October 2, 2013 • www.theobserver.com • Vol CXXVI, No. 19
COVERING: BELLEVILLE • BLOOMFIELD
Beware of wasp hives
• EAST NEWARK • HARRISON • KEARNY • LYNDHURST • NORTH ARLINGTON • NUTLEY
Farewell, faithful friend By Karen Zautyk Observer Correspondent
By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent
KEARNY – The hive is back. That’s the buzz around the Kearny Health Department these days and there’s no metaphor behind that. It’s for real. Hornets and wasps have been making the scene, big time, around town, with the department logging as many as a dozen hives since Labor Day, according to Town Health Officer John Sarnas. “That [number] is abnormal for this time of year,” Sarnas said. He had no explanation for the sudden profusion of the winged creatures. Their bites are “very nasty” and “can be fatal,” Sarnas said. “You can go into anaphylactic shock and die.” Unlike bees, which sting its victim only once, wasps and hornets (larger-size wasps) will sting repeatedly. Fortunately, as of last week, there were no reports of any residents being stung – although Public Works Superintendent Gerry Kerr had taken a hit while assisting Public Health Investigator Bill Pettigrew take out a hive in Manor Park. Kerr survived his wound. Among the locations where hives have been discovered were: 250 Highland Ave., the see NATURE page
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KEARNY – treasured part of Kearny’s living history came to an end on Sunday, when Knox Presbyterian Church, founded in the mid-1800s, held its final service. The church building itself, an imposing red-brick structure, has stood on Kearny Ave. just south of Woodland Ave. since 1881. Today it is covered in scaffolding due to structural damage, and it has not been used for four years. The MacMillan Chapel next door has been filling in as the site for worship, and it was there that the last service took place on a “bittersweet” afternoon. That word was used by Rev. Dr. Kevin Yoho of the Newark Presbytery, who opened the service with a prayer “remembering with gratitude all who have worshiped here.” Attending Sunday’s Closing Worship
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see KNOX page
Photo courtesy Wikipedia
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Manor may soon hear cry of ‘timber’! By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent KEARNY – On a fateful Monday morning in late October 2012, Tony Valente was watching TV on the first floor of his Jefferson Ave. home when he was shaken out of his chair by a loud thud. Apparently weakened by
Superstorm Sandy, the 85-foottall pin oak that had stood nearby for many years had just toppled onto his roof. “It just came through the attic to the floor below … right over my head,” Valente recalled. Luckily, no one inside the house was hurt, he said. But as the downed tree lay draped over the back of his home, “it was 10 a.m. when it
hit but [from inside] it looked like it was dark out. That’s how huge that tree was.” Valente said he’d previously tried to get the town to take it down after it “looked like it had rotted at the bottom” and the roots were raising the cement. Town workers cut part of the roots but that was it, he said. On another nearby block,
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also in the Manor section, another hollowed-out tree fell through a house to the first floor, Valente recalled. With town crews running to emergency situations all over, Valente ended up getting a private contractor to haul the tree away four days after it fell. He said the town later reimbursed him for the cost of see TREES page
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