The year 2011 has been a busy one, news-wise, in Greater Morristown. Here is a look back at some of the big stories and newsmakers. What are your picks for the year’s top local stories?
MOTHER NATURE: She was restless, all right. First came the earthquake. Centered in Virginia, it rattled Morristown on Aug. 23. Everyone barely had calmed down when Tropical Storm Irene blew through, four days later. The Whippany River submerged much of the Second Ward and fried an electrical substation, plunging thousands in Morristown and Morris Township into darkness for days. Those unpleasant memories had hardly faded when a freak snowstorm struck two days before Halloween. Autumn leaves had not even fallen yet. Heavy with gloppy snow, limbs crashed everywhere, bringing massive power outages once more and curbing Trick or Treating.
MANHOLE ROULETTE: Morristown’s underground electrical problems–suspected of blowing up the Morristown & Township Library in 2010–came to an ugly head in the summer of 2011. On Aug. 31, with Greater Morristown still reeling from Tropical Storm Irene, a manhole exploded at the intersection of James and South streets just as two cars were driving by. A Morris Township mom who was taking her kids for ice cream sustained burns on her arm, while another motorist was mildly singed. An investigation is ongoing. The library blast, meanwhile, remains unsolved.
JCP&L: It would be hard to find a more unpopular acronym in Greater Morristown. Jersey Central Power & Light cannot be blamed for a ferocious tropical storm or a bizarre autumn snowstorm. But officials and residents across northern New Jersey complained bitterly about communications breakdowns that left them in the dark regarding when electricity would be restored. The state Board of Public Utilities held hearings and the power company got an earful. In 2012 everyone will be watching to see if the message sunk in.
The Year in Pictures: 2011. Please click icon below for captions. Photos by Sharon Sheridan, Bill Lescohier, Hal Crosthwaite, Berit Ollestad, Shea Jonah, Scott Schlosser and Kevin Coughlin.
ALL HAIL THE VOLUNTEERS: The flip side of all the calamities was the magnificent performance of volunteers and emergency personnel in Greater Morristown. Firefighters, police, ambulance squad volunteers and public works employees worked long hours throughout the storms and their aftermath. Red Cross volunteers staffed shelters at Morristown town hall and Mennen Arena. Berit Ollestad, an MG contributor, organized a town-wide relief effort for victims of tornadoes in Alabama. Churches from across Greater Morristown sent volunteers to help the Bethel AME Church recover from Irene flooding. Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty used his charity fund to host meals at town senior centers affected by power outages. Electricity may have been scarce in 2011, but Greater Morristown had no shortage of people willing to help each other.
TRAGEDY ABOVE, MIRACLE BELOW: Five days before Christmas, a private plane crashed on Route 287 in Morris Plains, killing a family of four and a business associate aboard the aircraft. Astonishingly, the worst injury on the ground was a flat tire on a passing pickup truck.
CRIME DOES NOT PAY: A young Morristown man copped a plea in the shocking 2007 execution-style shootings of four college-aged friends in Newark. And jurors in a Morristown courtroom convicted a former church janitor of fatally stabbing a Chatham priest in a case that rocked Morris County.
THE ECOCENTER: Even if the Morristown EcoCenter never flies, the proposal stirred the imagination and galvanized citizens and entrepreneurs to consider the future. Converting a former car dealership into a tech incubator/food hub/civic center with a rooftop greenhouse was a tall order. But nobody ever should be faulted for aiming high in Morristown.
MORE PROPOSALS: Massive plans to redevelop portions of Speedwell Avenue in Morristown and the Honeywell campus in Morris Township lurched forward in 2011. Approvals for a major condo complex on Morristown’s Maple Avenue took almost everyone–including us–by surprise.
HELLO, GOODBYE: Morristown’s downtown added two upscale steak joints, a fancy hamburger restaurant, a cupcake palace, a kebab restaurant and a froyo (frozen yogurt) shop, among other eateries. It gained a music school, too. The downtown lost a bridal shop–to the dismay of many brides who ordered gowns there–and said so long to a musical landmark, Scotti’s Record Shop.
GROWING PAINS: Downtown Morristown is where everyone wants to be…and sometimes, that’s too close for comfort. Established daytime businesses and thriving nighttime bars often have different viewpoints of the Morning After. Likewise, buyers of multimillion dollar condos are not always keen on loud early morning trash pickups or loud late-night pub crawlers. And while most people welcome the big name stars that play the beautiful Mayo Performing Arts Center, Pine Street businesses and residents would prefer that the stars’ giant trailers park somewhere else.
KING OF THE HILL: Year-end sports reviews usually shower accolades on quarterbacks and point guards. But Nick Vena, Class of 2011, made shot put the must-see sport at Morristown High School. He broke every record in the book, and he did so with grace, humility and excellent grades.
BEST PROMOTIONS: Morristown’s Ticket-Taker Guy–a..k.a. Fluffy the Bouncer-–received a Caddy from the Dark Horse Lounge in a feel-good night worthy of Hollywood. The Morristown bridal shop i do…i do gave away dozens of wedding gowns to military veterans. Hooah!
FESTIVAL FUN: Greater Morristown was Entertainment Central in 2011. Things started with a bang at First Night Morris County. Morristown’s Got Talent and the Morris County St. Patrick’s Day Parade had banner years. The Morristown Partnership’s ever-popular fall and Christmas festivals on the Morristown Green were joined by two more crowd-pleasers, the first Mayor’s Jazz Festival and the Gran Fondo cycling extravanganza. MorristownGreen.com teamed with Sustainable Morristown to present six community events at the proposed EcoCenter, and Tropical Storm Irene could not dampen our fifth annual MG Film & Music Fest. Music Without Borders, a joint effort of the Arts Council of the Morris Area and the Mayo Performing Arts Center, brought free summer concerts to the Green for the second straight summer. There were excellent free concerts once again at Ginty Field in Morris Township (movies, too) and Roberts Garden in Morris Plains. And organists from distant churches converged on Morristown for a thunderous convention.
The Year in Videos: Click for Playlist
ART AROUND THE TOWN: Morristown lost Gallery Egan, but Art Around the Park tours celebrated year one, the Halloween pumpkin illumination entered year two, MG Kids showcased youth art, and drawing sessions at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and Zebu Forno won fans.
WACKY NEWS: A minister mimicked a polar bear for charity. Morristown police chased a black bear down South Street for safety. And firefighters scrambled to find a ladder long enough to rescue two construction workers trapped against the steeple of the Morristown United Methodist Church. They needed a crane.
MILESTONES: On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, Morris Plains dedicated a memorial featuring steel from the World Trade Center. Morristown’s Burnham Park marked its 100th anniversary, Morristown High’s WJSV turned 40, and Aztec Two-Step celebrated 40 years as a folk duo in concert at the Minstrel in Morris Township, where swing group Za Zu Zaz performed in a rare reunion.
IN MEMORIAM: Bobby McCann fulfilled the dream of generations of Morristown kids, making the NBA. The former Morristown High School star, who played for six pro teams, died in July of cancer at age 47.
Milt Goldband coached Bobby at the Morristown Neighborhood House and remembered a youngster who played hard and never forgot where he came from.
“He was always the most gracious, nicest kid you would ever want to meet,” Milt said.
Donnie Forster coaches the New Jersey Panthers A.A.U. basketball program, and knew Bobby from the third or fourth grade, when he was a “big, clumsy kid” who wanted to be a guard.
“If there was one kid we didn’t think would make the NBA when we were kids, it was him. But he worked the hardest when he got older,” said Donnie, who believes Bobby belongs in the MHS Hall of Fame.
When Bobby was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1987, there was a party in Lewis Morris Park. “Six hundred people came,” said Helen Arnold.
Derick “Franco” Harris played with Bobby in the Junior Colonials. “He wasn’t a flaky-type guy. No jewelry. He was just Big Bob,” Derick said. “A lot of guys go to the NBA and forget where they came from. Not him.”
Bobby’s brain cancer came on very quickly, right after Christmas in 2010. He was “incredibly brave” in trying to hide the extent of his illness from family members, said his kid sister, Ashley McCann.
“It was almost as though he was protecting us rather than us protecting him,” said Ashley, who worshiped Bobby.
“I passed around his basketball cards all through grade school. What’s cooler than having your big brother play for an NBA team? As an adult my most memorable time spent with him was always in the kitchen. Arguing about who knew how to make what, who did it better, and who taught who how to cook and then spending time eating and reminiscing. The last conversation I had with him was about what I was getting from the grocery store for our 4th of July barbeque. He waspassionate in everything that he did. Truly a great brother.”
Twins Bill Braunschweiger Sr. and Herb Braunschweiger died about a month apart this summer, at age 82. As members of the Braunschweiger Jewelers family, they were anchors of Morristown’s business scene for decades, starting in the 1950s.
Family members described Bill as the quiet, details-oriented brother who shunned the limelight. Herb was the public face of the store, a president of the Morristown Rotary, trustee of the Morristown Green and founding member of the Morristown Partnership.
Herb’s daughter Gretchen, who carries on the family business, remembered her father as a forward-thinking businessman whose “best lesson was to listen to the ideas of others and move forward, not stay stuck in the past. We were computerized by the early 1980s, for example, when many small business owners still are not today.”
Herb realized that even the historic Morristown Green needs sprucing up from time to time, his daughter said. He loved planting flowers all over town with fellow Rotarians, and saw the Morristown Partnership as a way to bring cohesiveness to the business community and create a “better Morristown for all to enjoy,” Gretchen said.
