Jersey City funeral home damaged by fire

September 4, 2017
The Jersey Journal

JERSEY CITY -- A Downtown Jersey City funeral home suffered smoke and water damage last night as a result of what appears to have been an electrical fire that started at 8:15 p.m. at Introcaso-Angelo Funeral Home, an official said this afternoon.

A resident of the building at 143 Brunswick Street saw a transformer on a utility pole short circuit and then saw smoke coming from the building's basement before calling 911, Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

Firefighters made quick work of the 1-alarm fire, but the first-floor funeral home and basement suffered smoke and water damage, Morrill said, adding that no one was injured.

Public Service Electric & Gas cut power to the building and four families living above the business sought temporary shelter elsewhere, Morrill said.

One resident was evaluated by emergency medical technicians at the scene but was not transported for additional treatment.

Thanks - Daily News now tracking Irma

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/natio ... ma-path-article-1.3464159

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Wow - what days is this possible?

Greenville: Cop Shoots & Kills Charging Pit Bull- then Accidentally Shoots Fellow Officer.

=======================

NYPD Cop Shoots U.S. Marshal, Pit Bull In New Jersey: Prosecutor

A NYPD officer shot a U.S. Marshal and a pit bull while executing an arrest warrant at a Jersey City home, prosecutors say.

By Eric Kiefer (Patch Staff)
Updated August 31, 2017

HUDSON COUNTY, NJ ? An officer from the New York Police Department shot a U.S. Marshal and a pit bull while executing an arrest warrant at a Jersey City residence on Thursday morning, authorities said.

The raid took place around 6:35 a.m. at 9 Bayview Avenue in Jersey City, the Hudson County Prosecutor?s Office stated.

During the encounter, the officer ? who was working alongside law enforcement officials from the U.S. Marshals Service ? fired his gun and killed a large, attacking pit bull, prosecutors said.

The same officer also fired another round that struck a deputy marshal in the foot, prosecutors said.

ABC New York described the marshal?s wound as a non-life threatening injury.

The Hudson County Prosecutor?s Office is investigating the incident; no additional information was immediately available.

The suspect, Javan Reaves, was reportedly wanted for a robbery in New York City. Police apprehended him successfully, the NY Daily News reported.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/newarknj/ ... arrest-attempt-prosecutor

So did everyone get the new tax bill - and when must it be paid?

Loaded rifle found in Jersey City backyard, police say
Updated on August 28, 2017 at 4:11 PM
Posted on August 28, 2017 at 3:13 PM
52 shares

By Caitlin Mota

The Jersey Journal


JERSEY CITY -- A rifle loaded with more than two dozen rounds of ammunition was found in the backyard in the Greenville neighborhood, officials said.

The LRB M-15 gun -- a semi-automatic rifle -- was found at about 3 p.m. on Aug. 22 on Ocean Avenue near the Neptune Avenue intersection, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

A Jersey City firefighter has been suspended without pay following his arrest for sharing explicit photos of children.

Police said the weapon had a high-capacity magazine and was loaded with 29 rounds. The gun is not compliant with New Jersey laws, which limit the size of the magazine to 15 rounds.

No one has been arrested in the discovery and an investigation is ongoing, Morrill said.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.

Texas man threatens to dismember Jersey City woman after drinks

August 29, 2017

Billy P. Pirtle, 37, of Texas, appears in court in Jersey City on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017, on charges he assaulted a Jersey City woman and threatened to chop her up and throw her parts in a dumpster.

By Michaelangelo Conte
The Jersey Journal

JERSEY CITY -- A 37-year-old Texas man having drinks with a Jersey City woman Thursday threatened to dismember her and throw her body parts in a dumpster, authorities said.

The woman told police she and Billy P. Pirtle, of Abilene, were intoxicated in her apartment when he began making racist remarks, pounding his chest and punching himself in the jaw while saying "F--- me," the criminal complaint says.

She said she tried to calm down Pirtle, but he suddenly punched her in the stomach, knocking her down. She said when she tried to leave, he said "I will chop you up and put you in a dumpster," the complaint says.

The victim said Pirtle continued by saying, "You will never get away from me." The woman told police she pretended she needed to vomit and was able to escape her home "fearing for her life," the complaint alleges.

Pirtle was arrested by officers responding to a 911 call and he was charged with simple assault and making terroristic threats. He made his first appearance on the charges on Friday in Criminal Justice Reform Court in Jersey City via video link from Hudson County jail on Friday.

At the hearing, the state moved to detain him through the course of his prosecution and a detention hearing is set for Wednesday before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale.

Police said Pirtle appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of his arrest. The woman complained of stomach pain, but refused medical attention, the complaint says.

The complaint does not characterize the racist remarks allegedly made by Pirtle.

----------
Jersey City police arrested two men spotted in a car near the Grove Street PATH Station which had been reported stolen in Texas and also found gun in the vehicle stolen in that state as well

Glad it is just Irma. Accuweather is saying Saturday night & Sunday we will likely get Harvey Rain as it moves up and out. Thanks!

Man Who Hung Confederate Flags Calls Them 'Beautiful,' Says He's No Bigot

By Allegra Hobbs | August 24, 2017
DNAINFO.com

William Green said he would have taken down the Confederate flags hanging in his windows if he had been in the city when recent events in Charlottesville occurred.

EAST VILLAGE ? The tenant whose apartment window display of Confederate flags sparked mayhem last week called them "beautiful" historical symbols that have nothing to do with racism ? claiming had no idea about the controversy his display caused because he was out of town.

William Green, 43, said he was shocked to return to his apartment at 403 E. Eighth St. after a weekslong vacation to discover the extent of the outrage his two Confederate battle flags had suddenly created, moving one man to hurl rocks at the building and another to punch through Green's apartment window while he was away.

The flags had been there for roughly a year, and Green had never received a complaint, he said.

He acknowledged that he understood the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, prompted the sudden outburst, noting that if he'd been home at the time, he probably would have taken the flags down

"If I was here in the city when all of that happened I likely would have taken them down myself, but I was not here when that happened," he said of the Charlottesville incident, in which a woman was killed after a white supremacist rally where many of the attendees carried Confederate flags.

"If my neighbors had come to me, face to face, then I would have [taken them down]," he said.

Instead, he was alerted to the mayhem via email by his landlord, who later filed a lawsuit against Green to keep the flags down and threatened to evict him. The owner dropped the lawsuit just two days after it was filed, records show, and Green said they are back on good terms.

"He was panicking," he said of property owner Charles Yassky. "And who could blame him? It's still hard to believe."

However, Green maintained that the display shouldn't be conflated with bigotry.

"[Racism] is still is a problem, that I agree, but pegging the Confederate flag as a symbol of it isn?t helping anybody," he said. "It is a gross misrepresentation of that flag. It really is a beautiful flag representing sacrifice and commitment."

Alarmed locals started circulating photos of the flags hanging in the windows on social media days after the deadly Charlottesville rally, with some of the comments on widely shared Facebook posts suggested throwing rocks or bricks through the windows.

A man was then caught on video Wednesday morning hurling rocks at the building and yelling that the flags must be taken down, calling their presence a "hate crime."

Then, on Friday night,a DJ who lives around the corner from the building became so agitated by the flags he climbed down the fire escape and punched out one of Green's windows. He was arrested that night and charged with criminal mischief.

Because the flags were lit up in the windows at night, many assumed Green was home and refusing to confront his neighbors.

But the tenant had been in the Pocono Mountains with his boyfriend since earlier in the month with limited Internet access, and his lights were automated to give the impression he was home as a way to discourage break-ins, he explained.

Green insisted he originally put up the flags because he loves their historical significance, which he argued had very little to do with slavery. He claimed both the Union and the Confederacy agreed during the Civil War that "the institution [of slavery] had to go, but the problem was figuring out how it would go."

Green's explanation of the flag's significance that he submitted to his landlord after he was asked to take them down reads: "THE DIXIELAND FLAG WILL ALWAYS REPRESENT THE 400,000 CONFEDERATE FATHERS THAT LOVED THEIR COUNTRY THE WAY THEIR GOD LOVED THE WORLD."

Additionally, a pair of Iron Cross flags that previously adorned his windows ? which he said represent Imperial Germany, not Nazi Germany ? as well as the Israeli flags that hung there were meant to be tributes to the history of the East Village, he said.

"The history of this neighborhood is German and Jewish," he enthused, adding the Iron Cross was the "flag of the German immigrants who came here."

Originally from the Jersey Shore, Green's father was a cross-country truck driver whose trips gave him an appreciation for Southern culture.

"My early childhood memories are in his truck going up and down the Eastern seaboard and into the Midwest, so I have an appreciation for the honest, simple, hardworking nature of Southern culture that still pervades today," he said.

Green said he has lived in the East Village since he was 17 years old, when he got an illegal sublet in the Jacob Riis Houses across the street. He has lived in his current rent-stabilized apartment since 1996.

The lawsuit filed against him last weekend dredged up old baggage between he and his landlord from a 2006 eviction attempt, he said, adding they are now on good terms.

Commenting on DNAinfo's story on the lawsuit, he said the suicide attempt alleged in the suit was a lie.

Green's recent troubles haven't stopped with the flag display, as he was recently expelled from the College of Staten Island after a spat with his professor over his thesis on Thomas Jefferson, he said.

Asked whether he planned to keep the flags down, Green said the Confederate flag would stay down for at least a year, though he might reintroduce the Iron Cross flags to mark the 100-year anniversary of the fall of the German Empire.

So far, there haven't been any run-ins following his return to the East Village, he said, adding he just wants to move on and put the whole conflict behind him. He doesn't even hold a grudge against Keen for punching his window, he said.

"There's a great wisdom to forgiveness," Green said.

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20170 ... rain-person-struck-subway

Are these maps of Irma - or is that storm something else?

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I was wondering that too - at least a real bill would be nice.

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I really appreciate the heads up to things like this - it aids in planning.

Great to hear! Sorry for Texas & Harvey.

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At this time of year the trees still have all their leaves - so branches and trees fall.

The Village Voice will silence its print edition after 62 years

Beacon of alternative journalism, which featured literary giants Norman Mailer, James Baldwin and Ezra Pound

Edward Helmore
Tuesday 22 August 2017

The Village Voice will cease publication of its print edition, 62 years after its culture-focused, alternative journalism first hit the streets of New York City.

?For more than 60 years, the Village Voice brand has played an outsized role in American journalism, politics and culture,? owner Peter Barbey said in a statement.

?It has been a beacon for progress and a literal voice for thousands of people whose identities, opinions, and ideas might otherwise have been unheard.?

The Village Voice website will continue but the loss from street stands of a publication that has offered a platform to writers including Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Ezra Pound, Henry Miller and Lester Bangs was immediately mourned by readers. Many still regard the publication as a talisman of the downtown bohemian life ? centered on Greenwich Village ? that lingers as the city goes through a period of brutal gentrification.

In recent years the Voice, which switched to free distribution in 1996, has occupied a lonely place in publishing. Its primary rival, the New York Press, closed in 2011. The uptown-focused Observer, meanwhile, has struggled for relevance under the ownership of Donald Trump?s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is widely believed to be looking to sell it.

Barbey said closing the Voice as a print publication did not mean he had abandoned the pioneering weekly.

?The most powerful thing about the Voice wasn?t that it was printed on newsprint or that it came out every week,? he said. ?It was that the Village Voice was alive and that it changed in step with and reflected the times and the ever-evolving world around it.

?I want the Village Voice brand to represent that for a new generation of people ? and for generations to come.?

A member of a newspaper-owning family from Pennsylvania, Barbey bought the Voice in 2015. He said then that he hoped to find a business model that would keep newspapers from depending on wealthy proprietors.

?I can keep the Voice going,? he told the Wall Street Journal, ?but if that?s the only solution, then only the wealthy will support free speech. I don?t want that world. I?m not that kind of wealthy person.?

Barbey announced plans to increase hiring and cultural coverage. The investigative journalist Wayne Barrett, the author of a famous 1979 profile of Donald Trump who was widely mourned when he died earlier this year, told the Wall Street Journal there was still a market ?for a paper that takes the city seriously?.

Quote: Really nice! What lens and ND filter?

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Wacko

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

All eclipse activities are included in your general admission to LSC.

The only eclipse activity that's additional is our special showing of the Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon Laser Show at 4:45 pm. You can pick up your ticket for the laser show on the day of the event at the box office ($12 for adults, $10 for kids).

Bye bye Bannon!

Also nazi-collaborators-name-be-erased-broadway-sidewalk

https://patch.com/new-york/downtown-ny ... eather&utm_campaign=alert

Ok, Big Guy

What - no Trump Flag waving?

Even on Fox News, normally a redoubt of Trump support, with the anchor Guy Benson saying that Mr. Trump ?lost me? when he insisted that some ?very fine people? participated in the white supremacist rally.

?They were chanting things like, ?Jews will not replace us,?? Mr. Benson said. ?There?s nothing good about that.?

Seems like a good time to change out these confederate flags for ones with just the offending states name.

Off topic - but Jersey City needs a ferry to go back and forth to Brooklyn.

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Man is shot on Broadway in Jersey City, police say

August 14, 2017 at 8:35 AM

A man was shot in Jersey City early Friday, but he was uncooperative with police investigating the shooting.

By Ron Zeitlinger
The Jersey Journal

A 24-year-old man was shot early Friday on Broadway in Jersey City, a city spokeswoman said.

The man's injuries were not considered life-threatening, city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said, who noted that the shooting occurred just before 5 a.m.

The victim, who Morrill said was uncooperative with police, was treated at the RJWBarnabas' Jersey City Medical Center.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/why-jers ... ut-on-being-the-big-apple

CONDITIONS FOR THE CREATIVE ACT

Why Jersey City Missed Out On Being the Big Apple
Because those living, working and playing in Manhattan were trapped between the East and Hudson Rivers, intellectual cross-fertilization was almost inevitable.

MARC J. DUNKELMAN
08.13.17

In the years following the American Revolution, not everyone expected New York to emerge as America?s preeminent city. Philadelphia had hosted the Constitutional Convention. Boston was a crucial manufacturing hub. And even among the cities crowding the lower Hudson (then called the North River), some believed that those on the western shore were more likely to flourish. A figure no less prominent than Alexander Hamilton predicted that Jersey City would eventually become the ?metropolis of the world.?

There was good reason. New Jersey boasted all the advantages of Manhattan without many of its liabilities. Both offered access to the same harbor, and then to the Atlantic. Both were situated along a navigable river that would eventually connect to the Erie Canal. But while Manhattan real estate was relatively scarce, Jersey?s expanse seemed limitless. Just as important, goods manufactured in the Garden State were already on the mainland, and could be shipped to points south and west without having to traverse an extra body of water.

Nearly two centuries later, Jane Jacobs offered a novel explanation for New York?s triumph. In The Economy of Cities, published in 1969, she argued that the elements most scholars cited when trying to explain metropolitan success?access to natural resources, for example?obscured one monumentally important factor: the random collision of ideas.

Several years earlier, the famed journalist Arthur Koestler had published The Act of Creation, a book which argued that ?the creative act is not an act of creation in the sense of the Old Testament. It does not create something out of nothing; it uncovers, selects, re-shuffles, combines, synthesizes already existing facts, ideas, faculties, skills.?

Jacobs applied Koestler?s insight to the urban landscape. Successful cities, she contended, managed to overlay different industries, communities and experiences. Growth is born from innovation, and innovation emerges only when concepts can jump easily from one field to another. Because those living, working and playing in New York they were trapped between the East and Hudson Rivers and couldn?t so easily escape one another, intellectual cross-fertilization was almost inevitable. In other words, Manhattan?s tighter quarters were instrumental to the Big Apple?s success.

Since then, the Koestler/Jacobs theory has become a staple of popular business literature. Pick up a recent edition of the Harvard Business Review and you?ll be hard-pressed to avoid stumbling on a story extolling the virtues of ?breaking out of your silo.? But those looking to spark innovation on a wider scale rarely think about social architecture even as America sleepwalks through an entrepreneurial crisis. Statistical measures of new business creation have been halved since the 1970s. As one economist testified last year before the Senate Small Business Committee: "Millennials are on track to be the least entrepreneurial generation in recent history.?

Beyond asking whether investing in better schools or more research and development, it?s time we entertain another possibility: American innovation may be suffering from the fact that Americans today have less exposure to ideas outside the realm of their own experience.

In 2000, Robert Putnam?s Bowling Alone laid out reams of evidence suggesting that Americans were becoming increasingly isolated from one another. But critics countered that digital technology (and now social media) put billions of people mere clicks away from an exchange of ideas; globalization, they argued, actually brings strangers together. What?s clear now is that that argument missed the point. Whether or not we have more or less ?social capital? in the aggregate, we?re inarguably choosing to invest our time and energy today in different sorts of relationships. And as Jacobs would point out, who we know has a profound effect on what we think.

America?s social architecture has undergone a subtle but profound transformation over the last several decades. Data from the General Social Survey suggests that Americans have maintained roughly the same amount of time with their most intimate acquaintances (the handful with whom we exchange text messages) and their more ephemeral contacts (the elementary school pals we friend on Facebook). From 1974 to 2014, the percentage who reported spending a ?social evening? with a relative more than once a month fell just slightly from 58 percent to 55 percent. The share spending more than one evening with a friend who lived outside their neighborhood actually grew from 40 percent to 42 percent. But the percentage reporting a social evening spent with someone who lived near them plummeted from 44 percent to 32 percent, suggesting that we?ve broadly abandoned the middling contacts that were once a staple of the American life. For better or worse, we?ve become strangers to the neighbors, Rotarians, bridge partners and bowling-league teammates who would once have been more familiar.

Which brings us back to the roots of intellectual cross-fertilization; after all, not every category of relationship brings people with different points of view into close proximity. Coining the phrase, ?the strength of weak ties,? Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter argued decades ago that more intimate contacts rarely proffered new concepts, if only because we know what our closest acquaintances think already. That might augur for more ferment today if only because weak ties have proliferated through the digital revolution. But a distinction exists between familiar and entirely ephemeral connections. A true exchange of ideas demands more depth than what is often on offer in the comments section of a Facebook post.

We should be so lucky to find simple ways to stir the pot. If, as some suggest, Americans lived in denser environments, used mass transit, and sent their children to public schools, they might be more prone to encounter new thinking. But as Bill Bishop argued in The Big Sort, even our neighborhoods have become more monolithic because we?re prone to settle among people who share our sensibilities. And it?s not just that. Look at all the people walking their dogs and riding the subway with earbuds that make them deaf to the world. On the whole, Americans have become increasingly private even in public spaces.

Nearly two decades ago, the University of Chicago?s Ronald Burt released the findings of a study he?d done of Raytheon, a defense contractor that boasted state-of-the-art physical plants, talented engineers, access to many of the world?s greatest academic institutions and much more. Trying to uncover the roots of new thinking, Burt concluded that the Raytheon employees most likely to have good ideas weren?t those entrenched most deeply in any one field of expertise or another. Rather, the unlikely stars were those few who ?spanned structural holes.? In other words, the most intellectually disruptive employees were those with their hands in the work of more than one department.

What would it take to compel Americans to span more structural holes in their everyday lives? I?ve yet to stumble on a wholly satisfactory answer. There?s great promise in programs like AmeriCorps, which places Americans from wildly different backgrounds into eighteen-month service projects. But maybe more hopeful is the progress educators have made imbuing young students with additional ?grit.? The most pervasive barrier preventing individuals from exploring new ideas often centers on a fear that substantive encounters outside a familiar bubble will be awkward, dangerous, or uncomfortable. Someone might discover that an interesting stranger voted for the other presidential candidate?or harbors some sort of ugly prejudice.

Exposure to new ideas often requires the ability to maintain your equanimity in the face of disagreement. A grittier America would be less likely to lash out or turn away in disgust.

We can hardly fault Alexander Hamilton for being born more than 200 years before Jacobs published The Economy of Cities. But we should heed the warning of his mistaken prediction that Jersey City would become today?s Manhattan. We?ve finally solved the mystery of how good ideas emerge. Our challenge now is to is compensate for the sociological shift that has begun to temper the hot stew of intellectual cross-fertilization.

Marc J. Dunkelman is a fellow both at Brown University?s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and NYU?s Marron Institute of Urban Management. His first book, The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community, was published by W.W. Norton.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/natio ... lloween-article-1.3403377

Fear not, Trump chicken is a Halloween outfit too.

Wow -- Little India -- Kennedy to Tonnelle -- that is the slowest block in all of JC. Those cars look like they were shot at close range.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... er_shooting_reported.html






The car had a flat tire and numerous dents. Two bullet holes in the windshield were also visible.

Meanwhile, nearby on Tonnelle Avenue, two cars were stopped on the road, which was also littered with debris, possibly from a crash or from a bullet striking a vehicle. Police found bullet casings and placed about a dozen evidence markers on the street near the two cars. One evidence marker was placed on a vehicle.

Amit Patel, who was working in a nearby laundromat, said he heard three or four shots fired outside his business.

I heard that it was just a rumour - anyone know real details? When and where exactly did this happen?

Love the onion.

http://www.theonion.com/article/beltw ... lease-delayed-out-of-r-25

Trump is afraid of releasing his taxes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Custom-made-1 ... golden-hair-/292210479639




http://www.seattlepi.com/local/articl ... -for-Seattle-11745801.php