The Record's onetime HQ on River Street in Hackensack is going, going, almost gone

STOP THE PRESSES: As demolition continued today, the most recognizable part of The Record's former headquarters in Hackensack is this section of a 3-story executive wing fronting on River Street. The wing included offices, a private dining room, a kitchen for the executive chef, a gymnasium and a hallway art gallery.

ELEVATOR TO NOWHERE: The 5-story elevator tower at the rear of the headquarters building also remained standing today. 

THAT EMPTY FEELING: No part of the building at 150 River St. remains standing between the section of the executive wing and the elevator tower.

SEPT. 2, 2018: The executive wing as it appeared in September. The Record closed its headquarters in 2009, relocating to an office building overlooking Route 80 in Woodland Park. Printing of the once-great local daily newspaper was moved to Rockaway Township in 2006.

FOURTH-FLOOR NEWSROOM: The newsroom was on the 4th floor of the headquarters building. The large windows framed the tower of smoke rising from the destruction of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. See a short video of the demolition work, below.

READ: The Borgs are back in Hackensack

READ: Ghosts of The Record

 to be buried under new housing

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

Coverage of deadly terror attack ranges from thorough to sloppy to just asinine

Cartoonists Dave Granlund, above, and Rick McKee, below, are saying we should expect more indictments and guilty pleas in the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. I don't know if there was any truth to a tweet I saw last week that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has filed four more sealed indictments.

The "small fry" charged in the probe so far could make deals with prosecutors and provide crucial testimony against higher ups in the 2016 campaign of President Trump, who left today on a 12-day trip to Asia.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Since 8 people were killed in lower Manhattan on Tuesday, The Record of Woodland Park has reported in depth on the Paterson man who authorities say was behind the deadly terror attack.

But my local daily newspaper seemed desperate to make a connection to what Columnist Mike Kelly called "the deadliest terror incident in New York City since 9/11" (1A on Wednesday).

That was a real stretch. 

When Islamic terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 2,800 people were killed, including many New Jersey residents.

On Halloween, suspect Sayfullo Saipov, 29, who lived with his wife and young children in Paterson, drove a rental truck down a lower Manhattan bike path blocks from the site of the 9/11 attack, but was able to kill only 8 people before he was shot by police and arrested.

Wednesday's banner headline, referring to the Paterson suspect, who immigrated legally from the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, said:

"JERSEY CONNECTION"

But The Record hasn't reported that Saipov worked as a driver for Uber, according to TV news stations.

The suspect said he was inspired by 90 graphic and violent Islamic State propaganda videos police found on his phone, BBC.com reported.

Sloppy coverage

On Thursday, the coverage of the attack filled the entire front page of The Record under another banner headline:

"'CONSUMED BY HATE'"

"Officials 

paint life

of troubled 

young man"

But at the bottom of the page, readers learned about another "Jersey connection" the staff apparently missed on Wednesday:

One of the 8 people killed was Darren Drake, 32, a New Milford native and former school board member.

Inside, a story by Staff Writers Scott Fallon and Lindy Washburn reported that also among those killed were "five longtime friends from Argentina on a trip to New York" (Thursday's 4A).

But a photo with the story showed eight people, and the caption below it listed the names of only four of them as among the dead. The fifth victim was never identified.

Readers have become accustomed to that kind of sloppiness since Gannett Co. bought The Record and laid off more than 350 employees of its publishing company, North Jersey Media Group, including most of the copy editors, who are supposed to catch and correct errors like that.

Regulate rentals?

Then on Thursday's Local front, Columnist John Cichowski, aka Road Warrior, wrote about how "easy" it was for him and another reporter to go to Home Depots and rent a truck like the one the suspect used in the attack less than 24 hours earlier.

How asinine.

In fact, Cichowski was so desperate to fill space that he actually interviews and quotes the other staffer, Ricardo Kaulessar,

"They didn't ask me what I need the truck for," Kaulessar was quoted as saying.

More desperation

By today, other news intruded on the terror attack, and the front page carried stories about the GOP tax plan, and the teachers union trying to stop the reelection of Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, one of the most powerful Democrats in the state (1A).

But Kelly, the columnist, refused to give up, and he tried mightily to connect the deadly truck attack to artist Maya Lin, who is best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In his third paragraph on Page 1, Kelly explained why he would be going on and on about Lin:

The 8 people were killed "a short distance from her Manhattan studio."

He also apparently asked her to reflect on Tuesday's terror attack, and quoted her saying: 

"For now, we're in the middle of something. And it is a horrible something."

How profound. She could just as well be referring to the Trump administration or global warming.

Threats to Muslims

Another Page 1 story reported that "North Jersey Muslims were on edge Thursday" after a Paterson mosque received "hate-fueled phone calls threatening violence and arson" following the arrest of the suspect (1A).

Deep into the story, The Record noted, "Tuesday's attack brought new negative attention to Paterson" (8A).

That's rich. 

In the past 15 years, the Woodland Park daily has done little else but publish negative stories about the city, including a major series on how whites from nearby suburbs were drawn to Paterson drug dealers.

The series included a street map of Paterson, showing where drugs were being sold.

Revised bylines

Gannett has revised bylines again. 

Here is the byline over today's story on threats to a Paterson mosque:

"Hannan Adely and Joe Malinconico
"North Jersey Record
"USA TODAY NETWORK -- NEW JERSEY"

So now The Record is being called "North Jersey Record," a name the daily newspaper never had.

9/11: Trump apologists are everywhere; photog has bittersweet memories of attack

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez mixing images in commenting on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the deadliest on America soil. The title of his cartoon is "9/11-Never Forget."

From Brooklyn Heights, cartoonist Sean Delonas says "the real Twin Towers" were the police officers and firefighters who lost their lives trying to save others after the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

 HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

You'd think the reporters and editors of The Record, my local daily newspaper, would know why America is so divided 16 years after we swiftly came together to heal our wounds from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But in marking last Monday's anniversary, Columnist Mike Kelly wrote on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily:

"In the months after the 9/11 attacks, the nation seemed remarkably united -- no 'red' or 'blue' states, just red-white-and blue America.

"But then, we sank back into our angry, divisive ways.... What happened?"

Kelly must have been kidding or maybe he was just desperate for something fresh to discuss in what was his third 9/11 column in three days (two Kelly columns ran on Sunday's front page and Opinion front).

Obama, Trump

I'll be glad to answer his question:

What happened, of course, was the election of our first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008 and his reelection in 2012.

What happened, of course, was New York billionaire Donald J. Trump's years-long campaign to demonize Obama as a Muslim who was born outside the United States, and, thus, allegedly was an illegitimate president. 

What happened, of course, were Republicans in Congress who vowed to oppose every Obama initiative, and the news media ignoring health care, the environment and other important issues to focus relentlessly on politics and partisan conflict and gridlock.

And what happened, of course, was Trump's 2016 presidential campaign of endless lies that swept him into office riding the greatest tide of racism and white supremacy since the Civil War.

Kelly, who was a persistent critic of Obama, ignores virtually all of that (1A and 6A in Tuesday's Record).

Again on Thursday, "Trump thrust himself back into the racial storms of Charlottesville," The New York Times reported, "repeating his charges that those resisting the neo-Nazis and white supremacists were as much to blame as the alt-right crowds who marched on the Virginia college town last month." 

A U.S. postage stamp used Thomas E. Franklin's famous photo.

Tom Franklin

Every anniversary of 9/11 must be bittersweet for Thomas E. Franklin, the onetime Record photographer who captured the iconic image of firefighters defiantly raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead of winning the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, Franklin is listed as a finalist.

The Pulitzer, long the most prestigious award in journalism, went to the staff of The New York Times "for its consistently outstanding photographic coverage of the terrorist attack on New York City and its aftermath."

No one can know why Franklin lost, but the decision by editors against remaking the front page of The Record for his remarkable photo likely was a big factor.

On the biggest story The Record has ever covered, the editors -- including Frank Scandale and Vivian Waixel -- argued it would cost too much to tear up Page 1, so the photo ran on a back page of one of the sections of the paper on Sept. 12, 2001.

In doing so, they completely overrode Rich Gigli, the photography director at the time, who saw Franklin's photo as The Record's chance to publish a unique Page 1 image unlike what every other paper had.

What The Record and every other paper published on the front page the next day was the Twin Towers smoking after terrorists flew two commercial airliners into them.

How close was The Record to the story?

On Sept. 11, 2001, reporters and editors in the Hackensack newsroom only had to glance up from their computers and look out the large windows to see the ominous black column of smoke rising from the ruins of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Franklin is now an assistant professor at Montclair State University.

See: 2002 Pulitzer Prizes

Jimmy Margulies, who once was the editorial cartoonist at The Record, seems to be reaching here.

Cartoonist Joe Heller on the 9/11 anniversary debate over "Never Forget" or "Always Remember." A woman holding photos of victims says, "Actually, they're forever on my mind."

Thursday's paper

On Thursday, a front-page story on NJ Transit's "crazy funding" reported that "15 years ago," the state's mass transit agency began receiving $350 million a year from the state's general fund.

But by 2015, "that amount had dwindled to $33 million" (6A in Thursday's Record).

The reporter, Curtis Tate, doesn't identify Governor Christie as the culprit who slashed state aid to NJ Transit by more than 90%.

Slighted in death, too

As I noted last Sunday, Elaine D'Aurizio of Wayne was mistreated badly in her last years as a columnist and reporter at The Record, where she worked for more than 30 years.

Elaine, who left the paper in 2010, died on Sept. 6. She was 76.

She was the paper's first and so far only female news columnist, reporting and writing a column called Above and Beyond for about a decade. 

The column celebrated the heroics of first responders and ordinary people who risked their lives to save others during emergencies.

But Scandale, the editor at the time, stripped her of her column, and also took away the only columns written by black and Hispanic staffers.

$10,000 pay cut

Elaine's pay also was cut by $10,000 a year on the orders of then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

A couple of her former colleagues wrote condolences on NorthJersey.com that I published last Sunday.

But inexplicably, former copy editor/reporter Jay Levin agreed to send me a tribute to Elaine, but asked me to withhold his name, even though he worked with her and edited many of her columns.

He did use his name in writing a condolence that appeared on a Facebook page called "Bergen Record Cast of Characters," which is closed to the public, including readers of the paper who knew Elaine or her work.

Levin, who wrote expanded local obituaries for The Record, was one of about 50 reporters and editors laid off in March by Gannett Co., the paper's new owner. 

See: Male editors made life miserable

 for female columnist

Hypocrite Trump sounds heavily sedated in Saudi Arabia speech to Muslim leaders

In this photo from Stephen Crowley of The New York Times, President Trump doesn't look too happy after he received a gold medal from a Saudi Arabian official on Saturday. Trump had to bow so the official could put the chain around his neck. First lady Melania Trump, left, and daughter Ivanka Trump went without head scarves.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: This post has been updated with a photo of President Trump touching a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia -- an image that has become an Internet meme or sensation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

President Trump has tried twice to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States, arguing that is the only way to keep terrorists out.

During the 2016 campaign, he claimed thousands of Arab residents of New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks on America, and he also said "Islam hates us."

And don't forget how the New York billionaire belittled the parents of a slain Muslim soldier after the father denounced Trump.

Yet, in a major speech to leaders of Saudi Arabia and about 50 other Muslim countries today, Trump sounded as if he was heavily sedated as he made nice with the Islamic world.

He never used the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism," which he repeated during the divisive 2016 presidential campaign and attacked his opponent for refusing to use it.

Today's speech was greeted with polite applause, but the Saudis didn't indicate they are ready for the first time to commit military forces to fight ISIS.

I listened to Trump's uncharacteristic monotone in Saudi Arabia on WNYC-FM, New York and New Jersey public radio.

A disgrace

Trump is such a hypocrite and liar. And he is a disgrace to the office of president.

The illegitimate president, who is the laughing stock of most of the country and the rest of the world, is going to Israel next to undoubtedly destroy any hope Palestinians have of establishing their own state.

Many Jews in Bergen County and other parts of New Jersey share with the evil Trump the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim, but you won't get any of them to admit that's the reason they voted for the madman. 

In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, President Trump, right, the Saudi king and Egypt's president placed their hands on an illuminated world globe at the opening of an anti-terrorism monitoring center called the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (photo from the Saudi Press Agency). Trump, who was described as "exhausted," then left for Israel.

The Record

Today's front page is dominated by another medical-miracle story from Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, one of the few veterans who survived a major layoff of editors and reporters at the end of March (1A).

The Record prefers to publish this kind of gee-whiz medical story occasionally instead of covering the obesity epidemic or heart disease -- the No. 1 killer in the United States.

Also on the front page today, Columnist Mike Kelly visits Allendale, the Bergen County town where fired FBI Director James Comey grew up (1A).

Kelly begins the column with one of the brain teasers he prefers to straight reporting:

"Hometowns speak to us in strange ways."

The only legitimate story on Page 1 today is about Trump's crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado reports the head of immigration enforcement in New Jersey says his officers "are focusing on those who have committed serious crimes or have deportation orders against them."

Facebook critics

On the Facebook page of NorthJersey.com, all of the reader "reviews" discuss the decline of the newspaper, not the ascendancy of the website:

In an April 7 comment, Robert Kroncke of Hasbrouck Heights could have been referring to today's front page when he wrote:

"Important current events and the front page has an article about TICKS and LIME!!! You can't make this ____ UP."

That April 7 comment is the most recent, so Editor Richard Green must be shit-canning most of the critiques of the Woodland Park daily, whose decline has accelerated since Gannett took over.

Trump coverage

Green led Saturday's paper with a New York Times report on Comey agreeing to testify in public before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

That followed revelations that Trump told Russian leaders in the Oval Office Comey is a "nut job," and that dismissing him meant the pressure of the FBI's Russia probe has been "taken off," The Times said.

Today, Green relegates to Page 2A Trump's attempt to reverse two weeks of bad news over the Comey firing by leaving the country for nine days.

Food Editor Esther Davidowtiz.

Giving orders

On Saturday's Better Living cover, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz reports on North Jersey coffee shops under another headline that seems to "order" readers to follow her advice:

"MUST-STOP COFFEE SHOPS"

A glaring omission is Aroma Espresso Bar at Garden State Plaza in Paramus -- the only New Jersey outpost of a chain based in Israel.

In Better Living today, the First Course feature reads like advertising:

One item Davidowitz and Staff Writer Sofia F. Gottfried are pushing are the prawns served for $32 each at Oceanaire Seafood Room, an expensive seafood restaurant in Hackensack.

"Heck, each weighs almost 8 ounces," they shout.

Except, if you remove the inedible head, they weigh a couple of ounces less.

Trump leaves for visit to Saudi Arabia -- which gave us the 9/11 attacks on America

In an annual salute to style, Hackensack High School seniors showed off their outfits before their prom on Thursday, above and below.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Osama bin Laden -- mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on America -- was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a construction billionaire and his 10th wife.

And 15 of the 19 hijackers also came from the oil-rich Middle Eastern country.

On Sept. 11, 2001, they hijacked four commercial airliners loaded with fuel for cross-country flights to carry out the biggest terrorist attack against the United States -- orchestrated by bin Laden, leader of al Queda.

The war on terrorism was America's response to the attacks, including the destruction of the World Trade Center, crashing a jet into the Pentagon and the death of nearly 3,000 people.

Bid Laden, 54, was killed by U.S. Special Forces on May 2, 2011, as President Obama, Hillary Clinton and others watched.

So, why is President Trump -- on his first foreign trip as commander in chief -- stopping in Saudi Arabia?

Despite its obscene wealth, Saudi Arabia also has steadfastly refused to commit military forces in the epic battle against ISIS in the Middle East. 

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports the kingdom will be pulling out all the stops for a president who has declared "Islam hates us," and who has said the U.S. is "losing a tremendous amount of money" defending the kingdom.

This photo from Robert Giroux of Getty Images shows Manhattan's Twin Towers after they were hit by hijacked commercial jets. The buildings, called the World Trade Center, collapsed.

Mistreatment of women

Women in Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative Islamic kingdom, are unable to obtain a passport or travel abroad without the consent of their husband, father or other male relative.

The majority of women also are required to wear an abaya -- a long cloak -- and a headscarf, and they are discouraged from driving.

That means the Saudis and Trump have something in common -- mistreating women.

And if the president hopes to grab some pussy when he is there, those cloaks will make his target elusive.

More Hackensack High School students during their show off on Thursday, above and below.

A colorful couple coordinated their outfits.

The Record

Trump is claiming the investigation of Russian ties to his campaign is a "witch hunt," according to a Page 1 headline in The Record of Woodland Park. 

On 3A, the co-pilot who died in Monday's crash of a Learjet near Teterboro Airport is profiled.

Jeffrey Alino, 33, a New Jersey native, "seemed to be enjoying his life as he traveled across the country, posting social media pictures of himself" on a beach or in uniform.

The pilot remains unidentified.

Local news?

The  lead story on the Local news front reports on parking woes in Lodi "after a designated resident-only ordinance was issues" (1L).

But Ridgewood leads in terms of the sheer number of stories on the village's downtown parking problems The Record has published in the past year or so (2L).

"Residents shot down an ordinance last June that would have paid for a 325-car, 4-story garage, but support for a garage has not gone away."

Low-quality meat 

Most BBQ restaurants mask the low quality of the beef, pork and chicken they serve with smoke, charring and overpowering sauces.

That doesn't stop Food Editor and Bottom Feeder Esther Davidowitz from hailing a half-dozen places, including Fink's in Dumont, Kimchi Smoke in Westwood and Mighty Quinn's in Clifton (Better Living tabloid).

"His food is crazy good," Davidowitz says of the "pitmaster," Robert Austin Cho, at his Korean-inspired Kimchi Smoke.

According to Consumer Reports, the vast majority of beef and pork served in the United States is raised with harmful human antibiotics and growth hormones. 

In many case, cattle are fed waste from chicken houses mixed in with their grain, and pigs are confined and mistreated until they are slaughtered.

Doesn't that sound appetizing?