” But Collins concedes that change is in the air. “I’ve seen Bayonne grow from pizzerias, Italian restaurants, and fast food to more specialty shops,” he says. “Most of the people who are moving into town are a little bit younger, and they want something different.” He says that a lot of people come in looking for their vegan and gluten-free foods. “Plus coffee is vegan and gluten-free!” he laughs.
TEAM BEAN Citysports owners Chris Piechocki and Victor Pesantez wanted to launch an indoor sports arena. They eventually pulled Perk Up’s Bojarski into their brainstorming session, asking him to sponsor a sports team. Instead, Bojarski asked to open a mini café in the lobby of the arena. The idea appealed to Piechocki. “This way the parents can come in and fuel up on coffee for their busy day,” he says. Perk Up opened inside Citysports on Gertrude Street in October 2015. Piechocki says that it’s popular with parents. “They all stay over here and socialize,” he says, gesturing toward the reclaimed wood kiosk that offers food, snacks, and sports drinks along with the shop’s famous coffee offerings.
ANOTHER BROADWAY BREW A third Perk Up opened this year at 603 Broadway, between 27th and 28th Streets. This coffeehouse isn’t as big as the original. It offers a smaller menu of baked goods, soups, sandwiches, and salads. The area has more foot traffic than the downtown spot. Collins, who spends the majority of his time at this location, knows most of his customers’ regular orders.
COFFEE KLATCH Cafe Nomis is inside the Verizon Store on Broadway and 23rd Street. The cafe is owned by Lucy Kim, whose brother
Perk Up Cafe’s beverages and baked goods
Offerings from Bake ‘N Brew
owns the Verizon Store. The Kim family opened the cafe in 2015 when they realized that Verizon customers would probably enjoy sipping coffee while shopping for the newest smartphone. Now Cafe Nomis draws regular customers all its own. The Kims have lived in Bayonne since the 1980s and recall Broadway as a once-thriving shopping district. “I’m very hopeful that the town can attract younger people,” Lucy says. “We are doing our very best to keep Bayonne going.” Part of that effort is adding menu items that are unique for the area, like Bubble Tea and Taiyaki croissants. “We want to bring different stuff to Bayonne, so people don’t have to make a trip out of town to try something new,” Lucy says.
ROASTING RENAISSANCE Bake ‘N Brew Cafe opened in late June in Bergen Point. The café, which is on Broadway between 5th and 6th Streets, is owned by Michael Mossaad and his wife, Johanna Lara. “This is our first business, but it’s always been in our minds,” Lara says, explaining that shortly after she and her husband met in 2002 he planned to open a bagel shop in the city with some friends, but it fell through at the last minute. “Ever since then he had that spark in him that he wanted to open a place of his own,” she says. That dream is finally coming true. The café features coffee and housemade artisanal bread and sweets from local vendors. Lara likes to keep it local. “We live a few blocks away from the store,” she says. “Our children go to school here. We have an amazing community.” Lara has gotten support from other business owners in the area, like Sandra Dear, who is in the process of opening a children’s bookstore called The Little Boho Book Shop next door to Bake ‘N Brew. “It felt like destiny was just waiting for us to connect,” Lara says. The two found that their business plans merged easily. They plan to share a space at the back of the two shops, where little readers and their coffeedrinking caregivers can mingle. “We’re hoping to build something for the community,” says Dear, who came to Bayonne from San Diego five years ago when she got a publishing job in NYC. Now she sees a new wave of people moving to town. “Everyone that I talk to is coming to Bayonne from the city,” she says. Lara says, “Someone said it’s almost like a renaissance happening here.”—BLP
PERK UP CAFE perkupcafe.net facebook.com/perkupcafenj @perkupcafenj on Instagram CAFE NOMIS facebook.com/CafeNomis BAKE ‘N BREW facebook.com/BakeBrewcafe
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The Iron EMS Mickey McCabe back on the job
STORY AND PHOTO BY RORY PASQUARIELLO
In the middle of a Giants game in October with breathing tubes in his nose, Mickey McCabe received a call from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with good news. They’d found a matching donor for his lung, which was diseased with incurable pulmonary fibrosis. Most patients wait six months to two years to hear back. McCabe got the call in 28 days. “I was so surprised,” he said. “I think I said to her, for who?” “For you, sir,” the caller replied. “I said, ‘Holy moly, we’re in play!’ I drove to Philadelphia myself. Nothing stopped me.” McCabe, 70, founder and president of McCabe Ambulance Service, was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, which stiffens and scars the lung, making breathing very difficult and the lung extremely vulnerable to infection and disease. He doesn’t drink tap water for risk of bacteria causing infection. The only treatment is to replace the lung, and even when a patient is matched with a donor, the body’s immune system can never fully accept the lung. Medication can slow the rejection, but never stop it. “Psychologically, I was always believing this will work out, that I will get something,” McCabe said. “They’ll either come up with a new drug or get a new set of lungs.” He continues to work at the company he founded in 1973, albeit from the safety of a desk, away from the risk of disease and infection. If the mind quits, so too might the lung. “I really hate that phrase, ‘Live every day like it’s your last.’ That’s such bullshit,” he said. “If today was your last day, you would stop reading the papers and get a good book and sit on the beach.” McCabe could have retired years ago, but he feels a sense of purpose in the business of saving lives. Plus, he’s not a big reader. The point is, he is content right where he is. “You come to the realization that there are no guarantees in life, and
therefore I don’t know if I have a year or 30 years.” McCabe’s condition forced him to live life with astronautic precaution, making sure to carry enough oxygen for two-way trips. “I cherish now that I can go around without worrying that I’ll get in traffic without oxygen,” McCabe said. The transplant was a success. McCabe looks well and feels stronger every day. But he’s not yet out of the woods. His transplant anniversary will be in October, a big benchmark in determining the body’s ability to accept a foreign organ. His body is still deciding while he pops 40 pills a day to convince it.
North Tower after their long, dark, panicked descent down the building’s stairwells. Burning jet fuel jammed the revolving doors, trapping people inside, with police resorting to shooting glass windows for people to escape. In contrast to the immediate deaths of those who jumped or were trapped, the toxic dust inhalation resulted in slow and painful deaths years later from cancer and other diseases. McCabe is peeved the government said the dust would not have the adverse health effects that it did, but he doesn’t dwell on the past. “There isn’t one of us who wouldn’t go
“This is an absolute gift from the donor and a gift from God.”
Cut From the Hero’s Cloth McCabe was diagnosed 13 years after Ground Zero delivered three straight days’ worth of hazardous dust into his lungs, and was put on the waiting list for a new lung on Sept. 11, 2016. Being so close to lower Manhattan, McCabe was called upon in the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. “Just as the second plane was hitting I was coming out of the tunnel, and I’m looking at all this carnage and people jumping off the roof, but I wanted to rescue them. We could do it and we’ve done it before,” he said. He described rescuing people from the lobby of the
30 • Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017
in and do it again,” he said. “That’s the fabric we’re cut from. I’m not angry at anyone.” He’s not even mad at the Environmental Protection Agency administrator at the time, Christine Todd Whitman, who infamously assured the public that the air was not a threat to health.
Exceptional Support System Pulmonary fibrosis patients are extremely vulnerable to disease, and are therefore strongly advised to remain in the hospital while awaiting a new lung. McCabe, however, had the privilege of waiting in his own home, under
PEOPLE POWER BLP the care of his loving family, and the 135 medically trained professionals he employs across the street at the 24/7 McCabe Ambulance Service. His wife is a nurse, and his son is McCabe’s chief of operations. “For all these years, my entire career, I was in charge,” McCabe said. “I was the go-to person. Then I became the person going to everyone else. You need help in ways you never thought before.” One of his staff would pick him up every morning at 4:45 to drive to Philadelphia for physical therapy and make it back to Bayonne by one o’clock. Having a medically trained professional as a chauffeur is one of the perks of running an ambulance company, but it cannot supplant a supportive family. “If you’re living in a household that is less than totally functional, you can become non-compliant with your medications and with your therapies,” McCabe said. “And that’s a tremendous detriment to the acceptance by the body of the lung.”
Hold Your Breath Mickey McCabe’s work now is administrative, involving oversight, planning,
training, and things you would expect of the head honcho. As EMS coordinator for the Hudson County Office of Emergency Management, he focuses on programming to help the community adjust protocol and preparations for the world’s ever-evolving threats. He could have retired many years ago. “That’s not in my composition,” he said. “And the world is changing so much every single day that I feel that I just need to be there at least for the time being, doing less than previously but still contributing on a daily basis.” He foresees major breakthroughs in medical science where organs can be repaired rather than replaced, like inserting a gene into a patient’s cells (gene therapy), or custom growing them for their recipients (organ culture, in vitro in a Petri dish). Organ culture theoretically reduces the greatest risk of conventional transplant surgery— rejection. “You want to keep your body parts as long as you can,” McCabe joked. “I think there is progress being made toward repairing the lung, cleansing the lung. Just in our lifetime we’ve seen significant strides.”
The lung is possibly the most challenging organ to transplant. And McCabe doesn’t foresee brain transplants. Too much wiring, he pondered. “If they do, I know a lot of people who will be in line,” he laughed.
Donate Life “Right now, this is an absolute gift from the donor family and a gift from God,” McCabe said. Transplants are miracles of medical science and human kindness. No one is obliged to donate his or her organs. We check that box on our licenses, acknowledging that we leave our material bodies and have it in our power to give the gift of life. The United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the country’s organ transplant system, allows transplant recipients to contact the donor family after a year. McCabe plans to write his donor family a letter in hopes they will meet: “I want to thank them. I want to introduce myself, tell them about how I became a victim and how I needed a transplant and how their benevolent act allowed me to continue life.”—BLP
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The Anthem of the Seas is the third largest cruise ship.
Celebrity Sighting All aboard at Cape Liberty Cruise Port PHOTOS BY VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
W
e’ve all seen them, and sometimes salivated over them: gorgeous pictures of Caribbean cruises. But what we witnessed on a gorgeous morning in June was something more interesting—a bustling cruise port right in our front yard. Though it may seem as if cruise ships are all about out-of-town tourists voyaging to foreign ports, Cape Liberty Cruise Port is all about our local economy: Folks from Bayonne work here, helping to keep this thriving business afloat. The cruise line produces an average of $480,000 in parking taxes annually and $1.4 million annually in port fees, according to Bayonne CFO Terrence Malloy. “Local businesses benefit
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Women workers are a presence on the dock.
ON THE WATERFRONT BLP
The Summit is headed to Bermuda.
Captain Thomas Hinderhofer
when the cruise employees shop and dine in town,” Malloy says. “We also have a hotel that is in the planning stages due to the volume of passengers that are coming into Bayonne. The city also benefits from the positive image that a cruise line brings to a community.” Cape Liberty is a mosaic of contradictions. On the cruise port side, you have excited passengers embarking and disembarking from a huge ship. Across the way, it’s all heavy industry, with container ships offloading their cargo at GCT Bayonne. Behind us is the Bayonne Dry Dock, and perhaps, most incongruous of all, on an adjacent grassy knoll, the famous—or infamous—teardrop-shaped memorial “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism.” As you enter the dock area through a covered passageway, you sense the activity. Everyone is dressed in fluorescent green vests, forklifts move back and forth, linesmen tie off the lines, announcements drift over the PA system, and passengers line up on the deck. Various areas on the side of the ship warn “No Tugs.” This means that there are doors there that would open if pushed by a tug. On the stern is the word Valletta, which indicates that the ship is registered in Malta. But what’s that noise? Nothing you’d expect: a fleet of motorcycles. It turns out that bikers rent their cycles when they get to the port of call. They roar from the hold of the ship and park their bikes under a protective canopy. Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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A Small Town We know cruise ships are big, but it’s still a shock when you see one of these giant vessels tied to the dock. This Sunday morning, it’s the Celebrity Summit that’s just cruised in. Here are her stats: occupancy, 2,158; tonnage, 90,940; length, 965 feet; beam, 105 feet; draught, 26 feet; and cruise speed, 24 knots. Our tour guide is Captain Thomas Hinderhofer, director, Northeast Port Operations & Cape Liberty Cruise Port LLC RCCL. A Long Island native, he trained at SUNY Maritime College and had captained these ships before assuming his current post. Looking up at this vessel, I comment that the notion of docking this thing seems daunting. “It’s pretty maneuverable,” Thomas says casually. Wind, currents, “bad weather,” he takes it all in stride. “Nothing out of the ordinary.” These laidback assessments come after I’ve invoked rogue waves and The Perfect Storm. The lines that secure the ship are about as big around as
I am. The workers here are members of Local 1588 of the International Longshoreman’s Association, with headquarters on Kennedy Boulevard in Bayonne. Some of the lingo tossed around smacks of airline terminals: check-in agents, ground handlers, Customs. But the ship is probably closer to a giant hotel—it has a hotel director—or small town. Garbage is handled by a wastemanagement company that does all the usual recycling. Produce, dairy, meat, and “dry stores” like linens and bed sheets are delivered. One thing you notice right away is that women workers are a presence on the dock. Thomas confirms that back in the day, that would not have been the case.
Bon Voyage! This seven night/eight day roundtrip cruise to Bermuda will leave at 1400 hours. It boasts 997 crew members. The bridge crew consists of 14, but only three officers are on the bridge at any given time. The busy season for cruising from the Northeast is May
The covered lifeboats feature heat and heads.
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through October. On this early June departure date, it’s warm and sunny. But it’s easy to imagine the conditions on this dock in winter. Thomas greets everyone he sees and takes obvious pride in improving their working conditions. “It sucks in winter,” he acknowledges, noting small sheds that protect them from wind and weather, the coffee shop, and “luxury port-a johns.” He says, “They work hard.” Aboard ship, passengers enjoy all the amenities you would expect: copious food, sports, music, dancing, and two pools, a spa pool and saltwater pool. From the bow, some 145 feet in the air, the views are spectacular, even while the ship is in port: lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Verrazano Bridge are just a few of the landmarks.
Even Bigger On Saturday, June 17, the Anthem of the Seas docks at Cape Liberty at about 0700 hours. A light drizzle greets her, unlike the bright sun that greeted the Summit. This
behemoth—the third-largest cruise ship—made her maiden voyage in 2015. She’s 1,142 feet long, 161 feet wide, carries up to 4,819 passengers, travels at 22 knots, and has a crew of 1,300. The Anthem makes five night/six day roundtrip cruises to Bermuda and the Bahamas. This nearly brand-new ship with its baby-blue hull has all the amenities you would expect. It sits high on the water like a huge floating hotel, honeycombed with staterooms. The height of the railings is strategically designed for optimum safety. The lifeboats are as big as studio apartments. They’re fully covered and feature heat and heads. Thomas says that check-in time from curbside to gangways is only 10 minutes. Look up and you can see passengers walking along the enclosed gangways. They enter their staterooms with key cards. From the top deck, the ship’s mascot, Gigi, the giraffe, peers down on the action below, looking like a huge kids’ toy and introducing an incongruous note into what Thomas calls “the most technically advanced ship in the world.”—Kate Rounds
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Pete (left) shares a laugh and his life experiences with Hannington at Gorman Field.
WORKING OUT WITH Pete Amadeo BY HANNINGTON DIA PHOTOS BY VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
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ayonne’s Supervisor of Recreation Pete Amadeo has spent much of his 35 years impressing others. His no-hitter during his high-school baseball years at St. Peter’s Prep (an accomplishment that only happens twice a year on average in the major leagues) and countless awards lining his office testify to that. But on a warm Friday afternoon in April, while working on his batting swings at Gorman Field, there’s one person who’s not impressed, and lets him know it: his eldest son. “What was that?” Matthew, 6, continually asks his dad, as Pete keeps bunting his son’s low-flying pitches. “Hit as hard as you can!” For Pete, this is a common occurrence when he plays with Matthew, currently in Little League. “Always,” he says when asked if his first-born is his harshest baseball critic.
His youngest son Nicholas, 1, giggles from behind a nearby fence, with his mom Lisa and his sister Ava, 4, in tow. The moment is just one of many memorable ones that Pete has experienced with kids around town. Earlier in the day, in his office at town hall, he shares another example.
MVP PROGRAM Three years ago, his department launched Buddy Baseball, a five-week local league for disabled youth. During that debut, one young man—Dantae— wasn’t into the games. “Day one, he didn’t want anything to do with sports,” Pete says. “He’d cry in the corner— every week he’d come; he didn’t want anything to do with it, but he still participated.” But during the season’s final week, something miraculous happened in the nine-year-old’s mind. “He hit the ball, and he ran to first, and I remember him turning to his mom, and he said, ‘Mom,
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this is fun,’” Pete recalls. Seeing Dantae’s mother’s eyes tear up when he mentioned the moment to her at an awards ceremony was icing on the cake. “One little thing like that is pretty impressive.” Another such moment involved Matthew, a hysterically crying, nonverbal teen, who had a similar turnaround when he began playing for the league. “The other day, I just went to his Communion,” Pete says. “He runs up to me, and he says, ‘Hi Pete,’ and his face lights up when he sees me.” Buddy Baseball’s latest season debuted May 6, featuring six teams and more than 100 participants, ages 3 through 25. Buddy Baseball is the department’s grand slam. “That’s our biggest program,” Pete says. “And what I love about it the most is that the entire community of Bayonne is 100 percent behind it. Everyone supports it. We have a huge crowd on opening day. To see the kids in their full uniforms—socks, pants, jerseys, hat.
Pete with his kids (left to right) Ava, 4; Nicholas, 1; and Matthew, 6 Words cannot describe how amazing it really is.” Buddy Baseball is an extended family. “We really are so close-knit now,” he says. “The parents are friends, the kids are friends. We don’t stress the winning. It’s about being friends first and understanding good sportsmanship and enjoying the moment and what we’re doing together as a whole.”
DESIGNATED DAD While only three kids on the planet can claim Pete as their biological father, he’s definitely a father figure—though his gelled hair and youthful energy might seem better suited for a surfing gig than sharing the national pastime with kids. His legacy? “I want the children to be in the spotlight,” he says. Pete’s road to supervisor began as a recreational camp counselor for the town, when he was between the ages of 14 and 19. “I knew I wanted to do something with children,” Pete says. “I actually was going to go to school and become a teacher.” But, “my path just led me to business and sports management, and that’s just the path I went.” In college, he worked in Bayonne’s recreational department part-time, as he finished classes. After graduating, he worked for the town full-time for around seven years. Then his predecessor retired, giving Pete just the opening he wanted. He started as director in 2008.
It’s a perfect fit for Pete, who played baseball in all the town’s local leagues, including the Bayonne PAL and Bayonne Little League. He still plays in Staten Island, and helps coach Matthew’s team. He played college baseball at New Jersey City University. “Growing up, I saw all these great programs, and now I’m fortunate to help those programs as well,” he says.
ON THE ROSTER Since starting, Pete has launched new programs such as wrestling and lacrosse. To help parents and children bond better, his department initiated “Parent and Me” programs for children as young as 2. Activities include Parent and Me soccer, teeball, and arts and crafts. “It’s just a great program, because it brings the
family closer together, and it’s important for the parents to partake in activities with their children,” Pete says. “It means a lot for the kids as well.” The department also offers swimming lessons for special youth through the summer at the 16th Street pool. What’s the game plan for Pete? “I’m really looking forward to meeting new children,” he says. “Meeting new kids who are coming up, who are getting older, who are going to participate in sports. That next generation we’ll get to meet and hopefully play a part in their lives.” At Gorman Field on that warm April afternoon, Nicholas burst into tears whenever his siblings didn’t share a baseball with him. Was it just a baby going through the “Gimme!” phase? Or a future MLB star decades from taking the Amadeo name to the next level? Time will tell.—BLP
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Showtime for a Bayonne Fifth Grader
Gabby Beredo goes on tour with the hit Broadway musical ‘Matilda’
S
pend a few moments on the phone with Gabby Beredo, and you forget you’re chatting with an All Saints fifth grader; you have to stop yourself from inviting her to Happy Hour. She’s a Bayonne native who found herself footloose and fancy free the summer after second grade. Her mother’s suggestion that she go to The Theater Group at All Saints Catholic Academy had far-reaching consequences. “I loved it right away,” Gabby tells me from her hotel
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room in Orlando, the 15th stop on the tour of the Broadway hit musical Matilda that started in January, and ended this June. What’s to love? Just about everything for the kid who landed the plum role of Lavender, Matilda’s best friend. “I like getting to work with other actors,” Gabby says, “and getting to see their way of acting, and I really love the singing and dancing part.” When Gabby tells me she’s shy, I find it hard to believe. “I was shy when I first came to the theater group,” she
says. “But going to the theater group opened my shell.” Auditions for Matilda took place in New York City. “They made us do songs, dances, and monologues,” she says. “The girls did a Lavender monologue, and the boys did a Bruce monologue. “I was nervous but also excited at the same time,”
ENTERTAINMENT BLP
After Gabby’s audition, the auditioners told her “great job.” Gabby recalls. “I had friends with me who also did acting, and they helped me feel more relaxed.” Matilda the Musical debuted in England in 2010 and premiered on Broadway in 2013, earning 13 Tony Award nominations and rave reviews from the New York Times. In a nutshell, Matilda tells the story of a kid who is bullied, has horrible parents, and goes to a horrible school. But she has tremendous inner strength and a will to survive. After Gabby’s audition, the auditioners told her “great job.” At first Gabby didn’t know what that meant. “I didn’t know if it was good, or if they were trying to tell me I was OK. I didn’t know what it meant in audition life. But when I started doing a lot of auditions, ‘good job’ means ‘really good.’” Gabby “was really fighting for Lavender. I liked her personality. She likes to have fun. She’s quirky, very mischievous. She gets excited a lot and is very happy.” Gabby also loves dressing the part. “The costumes are so much fun to wear, especially the ballerina tutu, a big pink tutu with feathers everywhere. It’s so much fun.” One thing that wasn’t much fun was getting injured, but it was a learning experience. “It was during rehearsal,” she relates, “and I had to stand on a desk. I slipped and hit my mouth, and blood was gushing. It taught me a lesson—watch where you’re going. You have to be very careful. Everything is moving around you, people are going places. You have to be aware of your surroundings.”
Life Lessons Gabby has her own take on what the show is about: “It’s about a little girl fighting for what she thinks is right. She has a very mean headmistress who thinks Matilda is a little maggot, and a teacher who becomes Matilda’s support. Together, Matilda and her teacher, Miss Honey, fight for what’s right against the headmistress.” It sounded to me as if the play was relevant in today’s world. “Yes it is,” Gabby says. “You have to approach the right people to help you fight for what’s right. There are many things to fight for, children’s education. All children should have the right to go to school, so they can have a good life, go to college, get a job, and make a family.” Speaking of school, how does a kid on the road for six months go to school?
“I was really fighting for Lavender,” Gabby says. “I liked her personality.” “I’m missing school,” she says, “but I’m still enrolled at All Saints, which sends work to my tutors on location.” Her favorite subject is science, and especially astronomy. “I love the constellations,” she says. Her favorite city so far has been Orlando. “The audience is amazing,” she says. “It’s a great city and beautiful.” But wait, here’s the real reason: “I really loved going to the Harry Potter Museum.” Gabby’s favorite actor is Kristen Chenoweth. “She was hilarious in Wicked,” Gabby says. “I was inspired by her when I watched the show. I wanted to be on Broadway. This is what I want to do. Me and Mom and Dad watched more Broadway shows, and now I kind of want to be in Wicked.” She’s also thinking she might want to audition for the tour of the Broadway musical School of Rock. “I might go into film and TV shows, that might be fun,” she says, “but if I don’t continue acting, I’d like to open a talent agency when I’m older—represent kids and send them on auditions and find teachers to work with.” Gabby feels lucky that she has friends back home who support her. “I really love being on the road,” she says, “but it’s really hard being away from home. A hotel room isn’t really my kind of place. It doesn’t feel like home. I want to be in my bedroom.” The experience has deepened her appreciation of her hometown: “Traveling America makes me feel, wow, Bayonne is a really small, nice town. I have so many friends and family there, and it’s on a peninsula. I love Bayonne.” —Kate Rounds
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EDUCATION BLP
-Kids
AT MIDTOWN COMMUNITY, QUIET HANDS, WALKING FEET, AND LOTSA DUCKS!
PHOTOS BY VICTOR M. RODRIGUEZ
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DUCK EGGS ARE INCUBATING AND READY TO HATCH.
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he scene that greets us on the last morning of May is lively, colorful, cute—and a real learning experience. The kids are all spiffed up and ready to raise their hands to answer any and all questions, from their two teachers, two aides, two guests, and Principal Mrs. Mercun. The two teachers are Nicole Facchini and Mallory O’Brien. Ms. Facchini asks for “quiet hands,” which I take to mean no jumping up and down and yelling. The subject is duck eggs, a topic we quickly learn seems to be top of mind for just about everybody we encounter. The answers involve incubators, eggs, and Peking duck, but no dinosaurs; we come to find out that six duck eggs are incubating in this very room and ready to hatch at any moment. How the ducklings aim to get out of the shell involves the word “slime” as well as “egg tooth.” A few more questions and answers reveal that the duckling will use an egg tooth to peck its way out and then lose that tooth later. Who knew! The class has used what Ms. Facchini calls a “smelly procedure” called “candling” to peer into the egg and see how everything is going.
“EVERYTHING IS PLANNED TO THE NTH DEGREE,” SAYS PRINCIPAL MERCUN.
LOVE ‘N LEARN A couple of thoughts cross my mind while visiting this kindergarten class at Midtown Community School: how lucky the parents are and how much has changed since many of us were in kindergarten. The adults are loving but disciplined. There’s lots of hugging and head-touching but also lots of gentle correction and getting it right. Principal Mercun assures us that “everything is planned to the nth degree,” but to the untrained eye, there’s tons of movement and simultaneous activity. The class practices something called “flexible seating,” which means kids can choose wobbly stools, sensory cushions, bouncy balls, yoga mats, or beanbags. Rules outlining the parameters are posted on the wall, but the idea is to pick a seat that facilitates “best learning.”
MS. FACCHINI (LEFT) AND MS. O’BRIEN
INCLUSION FUSION The school is proud that specialneeds kids follow the same curriculum as the other kids. I can attest that the class looks seamless. You would never know which kids have special needs, and all of them work and play well together. The teachers set an example of friendliness and cooperation that’s palpable. “This class is a role model for all
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THE KIDS LEARN “HIGH-FREQUENCY” WORDS.
“QUIET HANDS” GO UP.
inclusion classes in the city of Bayonne,” Mrs. Mercun says. The kids learn “high-frequency” words, draw pictures, write sentences, and then correct them with a checklist that features either a happy or sad face. One student has written, “Ducks are yellow.” A couple of hands-on activities include carpentry and running a restaurant—no kidding. At one table kids use hammers, nails, screwdrivers, and screws to practice fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, and hand-eye coordination. In another area, a miniature Italian restaurant called Mamma’s Monkey has been set up. The restaurant workers create menus, take reservations, and wear ties, scarves, and a chef’s hat and apron. “For some reason there’s a hula skirt in there, too,” Ms. O’Brien says. One thing these kids don’t do is nap. From 8:40 to 2:40, it’s nonstop work and play, and you can see the results.
DEDICATION TO EDUCATION
KIDS ENJOY “FLEXIBLE SEATING.”
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Ms. Facchini and Ms. O’Brien could have taught at any grade level, but both chose to devote their energies to kindergarten kids. Ms. Facchini has taught pre-K and seventh grade, but kindergarten, she
THE STUDENTS RUN A RESTAURANT CALLED MAMMA’S MONKEY.
says, “is a happy place, and you can have real fun with them. I’m very creative with my teaching, and Mrs. Mercun doesn’t say no to anything. I love it. I laugh all day long. Laughter is the best medicine. I love coming to work.” Ms. O’Brien echoes those thoughts. “In kindergarten you mold minds,” she says. “It’s their first impression of school, which can make or break them. They love learning; it’s fun.” As Mrs. Mercun walks us back to the entrance, we pass kids and their teachers filing through the hallways. “The teachers buy into the culture of really caring for children and putting them first,” Mrs. Mercun says. Unbelievably, as we’re on our way out, we’re alerted that a duck egg in Ms. Di Antonio’s class is about to hatch. News of the event travels fast around the school. As discussed, ducks are paramount for kindergartners at Midtown Community. Every year features a new theme. This year the theme is magic. When asked about that magic, kids call out, “Dream it! Believe it! Achieve it!” It will be truly magical to see how these kids achieve those dreams.— Kate Rounds
THERE’S PLENTY OF GOOD STUFF ON THE MENU.
CARPENTRY AIDS FINE MOTOR COORDINATION. Bayonne - Life on the Peninsula ~ Summer 2017 •
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FAMILY FRIENDLY
HELPING KIDS FIND THEIR WAY HOME HELPING
SANDRA AND JAMES GUNSHEFSKI AND THEIR SEVEN GRANDCHILDREN
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BY TARA RYAZANSKY
PHOTO BY MAX RYAZANSKY
“Do
you know how to spell our last name?” asks little Isabella Gunshefski. Her siblings and cousins help her spell it out. It's a name they all share as of May 15 when James and Sandra Gunshefski of Bayonne adopted two of their grandchildren, Christian, 8 and Alexandria, 6. The two kids moved in with them three and a half years ago when their father died after battling years of drug addiction. Their mother, the Gunshefski’s daughter, currently has more than five months of sobriety and is living in a rehabilitation facility. She signed out for the day to attend the adoption. “She knows that she can't do it on her own right now,” Sandra Gunshefski says, adding that they visit her on weekends. She supports the adoption, and they support her recovery. “The kids are getting to know her again,” Sandra says. The Gunshefski household also includes their son's five children whom the grandparents have kinship legal guardianship over. This means that they stepped in as family members in place of foster parents. This set of siblings includes Michael, 8, Ian, 6, Isabella, 4, Tyler, 3, and Joan, 2. They have lived with The Gunshefskis for two years. Sandra says that she and James are not pursuing adoption because she hopes that her son and daughter-in-law will be able to regain custody of the children. The Gunshefskis are part of a growing national trend of grandparents caring for grandchildren while their own grown children battle opioid and other drug addiction. Their case is unusual because they have all of their grandchildren in their home. Sandra says that she was happy that the kids were able to come to a familiar place in a time of crisis, rather than end up in the system, placed with strangers. “They were always here,” Sandra says. “We always had the house and the yard set up for them. They were always welcome here.”
All seven kids are excited about summer camp. They will spend a month doing arts and crafts and participating in outdoor activities at a Jersey City camp. Any parent knows that the cost of four weeks of camp seven times over can be enough to cover a dream vacation. The Gunshefskis were awarded camp scholarships through an organization called CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates).
LENDING A HAND Hudson County CASA is a nonprofit organization that aims to help foster children find permanent, safe homes. They also help kids in the foster system by providing access to enriching activities like camp. CASA’s advocates are volunteers who take on the case of a child or siblings and help assess their best living situations. CASA volunteers are citizens from various backgrounds who want to help foster kids find their way home. “We get a lot of volunteers who have corporate jobs, but social work hearts,” says CASA Executive Director Beverly Savage. When she came to CASA in 2005 the office wasn't as nice as it is now. “We were in a rundown commercial building,” Savage says. In 2009 CASA rehabbed the parish house of Saint Paul's Church in the Jersey City Five Corners neighborhood. The new space is busy with meetings and events. Volunteers must receive 30 hours of training before they are assigned a case. “It's a dynamic training process,” says CASA Volunteer Coordinator Clare Daley. “We have a lot of inspirational people come in to speak.” The training material can be troubling as well. “We have one night of training called Child Abuse and Neglect, and it's a tough night, but it's part of the training to make sure that you are able to handle that subject matter once you're a volunteer.” She says the training is a big commitment, but evening classes make it convenient for working people. Daly knows it's doable because she got her start at CASA as a volunteer. Now she works recruiting and training volunteers. “They're really good multitaskers,” she says. “These people have full-time highly demanding jobs, but they make it work. I love meeting these wonderful people, who use their personal time to help kids who really need it.” “The average length of a case is 18 to 19 months,” Savage says, explaining that CASA requires volunteers to com-
mit to a year of monthly visits to the child they are assigned to as well as court dates. Once volunteers accept an assignment they meet the child or children involved. They talk to the biological and foster families, case workers, school officials, health-care providers, and any other important people who are associated with the case. After reviewing the information, the volunteer makes a recommendation in court about the child's placement. “It's a unique thing to get to stand up and really have your voice heard,” says Daly. “When I was a volunteer I was surprised at just how much weight our opinions hold.”
REAL RESULTS John Sullivan of Bayonne agrees. He went through the training program and began volunteering with CASA 10 years ago. Sullivan learned about CASA in a newspaper ad. Retired from his career in pharmacology and drug safety, Sullivan was looking for a way to give back. “I liked the idea of CASA because it's directly helping kids, but there's a little bit of flexibility in that it's not weekly,” he says. Besides the occasional court date all the scheduling is up to him. He is currently working on his fourth case; it involves a 13-year-old boy. The boy was placed in the care of his great aunt while his biological parents were incarcerated. The Department of Child Protection and Permanency turned to CASA for a volunteer to work on behalf of the child. “I told him it was going to be a quick little thing, and that was three years ago, and he's still on the case,” Savage says. It took that long to ensure that the boy had a safe living environment. “You try to find out where the problem is and how you can solve it,” Sullivan says. “The role of a CASA person is to work on behalf of the child, not the parents or the aunt, just the child.” He soon determined that the boy was thriving with his great aunt, and the parents had a long history in the system, but it wasn’t a closed case. The boy’s parents weren't ready to allow the boy's great aunt to fill the role of parent, despite their inability to do so. “John was just a fierce advocate for this child,” Savage says, noting that he made multiple trips to talk with the biological parents. “I visited the biological mother and father in jail, trying to explain to them that it would be in his best interest to let
him continue with the friends he had made and the school where he was doing well,” Sullivan says. They finally agreed. “At the last court hearing, both parents were convinced to terminate their parental rights, so now the child is free for adoption.” The great aunt can now petition for adoption. During the process, Sullivan continues to advocate for the boy. He hopes that soon the boy will have a safe and permanent home.
BLENDED FAMILY Back at the Gunshefski’s the kids are playing on the sidewalk in front of their home. Christian bounces on a pogo stick while the younger boys watch, waiting for their turn. Alexandria helps Joan fix her shoe when it comes off of her heel. Sandra says that the older kids help the younger ones without any prompting from her. They seem to have a bond, like siblings. It is clear that the children are happy and well cared for with their grandparents. This case was an easy one for CASA to assess. “I love seeing these kids grow up,” Sandra says. James agrees and says that it takes him back to his own childhood growing up in a large family. They keep the kids on a steady routine. Sandra left her full-time job as a logistics manager in Secaucus to focus on the kids. James is a longshoreman. “I'm doing it differently this time,” Sandra says. “I think I'm tougher. Even though I'm grandma and I'm supposed to be the opposite. This is supposed to be my time to spoil them, but because of the drug issues, and it's the issue of the world, which is unfortunate, I'm tough this time around.” CASA’s role is important. It finances special events at Liberty Science Center and gifts like backpacks and school supplies. “For back-to-school they came and gave each kid, even the little ones, a backpack,” Sandra says. “The little ones got coloring books and crayons, so even though they weren't going back to school, they felt a part of it, and they thought that was great.” The grandparents didn't encounter any setbacks from the courts, but they are glad to have an advocate who has their back just in case. “I knew our CASA worker would be there for me if I needed another voice,” Sandra says. “I never had to ask for additional support, but I knew the support was there, and just knowing that it was there meant a lot.”—BLP
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PHOTOS BY TERRI SAULINO BISH
The Starting Point W
hoever named the Starting Point was pretty clever. If you live down near the Bayonne Bridge and the Kill Van Kull, then it is indeed the starting point. But if you live up in the 50s, then the Starting Point is more like your last stop before heading home. Either way, it’s one of the town’s most popular watering holes, and with good reason. We were there on a Monday around Happy Hour. If it were a Friday, forget about it: We wouldn’t have been able to get in. Its unique locale is like an enticing item on the menu. It’s in the shadow of the Bayonne Bridge. When you
look up, the bridge and its new roadway make for a dramatic industrial skyscape. Below it, meanwhile, is urban green space with grassy ball fields set against the blue of the Kill Van Kull. The Starting Point is on the bend in the road, and when you turn, there’s an eclectic tableau of tanks, smokestacks, fields of weeds, semi-trucks, and vacant structures. This is not a bad thing. It’s part of the old Bayonne that’s on the cusp of change. Soon, new development will bring a new demographic. But the Starting Point is forever.
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When we arrive, two white-bearded regulars in black T-shirts sit at the end of the bar. On hand to greet us, are Vinnie and John, the bartender. The Starting Point is famous for its thin-crust pizza, notable for its crispness, nothing soggy. We share it with the bar. Pedro has ordered what looks like a shrimp taco and a cold Modelo. At the other end, friends Bill, Patty, and Austin belly up to the bar. On the wall are beer mugs in glass cases. Six TVs over the bar show horseracing, golf, baseball, and a long segment of women kickboxing. The back wall features album covers of legendary musicians, including the Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, Rod Stewart, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, and the Grateful Dead; all these guys looking young, light years away from their Boomer selves. Playing softly in the background is “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and then “For What It’s Worth.” A chalk board lists tap beers: Dog Fish, Bud Lite, Guinness, Blue Moon, Yuengling, Angry Orchard, Fat Tire, and Neshaminy Creek. I take a cold Stella in a bottle. A sign reads “Ask Us About Daily Food Specials.” The fact is, the Starting Point has a huge menu and 12 tables for diners. The menu includes a full range of appetizers, hot and cold sandwiches, melts, platters, tavern rolls, baskets, wraps, salads, dinner entrees, and paninis. As we leave, the bar is filling up. A vintage jukebox stands near the side door. It’s a reminder of the charm of traditional Bayonne, which will always be a silent customer at the Starting Point.—Kate Rounds
WATERING HOLE BLP
Regulars belly up to the bar.
The Starting Point | 2 Avenue A | (201) 243-0092
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PHOTOS BY TERRI SAULINO BISH
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testament to San Vito’s popularity is that it was packed on a Monday at 5:30 p.m. There were two huge parties, one a graduation celebration, the graduate resplendent in her mortarboard. More than once I’ve stopped by San Vito’s and spotted Jean and Frank Perrucci, either dining alone or with friends or relatives. The Perruccis, founders of the Concerned Citizens of Bayonne, are the quintessential concerned citizens. They were there on this Monday night with two young guests. The place is friendly, lively and light. The walls are decorated with pictures relating to Bayonne or Italy. One funny image caught my eye. It was a picture of a red, 1950s convertible with a caption that read “Italian Contributions to America Since 1492.” One of the reasons that San Vito is so popular is that you can get a good dinner at a reasonable price. Pasta dishes are about $10. You can get a chicken, veal, or seafood dish for about $15. San Vito is noted for its pizza. It’s also a great lunch place, with a full complement of huge hot and cold sandwiches, soups, salads, and vegetable sides. Norma, our waitress, was efficient and sociable. She seemed to know everybody, and welcomed everyone with a warm greeting. Some people are cut out to be servers. Norma is one of them. A large basket of warm bread with butter is always much appreciated for customers who come in hungry, as we did. We started with a San Vito salad, made with arugula and mesculin, walnuts, oranges, pears, and shaved cheese, tossed with strawberry dressing. This brightly colored mix has a rich strawberry bouquet.
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For an appetizer we ordered asparagus gratinati. The asparagus was very tender; the breadcrumbs and cheese gave it a nice texture. And for an entrée, we selected the grilled branzino with lemon, extra virgin olive oil, and garlic. Inside the dark, crispy skin was pure white, delicate meat. Delicious. OK, we thought this was the end of the road for us, but Anthony Ventrone, son of the owners, had the chef send us a few more offerings—on the off chance we might leave without feeling stuffed to the gills. Anthony and his parents, Luciano and Maria, own the restaurant. First up was a shrimp appetizer with a crabmeat stuffing of breadcrumbs, tomatoes, and red peppers. It was the perfect texture; not too moist, not too dry. It was artfully presented with a basil leaf atop half a lemon. And finally, a whole plate of French-cut lamb chops, cooked rare, with a side of grilled asparagus. Best of all were the light, puffy potato croquettes that came with the entrée. We did not order wine, but a lot of our fellow diners were enjoying red wine. We also were too full for dessert, but if you save room, you can choose from New York style cheesecake, tiramisu, and cannolis. All of which would go splendidly with an espresso or cappuccino. Well, obviously, we couldn’t eat everything. We were sent home with a couple of doggie bags and a feeling, not only of being well fed, but of enjoying a companionable meal among friends.—Kate Rounds
DINING OUT BLP
Luciano’s San Vito Restaurant & Pizzeria 406 Broadway (201) 858-2448 sanvitosnj.com
NORMA
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s g n i t s i Dining L Bella Sorrellas 1020 Broadway (201) 455-8844 bellasorrellas.com On Bayonne’s north end, Bella Sorellas is a neighborhood favorite. With a long family history of successful downtown Jersey City eateries, owner David Rivera has taken this restaurant to a new level.
Chef Leonardo Compi, of the legendary Just Sonny’s restaurant, is a genius at bringing flair to classic dishes, making extraordinary what would be common in other hands. The rich, complex textures and tastes will delight and surprise the unsuspecting diner. All dinners are preceded with its signature salad, served family style and dressed to perfection. Open six days a week. Closed Monday.
Bella S Sorrellas
Fine Italian Restaurant taurant
RESERVE A TTABLE RESERVE ABLLE A ATT ONE OF BA BAYONNE’S AYONNE’S A YONNE’S MOST POP POPULAR PULAR REST RESTAURANTS. TAURANTS. AURA ANTS. Mouth-watering Italian cu cuisine uisine cr created eated by CHEF LEONARDO LEON NARDO COMPI
1020 Broadway, Broadway, Bayonne Bay yonne (corner (cor ner of 50 50th th St.) Stt.)
201.455.8844 20 1.455.8844 5.8844 BELLASORRELLAS.COM BELLASORRE ELLAS.COM
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KP Sarelli’s 241 Broadway (201) 858-0865 sarellisrestaurant.com Since its opening in 2007, KP Sarelli’s has been serving delicious Northern Italian cuisine in its cozy and charming downtown restaurant. Priding itself on the finest and freshest ingredients, KP Sarelli’s offers a wide variety of fish, chicken, veal, and pasta dishes. Specialties include Seafood Risotto, Tortelloni Quattro Formaggi, and Pollo Scarpariello. It’s a perfect choice for a romantic fireside dinner for two or to share a meal with your family and friends. KP Sarelli’s is open seven days a week and is available for private parties.
Luciano’s San Vito Restaurant & Pizzeria 406 Broadway (201) 858-2448 sanvitosnj.com When you’re craving amazing pizza and Italian cuisine, visit San Vito’s. This familyowned-and-operated restaurant provides the best quality, using only homemade ingredients. Backed by more than 35 years of experience, the Ventrone family invites you to enjoy generous portions of authentic cuisine at affordable prices. San Vito’s is a friendly, casual dining experience, one that will likely become your favorite stop. Open seven days for lunch and dinner. Catering services for all events are also available.
Villa Maria Events & Catering 417 Broadway (201) 471-7708 Villamarianj.com Customers wanted the same food quality and service provided in San Vito’s, but required a larger venue to host more guests. Villa Maria was created for just that purpose. Conveniently located directly across the street from San Vito, Villa Maria is a private event venue hosting functions for up to 150 guests. Each event at Villa Maria focuses on the client, with the menu created to exceed expectations. Having satisfied customers who come back time and again is Villa Maria’s key to success.
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