A Lasting Memorial for SP's Victims of Sept. 11

The final morning of a stormy April 2011 contained the same azure skies as Sept. 11, 2001, and provided a fitting backdrop to a solemn ceremony held outside the Scotch Plains Municipal Building. Less than two days before President Barack Obama announced that U.S. special forces operating in Pakistan had killed Osama Bin Laden, steel recovered from the World Trade Center was presented to the township by Port Authority Commissioner Anthony Sartor for the creation of a monument honoring the three Scotch Plains residents – Matthew Horning, 26, James Walsh, 37, and Mark Rothenberg, 52 – killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which left more than 3,000 people dead.

Scotch Plains police, fire and emergency medical personnel transported the 10-foot beam in a motorcade that led from the Southside Firehouse to the front steps of the Municipal Building, where a podium and chairs had been assembled for the ceremony. An American flag, suspended from the ladders of two fire trucks, waved amid the treetops as bagpiper Al Gonzales, a retired New York City policeman who responded to Ground Zero, played Amazing Grace to mark the start the ceremony.

After a short introduction by Mayor Nancy Malool, Sartor was the first to speak. He delivered a short speech that touched on the Port Authority’s 90th anniversary – it was founded April 30, 1921 – his 37 years as a Scotch Plains resident and the events of Sept. 11.

“It is a day that everyone will always remember where they were and what they were doing,” Sartor said. “What we are doing now will be a constant reminder of that tragedy.”

Malool, who next took the podium, thanked Sartor profusely. “We could not have done what we are doing without his help,” she said.

She also recognized the members of the township’s newly-created Sept. 11 Memorial Committee, including Township Manager Christopher Marion, his assistant, Madeleine Rutkowski, Police Chief Brian Mahoney, Sgt. Ernie Hernandez, Fire Chief Jonathan Ellis, Rescue Squad Captain Daniel Sullivan, Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School principal David Heisey, Township Zoning Officer Robert LaCosta, Business and Professional Association president Lisa Mohn, business owner Tom Donatelli, firefighter Charlie Mecca, Rescue Squad member Rob Jabstrebsky and longtime resident and volunteer Don Wussler. Hernandez, Ellis, Sullivan, officer Brian Cheney, firefighter Carmen Grausso and public works employees Eugene di Quollo, Alton McCoy and Randy Grizzard retrieved the steel from JFK International Airport on Wednesday.

"This steel represents so much. I find it remarkable that this piece of metal can evoke so many emotions,” Malool said. “But it is a symbol of our national pride, our hope, faith, and our resilience. At the same time, it embodies so much sorrow.”

The residents who died on Sept. 11, she continued, “were our neighbors and our friends. Through this monument, we hope to honor their memories and celebrate their lives. We also hope to pay tribute to all those who were lost that day and to celebrate those who survived.”

Diane Horning, whose son, Matthew, worked as a computer-programmer for Marsh and MacLennon, which had offices in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, offered heartfelt thanks to the township and the Port Authority.

“Matthew loved this town and I hope this memorial monument will give us all a place to sit in quiet reflection remembering the good in these three men and the good in this town that has chosen to honor them,” Horning said. “I am grateful that Scotch Plains has given us a place, without any commercialism for respectful and fitting remembrance and reflection.”

She noted that Matthew’s sister, Dana, named her newborn son Christopher Matthew. “He couldn’t have the first name of Matthew, because there could only be one Matthew,” Horning said.

Walsh, a computer programmer with Cantor Fitzgerald, was also in the North Tower when it was struck on Sept. 11. Rothenberg, an entrepreneur, was on United Flight 93, which crashed in rural Shanksville, Pa.

After the speeches, Reverend John Nielsen delivered an invocation and benediction, and as Gonzalez played “Going Home” on the bagpipes, the ceremony's attendees followed a fire truck as it pulled the steel to the Rescue Squad building, where the beam will be stored as the monument is constructed.

The monument's design, which was unveiled Saturday, calls for the beam to be split in two, with each piece rising from a pentagon. The monument will be located on the Alan M. Augustine Village Green, located adjacent to the Municipal Building, and officially dedicated Sunday, Sept. 11.

Christie Chief of Staff at Westfield Library

Richard Bagger looked at home Wednesday night at the Westfield Memorial Library – fitting for a lifelong resident and former mayor of Westfield, but perhaps less so for Gov. Chris Christie’s chief of staff. Bagger’s lecture on Christie’s economic policy – the latest installment to the library’s Lee Hale Lecture Series – came nearly a year to the day that the governor announced plans to slash state library funding by 74 percent. This apparent irony, however, went largely unacknowledged. Rather than focusing on budget cuts, Bagger’s presentation, and the questions that followed, centered on how the Garden State can attract more industry.

“We continue to economically lag behind our neighbors and other states, which holds back growth and job creation,” Bagger said. “Our tax burden is the highest in the country and way too reliant on the highest earners.”

Bagger’s comments were greeted with nods and applause from members of the audience, which measured about 100 people.

“I think he’s building a climate that will keep businesses here,” said Westfield resident Judith A. Sheft, associate vice president for technology development at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “I am a little concerned in the short term that some tech companies may take advantage of the lower costs in Pennsylvania.”

Mountainside resident Rene Dierkes added, “He takes a complicated subject like government spending and budgets and puts it in terms that make it interesting for the average person,” he said.

Bagger, who attended Wilson Elementary School, Roosevelt Middle School, Westfield High School and Princeton University, got his political start as a member of the Westfield Planning Board. Still in his 20s, he went on to become a town councilman, and subsequently served as mayor from 1991-92. A graduate of Rutgers Law School, Bagger served as assistant general counsel for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and worked as an attorney for the Newark-based law firm McCarter and English. He next served as senior vice president for worldwide public affairs at Pfizer Inc., a position he held for 16 years, before Christie came calling after winning the governorship in November 2009.

“I did not expect to be the job I am in, but Chris can be very persuasive,” Bagger said with a smile.

By that time, Bagger was no stranger to Trenton. He had served in the Assembly from 1992 to 2002 – the last four years as chairman of the Appropriations Committee – and in the Senate from 2002 to 2003. But working in the executive branch, he said, proved far different from working in the legislature.

“You see things from two completely different vantage points. It’s almost like being in Trenton for the first time,” Bagger said.

The position of chief-of-staff carries with it myriad responsibilities, but Bagger said he was appointed in large part due to his fiscal expertise. Working as a volunteer in the months between Christie’s election and inauguration, Bagger combed hundreds of pages of state expenditures. In the course of his research, he said he came to realize that because New Jersey’s gubernatorial election occurs one year before the elections in most other states, the Christie administration would face financial challenges that other new governors would not encounter for another year.

“New Jersey had an acute case of what was affecting other states,” said Bagger, who compared his early duties to that of a new management team trying to turn around a fiscally ailing company.

Bagger concluded his talk, however, by expressing optimism for the state’s financial future. “The good news is that a lot of states are following our lead and we are showing it can be done,” he said. “The big test is staying with the next few years.”

He also heaped praise on local officials. “As a Westfield resident, I think the mayor and the town government has done an excellent job of maintaining services even though they have had to do with much less state aid,” Bagger said. “They have been creative and efficient and should be proud of the job they are doing.”

Fastballs and Gefilte: Blomberg

Fastballs and Gefilte: Yankees' 'Designated Hebrew' Talks Baseball and Religion at Movie Screening

Former Bronx Bomber Ron Blomberg was joined by author Dan Schlossberg at the AMC Loews Theatre in Mountainside on Tuesday.

By David Lazarus | Email the author | April 6, 2011

The weather was frigid on the first Tuesday night of April, making the AMC Loews Theatre in Mountainside a much more appropriate place to watch baseball than Yankee Stadium. A small but enthusiastic and knowledgeable group of baseball fans attended the penultimate night of the JCC-sponsored Jewish Film Festival where the documentary “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story” was shown. Most of the audience came to meet and schmooze with former Yankee star Ron Blomberg, who was also featured in the movie and afterward spoke to the audience about his experiences of being a Jewish professional baseball star. Blomberg was joined in the question-and-answer session by author Dan Schlossberg, who co-authored Blomberg’s autobiography, “Designated Hebrew: The Ron Blomberg Story.”

“It’s a little too cold to play baseball tonight. I’m a Southern boy and I like warm weather,” said Blomberg, who played from 1969-77 for the Yankees and proudly wears his World Series championship ring from 1977. Blomberg finished his career with the Chicago White Sox in 1978. Blomberg has a long association with the JCC through his Baseball Camp run in association with NJY camps.

The movie was the second installment of the JCC of Central New Jersey’s three-part film series, which started March 31 with the Israeli film “The Matchmaker,” and concludes April 13 with the Argentinean film “Anita.”

The crowd that attended Tuesday contained a cross section of people, many wearing Yankee caps. Among the attendees was Adam Sackett of Scotch Plains, who brought his four year old son.

“I am hoping he can make it through the movie. He really likes baseball,” said Sackett, who, midway through the movie, became a bed for his tired son.

Although injuries ultimately shortened Blomberg’s career as a player, they also presented him the opportunity to take his place in history. In 1973, Blomberg was slated to start as the Yankees’ first baseman in the team’s season-opener at Boston, but suffered a pulled hamstring during Spring Training that prevented him from taking the field.

Manager Ralph Houk, loath to lose Blomberg’s bat, assigned him to the newly created position of designated hitter. Because the Yankee-Red Sox game was the first American League contest to start that day, Blomberg became the first designated hitter in history to come to bat. He drew a bases-loaded walk from Red Sox hurler Luis Tiant, and proceeded to go 1-3 on the game, which the Yankees lost 15-5. After his hamstring healed, he switched between right field, first base and designated hitter.

“I liked being DH when I did it. You would take your at-bat, and then you could go back into the clubhouse to get something to eat while you were waiting to bat again,” chuckled Blomberg, who also referred to DH as Designated Hebrew.

A three-sport star in high school, Blomberg was the first athlete to ever be named a Parade All-American in football, basketball and baseball. Among his 150 basketball scholarships was an offer to play for the legendary John Wooden at UCLA, where Blomberg would have been a part of three straight NCAA championship teams. He also had over 100 football scholarships, including the chance to play wide receiver for Bear Bryant at Alabama. But Blomberg opted for baseball, where the Yankees had made him the top pick in the 1966 draft.

“It was actually an easy choice,” Blomberg recalled. “What left-hand power hitter wouldn’t want to play at Yankee Stadium?”

Like many Jewish professional athletes, Blomberg experienced anti-Semitism during his career, but growing up in Georgia had prepared him for much of what he was to encounter, he said. Blomberg said one of his most memorable at-bats came in a September game, in which his hit clinched a Yankees victory just before sunset and the start of Rosh Hashanah.

“That was going to be my last chance to bat and I made the most of it,” Blomberg recounted. “After that they always called me the Sundown Kid.”

Long after he stopped playing baseball, Blomberg said that he experienced one of his greatest athletic thrills as manager of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the Israel Baseball League in 2007.

“I learned that managing is pretty intense. There is so much to know but the most important thing is knowing your personnel and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I guess I did okay,” Blomberg said.

“I have been very blessed in life to do exactly what I wanted to do,” he concluded. “I greatly appreciate that my parents let me follow my dreams and if I could tell anything to the parents out there with young children is to let them find out what their passion is and pursue it to the fullest.”