Home of the Week: Manhattan Views from Weehawken, NJ ($3.55 Million)

Weehawken Mayor Uses 'mob' Tactics to Intimidate Cop, Attorney Says

Weehawken Mayor Uses 'mob' Tactics to Intimidate Cop, Attorney Says

NJ.com, 26-Nov-14

By Kathryn Brenzel

A Weehawken police officer says Mayor Richard Turner is trying to intimidate him as well as witnesses in order to silence his seven-year-old corruption claims against the township.

The attorney for Lt. Richard DeCosmis filed a motion on Nov. 14, claiming that the township is trying to fire DeCosmis from the township police department as "leverage to negotiate a favorable settlement," of his civil rights lawsuit or to drain him of his finances as court proceedings drag on, according to court documents.

The motion, filed in New Jerset federal court by attorney Louis Zayas, seeks to bar the township from firing DeCosmis and from disciplining witnesses who plan to testify in his trial, which will likely begin early next year. Zayas alleges that Turner and his "circle of political cronies" are trying to quash his client's corruption allegations by taking bogus disciplinary actions against DeCosmis and potential witnesses.

“This is outrageous. It’s not a matter of civil proceedings anymore. It’s criminal. It’s a mob,” Zayas said on Wednesday. “Mayor Turner and his political cronies are using government resources to go after those who report corruption.”

An attorney for the township, David Corrigan, called the motion "frivolous."

"These allegations are false. There's nothing to this," he said. "The only person who's trying to intimidate anyone is Mr. DeCosmis for filing this frivolous and false lawsuit."

He added that Zayas is well known for slinging mud at Hudson County officials. (He's represented several clients in litigation against Hudson County towns. He represents Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia in his latest lawsuit against Hoboken.)

"He says outlandish, reckless things to get his name in the newspaper," Corrigan said.

Turner would not comment on the case.

The motion is the latest development in litigation that has spanned seven years. DeCosmis filed his lawsuit in 2007, alleging that he faced retaliation after filing his first corruption lawsuit against the township.

In his 22 years on the force prior to 2007, DeCosmis hadn't faced any major discipline, Zayas said. But since he became involved in litigation against the township, he's faced three major disciplinary charges, the most recent of which claims he took excessive sick leave in 2012, according to the motion.

The motion seeks to bar Weehawken from taking any further action against DeCosmis and any township employee identified as a witness in his lawsuit. It also asks that independent investigators and hearing officers be appointed to review the disciplinary charges, alleging that they are "entirely retaliatory and without any scintilla of legitimacy."

Weehawken's Girl Scouts Selected to Participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day

Weehawken's Girl Scouts Selected to Participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day

Weehawken's Brownie Scouts in 2nd & 3rd Grade, Junior Scouts in 4th & 5th Grade of Troop 12779, and Cadette Scouts in 6th-8th Grade of Troop 12933 were selected to participate in Macy's Design Studio Tour on Press Day where this year's new floats were presented. The Scouts learned how a float develops from concept to an elaborate completed project right in the Studio in Moonachie. The girls had a great time and are looking forward to seeing the floats in the Thanksgiving Day Parade!

$6.2M House Sells in Weehawken

$6.2M house sells in Weehawken

Hudson Reporter, 23-Nov-14

By Carlo Davis

Historic mansion was most expensive sale in county history

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Weehawken’s wooded bluffs were home (8 Hamilton Avenue) to a secluded ledge accessible only via the Hudson River, where gentlemanly duels continued long after they had become illegal. In 1804, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton engaged in a famed conflict there that resulted in Hamilton’s untimely death.

Now, the quiet residential neighborhood of Weehawken known as King’s Bluff boasts exclusivity of a different kind. The houses on Hamilton Avenue, King Avenue, and Kingswood Road offer nonpareil views of the New York City skyline and prices to match.

Last month, a 7,200-plus-square-foot house in King’s Bluff sold for $6.2 million, netting the record for the most expensive single-family residence sale ever in Hudson County, according to data from the Hudson County Multiple Listing Service.

A New York Post article suggested that an “unnamed top fashion family” had purchased the property.

According to Francesco Mazzaferro, the Hoboken-based Coldwell Banker real estate broker who represented the buyer in the deal, a combination of commanding views and ultra-luxury accommodations made the property at 8 Hamilton Ave. exceptional.

Above the rest

The large white house at the bend in Hamilton Avenue was built custom to the specifications of its original owners in 1950. The structure spans two plots of land, 6 and 10 Hamilton Ave., and takes ample advantage of the extra space. “It was not an investment to them,” said Mazzaferro.

According to state property tax records, the house was recently sold by the trust of John D. and Bella Ross to Hudson Mgmt Group LLC. Mazzaferro refused to comment on the identity of the buyer.

The original owner’s unique specifications called for four bedrooms, three of them master suites with ensuite bathrooms and large walk-in closets. The residence also boasts an elevator, library, kitchen, dining room, media room, double garage, and a living room with 22-foot high ceilings.

Still, the main attraction of the property is unquestionably the view. 8 Hamilton Ave. protrudes out farther than any of its neighboring structures to sit directly on the edge of the King’s Bluff cliff, allowing a clear, unencumbered panorama from the George Washington Bridge to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

“That’s the beauty of the home,” said Mazzaferro, “because it’s private, it’s at the end of the street, and it’s stunning.”

Hamilton-Burr

For a house with such intrinsic aesthetic value, the strange historical asterisk that is the Burr-Hamilton duel is just the icing on the cake. Still, Mazzaferro said the seller of the house told him and his clients explicitly that 8 Hamilton Ave. lay on the site of Weehawken’s former dueling grounds.

As with so many other facts about that fateful July morning in 1804, the exact location of the duel may never be known definitively.

Historian Charles Whitfield described the site in 1874 as a natural ledge six feet wide and 11 paces long, hidden among cedar trees at the base of the bluffs some twenty feet above the water. By the time Whitfield’s book was published, the exact location of the ledge had already been obliterated to make way for the New York and Fort Lee railroad. The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail follows the same alignment cut by those tracks in 1870.

A monument in honor of the duel now stands on the Hamilton Avenue terrace just a handful of houses north of 8 Hamilton Ave., but even it states that the actual dueling pitch lays somewhere below the site.

“I don’t know if it was a marketing skill,” said Mazzaferro’s of the seller’s certitude about the site. “I don’t think so, but it has to be somewhere around that property.”

Gold Coast real estate

Proud though he is of the record sale of 8 Hamilton Ave., Mazzaferro suspects that it won’t hold the top spot for long. The Gold Coast residential market has seen steady growth since 2009, he said, and “all the signs are there” for that growth to continue.

If recent history is any indication, the next record for a single-family home sale in Hudson County will likely come from another property in King’s Bluff. The record that 8 Hamilton Ave. broke this year was set by a house just blocks away at 83 Kingswood Road, which sold for $5 million in 2012.

Sotheby’s International Realty associate Donna Reid, who closed the deal on 83 Kingswood Road, said, “When you’re standing on top [of King’s Bluff], you feel like you’re on top of the world.”

According to projections by the Liberty Board of Realtors, the average residential deed amount in Hudson County has increased almost $38,000 in just the last year.

For Mazzaferro, the culprit is a perfect combination of low inventory and growing demand. Among prospective home-buyers, Mazzaferro sees a roughly equal mix of New York City expats and New Jersey suburban pioneers.

For those leaving Brooklyn and Manhattan, said Mazzaferro, the prospect is “more square footage for equal or lower price,” not to mention the income tax savings some New Yorkers can accrue by moving to New Jersey.

Even the most luxurious properties in Hudson County are deals compared to the deep end of the pool in Manhattan. For example, Forbes reported that single-floor “simplexes” in 520 Park Ave., one of the new luxury skyscrapers being built around Central Park, will start at $16.2 million (the asking price for the three-floor penthouse apartment is $130 million).

But just as many of Mazzaferro’s clients are suburban dwellers seeking the quick New York commute offered by Hudson County’s PATH train, busses, and ferries. “When you start having kids,” he said, “even though it’s nice to live in suburbia, you realize that your commuting time is so long that you spend less time with your family.”

Another key factor is interest rates, which have been kept artificially low by the Federal Reserve since the recession hit in 2008. Reid said as long as the rates stay low, encouraging buyers to sign mortgages, prices will continue to rise.

At home in Hoboken

Mazzaferro cited Hoboken as a perfect microcosm of the Hudson County high demand real estate market. Though waterfront properties like Maxwell Place and the Hudson Tea are currently the hottest properties on the market, prices are rising around the city as development expands into the Western Edge and North End and buyers seek out Hoboken’s combination of quaintness and urbanity.

“I lived with a view for maybe 10 years,” said Mazzaferro, “and you become numb after a while.”

Though Mazzaferro currently lives in West New York, he was introduced to Hudson County through Hoboken, where he was an owner of La Scala Restaurant for 13 years before jumping into real estate.

“People like the quaintness, the brownstones, sitting on your doorstep, knowing all your neighbors,” he said. “I grew up in a small little town [in Calabria, Italy] where everybody knew each other, so I appreciate that.”

The 2014 Weehawken Halloween Festival

From 1994 New York Times Article - Living In/Weehawken

If You're Thinking of Living In/Weehawken; Insular With a Magnificent Skyline View

By BRET SENFT

September 25, 1994

The thin trees rustle their protection above the neighborhood called the Shades and rise up the cliffs toward the rest of Weehawken: the Heights and the Bluffs, sitting at varied altitudes ascending north along the Palisades.

It is quiet in the Shades, where reeds break through the sidewalks and tidy two-family houses are passed to the next generation of McLaughlins (many of the clan moved here from Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen in the 1950's) and other families on its four short streets in from West 19th Street and the waterfront. Kelly Devaney, whose husband, Christopher, is the eighth child of Rosemarie Devaney, nee McLaughlin, of adjacent Chestnut Street, said: "We're all still very close, everybody. It's all very family oriented -- you know you're very secure down here."

While the insular nature of the Shades is extreme, similar feelings are echoed throughout Weehawken, where lifelong residents of German, Irish and Italian heritage have been joined by an increasing Hispanic population, now at over 40 percent. The entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and the views along the Palisades cliffs -- the George Washington and Verrazano-Narrows Bridges and the Manhattan skyline across the Hudson -- have a magnetic hold on its residents. Its location means easy access to New York, without having to be there.

It has been prized real estate since the Dutch bought it from the Lenni Lenape Indians in the early 1600's, and it was still pastoral in 1804 when Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel on a grassy shelf near the shoreline. (A bust of Hamilton, and the boulder on which he fell, is set atop the cliffs just south of Hamilton Park on Boulevard East).

Development took the form of mansions built in the early to mid 19th century along the bluffs. There was a restaurant in a Rhenish castle on the hilltop and, for a brief decade in the 1890's, an ornate amusement resort. Nothing remains from that era except the Italianate brick water tower on Park Avenue. Its accompanying reservoir was replaced in 1981 by a Pathmark supermarket and a Little League baseball field.

From the early 1900's to 1929, housing for working people filled in the town. One-family houses were divided into income-producing units in the Depression, and again in the early 1970's against the increased tax burden after the collapse of the waterfront's rail and ship yards.

In the Heights, two-family row houses line Gregory Avenue (backing onto the cliffs), with two- and three-family houses on the cross streets west to Palisade Avenue. Fred and Marianne Lorenz raised their three children in a two-family house on Oak Street; when their daughter gets married next year, the couple will move in upstairs. The Lorenzes recently bought a three-family house for their sons, one a local fireman, the other a computer graphic illustrator in Manhattan, on Palisade Avenue between Dodd and Jane Streets for $223,000: two family units for the sons, a third for income.

"It's about four blocks away," said Mrs. Lorenz, who was born here, like her father before her. "You can walk back and forth. You know, you really feel your roots here." As for the ethnic mix in the community, she said: "Our family was Irish-Italian and I have neighbors who are Cuban, South American, Italian, German, Puerto Rican -- and everyone's interested in having a nice neighborhood. Everyone gets along fine."

Richard Barsa, finance manager for the LDDS Corporation, a telecommunications company, grew up on Gregory Avenue; his mother is still there, the house overlooking the remaining town reservoir.

The Barsas moved out of town for a while when things were not going well for Weehawken. In 1981, a waterfront development scandal led to the conviction of Mayor Wally P. Lindsley for attempted extortion, and wrangling between the Town Council and school board led to contested school budgets and loss of state certification in 1984. Mayor Richard F. Turner has restored municipal services and stabilized town government and the school district has its certification back.

Mr. Barsa and his wife, Diane (born and raised on Boulevard East), left for Rutherford with their newborn son. "But it was too quiet," Mr. Barsa said. "Too suburban." Returning in 1986, they bought a three-family house uptown on Louisa Place for $290,000, then a three-family on Bonn Avenue in the Bluffs in 1993 at foreclosure for $290,000.

Mrs. Barsa, a real estate broker, said that homes in the Bluffs usually ranged from $300,000 to $1 million or more. "But there are very few homes for sale," she said. "And if it's priced fairly, once it goes on the market, it goes immediately."

Apartment rentals range from $650 for a one-bedroom in the Heights to $1,800-plus for a three-bedroom with fireplace, stained glass and original woodwork in the Bluffs. There are perhaps a dozen co-op and condo buildings. However, "the market for them is very slow," Mrs. Barsa said, "And when they sell, people are taking a loss."

On Boulevard East, said Norma Costa of the local Action Agency real estate firm, prices average $70,000 for a studio to $115,000 for a two-bedroom co-op. Recent listings at Gregory Commons, a 177-unit condominium in a converted factory atop the Heights with Manhattan views, include a one-bedroom duplex for $169,000 and a two-bedroom penthouse duplex at $225,000.

The town is nearing completion of a $4.7 million restoration of the sidewalks and parks along the boulevard; likewise, a $1 million program of new sidewalks and vintage street lamps for Park Avenue, the commercial strip of bodegas, stationery stores, and supermarkets along Weehawken's western border. (For most goods and services, including movie theaters, residents go to nearby towns and shopping malls.)

Restoration of the boulevard provides better access to the skyline views, and zoning ordinances restrict the height and size of buildings on or below the cliffs. Thus, Hartz Mountain's 95-acre Lincoln Harbor development on the southern waterfront includes no commercial towers but two 10-story office buildings that house Paine-Webber's back office operations along with Houlihan's, a food court and a Ruth's Chris Steak House in its base. Nearby is a Ramada Suite Hotel with Mezza Luna restaurant and, at water's edge, the new Chart House on the site of the former Shanghai Red's seafood restaurant.

A 250-slip marina is next to the Riva Pointe condominium on a 1,000-foot pier, which has 145 units, a health club and a parking garage. One-bedrooms are $171,900 to $189,900; two-bedrooms, $219,900 to $260,000.

To the north, Port Imperial is where the developer Arthur Imperatore planned to build his "Venice-on-the-Hudson." His vision included a convention center and commercial and residential complex, but market forces have limited the reality to a 300-slip marina, Arthur's Landing waterfront restaurant (in a converted warehouse, serving New American cuisine) and, on the north end, a 90-tee, two-tiered, all-weather driving range.

There had been ferry service in some form since 1700 until the late 50's. In 1986, service was reinstated with Mr. Imperatore's New York Waterway, with continuous five-minute river crossings seven days a week, from 6:45 A.M. to midnight for $4.50 each way or $140 for a monthly ticket.

In May, Mr. Imperatore sought a reassessment on Port Imperial, receiving a $4.1 million award from the New Jersey Tax Court. Should the town lose its appeal, Mayor Turner said, it will mean a 5 percent tax increase, a town hiring freeze and cutbacks on some programs.

The school system, 70 percent Hispanic, according to Superintendent Joseph Wisniewski, has three elementary schools, with a seventh grade for all students in Woodrow Wilson Elementary School on Hauxhurst Avenue, and Weehawken High School, on Liberty Place. There are 1,252 students systemwide. Gifted children enter the academically talented program in fourth grade, attending Roosevelt Elementary School on Louisa Place.

In 1993, a $3 million bond was approved for renovations and educational technology, providing CD-ROM and interactive video in the high school computer lab, elementary school learning centers, and computer clusters in each classroom.

"I found the school system better here," said Evelyn Rodriguez, president of the Parent Teachers Council in Woodrow Wilson Elementary School, which two of her three children attend. Her family moved here from the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn 10 years ago.

"Here there are like 20 kids per classroom, totally different from where I was raised," she said. "There are no guns and everybody knows everybody. I never had that growing up."

In the fall of 1995, New York University plans to open a $4 million to $5 million complex of playing fields with bleachers, clubhouse and locker rooms on nine acres donated by Port Imperial and Lincoln Harbor on the waterfront as part of a quid pro quo for project approval. The facility is to be used jointly by the university's teams, the school system and residents.

The university is also providing four annual scholarships to Weehawken graduates. "We think it's a very promising relationship we've entered into in Weehawken," said Lee Frissell, director of field projects at the university's School of Education.

On the Market

* Renovated brick town house, potential 2-family, at 592 Gregory Avenue, $169,000

* 2-family, 17-room center-hall colonial at 126 Hauxhurst Avenue, $329,000

* 2-family brick Victorian, Manhattan skyline view, at 869 Boulevard East, $695,000

POPULATION: 12,385 (1990 census)

AREA: 0.8 square miles

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $39,337 (1990 census)

MEDIAN PRICE OF 2-FAMILY HOUSE: $203,000

  TAX ON MEDIAN PRICE HOUSE: $4,122

  ONE YEAR AGO: $202,000

  5 YEARS AGO: $227,000

MEDIAN PRICE OF 3-FAMILY HOUSE: $243,000

  TAX ON MEDIAN PRICE HOUSE: $4,935 

  ONE YEAR AGO: $234,000

  5 YEARS AGO: $272,000

MEDIAN PRICE OF A 2-BEDROOM CO-OP: $38,000

MEDIAN PRICE OF A 2-BEDROOM CONDOMINIUM: $130,000

MEDIAN RENT FOR A 2-BEDROOM APARTMENT: $1,100

PUBLIC-SCHOOL EXPENDITURE PER PUPIL: $6,624

DISTANCE FROM MIDTOWN MANHATTAN: 3 miles

RUSH-HOUR COMMUTATION TO MIDTOWN: 10 minutes via N.J. Transit ($1.90) or mini-van ($1.75) to Port Authority Bus Terminal; PATH trains ($1) from Hoboken; 5-minute ferry service ($4.50) from Port Imperial to 38th Street and 12th Avenue (complimentary bus service to midtown locations)

GOVERNMENT: Mayor (Richard F. Turner, ) and five-member Council, elected to four-year terms; Council elects mayor and deputy mayor from ranks.

Weehawken High School Hosts Marching Band Festival

Weehawken musician prepares comeback after 20 year absence

Local musician prepares comeback after 20 year absence

Hudson Report, 16-Nov-14

By Joanne Hoersch

Weehawken resident Derwyn Holder is a self-described serial musician. “I started out with tenor sax,” he says, “and then bass, oh that was for a long time, and then…” he catches himself and thinks it’s best to start at the beginning.

He is 75 years old now, and the beginning for him, the way he came to love music, was on a particular day when he was six years old, walking up a hill to catch a bus in his home town in New Hampshire. There it was, running through his head: “I’m Beginning to See the Light,” by Duke Ellington.

“The way it changes on the 16th and 17th notes. It’s…”

Instead of finishing his sentence he walks over to his piano (he plays that too) and taps out the first notes of this classic tune. The opening phrase is catchy. When the phrase repeats itself, the harmony sounds different, slightly minor, but Derwyn says that’s wrong. “It’s just black key notes in a white key melody.”

It’s the harmonies more than the melodies that he’s drawn to, harmonies he uses in his own work as well. He once composed a guitar concerto for Charlie Bird. “He never performed it, but he carried it around in his pocket all the time.”

That was during his time in Washington DC, the time when he realized playing saxophone was not getting him gigs. He looked around and saw a lot of bass players, specifically a lot of bass players who actually had jobs, so he switched to bass. It worked. He wound up in a trio with Gene Rush, but after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, the city was under curfew for six weeks, and the gigs dried up.

He stayed with the bass for a long time, until he was 55 years old, moving from DC to New York and enjoying the pleasures of getting around town in Checker Cabs. “They were the best,” he laughs, “the only car big enough for me and my bass to ride comfortably.”

Setting down roots

In 1982, he ended his peripatetic life style. He’d lived in Canada, New Hampshire, Washington DC and New York. But he had been to Weehawken and decided that was where he wanted to settle down. He bought a little house, then because he had problems with his lungs, moved to the country.

But there were things in Weehawken that he missed; the artists who loved there, the proximity to New York, the cultural life, and, best of all, a woman named Lia. He came back.

“And you know what?” he says. “The air here is a lot cleaner than it was in ‘82.”

Looking back, he says he’s had a lucky life. But there have been multiple health issues, serious ones that kept him from performing for a long time. “Not just my lungs but my heart, my eyes,” he waves his hand around the room as if to indicate that illness is not worth discussing. Except for one thing: Medicare.

“If it wasn’t for Medicare, I wouldn’t be alive. I’m not rich and I could never have afforded the medical bills.” He is deeply grateful to a system that helped him not once, but several times over the course of many years. To show his gratitude, he composed a “Medicare Symphony.”

Another piece of luck – Derwyn’s next door neighbor and friend is Alan Brady, an accomplished musician who plays clarinet, saxophone, flute. “And a great guy,” Derwyn adds. “He’s the one who got me into this.”

This, being a comeback performance.

“I’d run into Alan and he’d ask me, ‘When?’ And then one day, I saw him in Montclair where he teaches music, and he didn’t ask ‘When?’ He just said, ‘Let’s do this.’ He got out his calendar and started penciling in dates.”

Derwyn brought a CD of his music to The Deerhead Inn, a jazz venue near the Delaware Water Gap that has been continuously running since 1953. They knew him and they liked what they heard.

So, on Nov. 16, Derwyn Holder will make his comeback, an evening of his own compositions played with some of the best musicians he knows, including Alan Brady on alto sax, Sue Terry on tenor sax, Ron Naspo on bass, Bob Beck on drums, all accompanying Derwyn Holder on piano.

The Derwyn Holder Ensemble will appear at the The Deerhead Inn, Nov. 16, from 5 - 8 p.m., at 5 Main St., Delaware Water Gap, Pa.