Tonight , New York Times Bestselling Author, ELIZABETH GILBERT, Book signing at The Ridgewood Public Library
TONIGHT, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25TH @ 7:00pm!!!
New York Times Bestselling Author, ELIZABETH GILBERT will discuss and sign her book: THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS at The Ridgewood Public Library.
THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS ($20.00) at Bookends
Call Bookends Bookstore to reserve your seat (201)445-0726
A Retiree Digitizes 27 Million Old Newspaper Pages in His Living Room (and Libraries Fight to Catch Up)
Jim Epstein|May. 18, 2014 1:00 pm
Last March, I profiled Tom Tryniski, an eccentric retiree who has digitized (so far) about 27 million newspaper pages working alone in his living room and has made them free for anyone to search. (Click above to watch the video or click here to read the article.) The story offered an example of Tryniski’s prowess: In 2003, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL)spent $400,000 digitizing the first 62 years of theBrooklyn Daily Eagle, which was among the most widely read and influential papers in 19th century America. A decade later, the library was still raising money to finish the remaining 52 years of the Daily Eagle’s run. In the meantime, Tryniski digitized all 115 years of the paper in about five months working alone.
The BPL has caught up. The entire run of the paper is now digitized and the library just launched a beautiful new portal that makes it easy to search. The BPL Daily Eagle site is far more limited than Tryniski’s—he’s digitized 639 newspapers including several other Brooklyn titles—but it’s quite a bit faster and easier to use.
So how much did the BPL pay to finish the job? Absolutely nothing.
https://reason.com/blog/2014/05/18/a-retiree-digitizes-27-million-old-newsp
Readers respond to Councilwomen Gwen Hauck’s Ridiculous Ridgewood Library Comment
“It is an expensive department, but it’s not near as expensive as the police department and fire department. I would like it to be up there in that same echelon,” Hauck said
Really.
So you want the library budget in the same echelon as a 24/7 365 days a year department budget to include state and federal mandated training and equipment.
The library also benefits from private funding through the Friends of the Library organization and the Library Foundation, Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck said. But, according to Hauck, the library should be shouldered by the village.
“It is an expensive department, but it’s not near as expensive as the police department and fire department. I would like it to be up there in that same echelon,” Hauck said.
Duh? Are you friggin’ kidding me? Earth calling Gwenn, Earth calling Gwenn, come in please Gwenn! Police and fire operate 24/7/365 with specialized equipment and personnel. Including state and federal mandated training ?
Funny isn’t it. Loads of talk from Village Hall about shared services and using the County services when possible but no talk at all about combining municipal libraries and getting rid of some administrative overhead in the process. We could easily combine with HoHoKus, Midland Park, and Glen Rock, could we not?
Noble as libraries have been over the years, it’s hard to justify increasing public funding for Ridgewood’s. Such is the price we pay for past extravagances. As for Mrs. Hauck, she should probably keep her head down and steer clear of any other potential conflicts of interest at the taxpayers’ expense. In advance of the predictable counterpoint – I’ll concede that her advocating for another of her personal crusades is “legal” but it just continues to look bad.
Any of these name look familiar?
Library Board of Trustees
John Johansen
President
Elisa R. Legg
Vice-President
Arlene Sarappo
Secretary
Gail Campbell
Treasurer
James Mazzo
John Saraceno
Jayne Schroeder
Gwenn Hauck
Village Council
Paul Aronsohn
Mayor
Linda Diorio
Superintendent’s Delegate
Dr. Daniel Fishbein
Superintendent of Schools
2013 – 2014 Directors
Betsy Giordano, President
Shoshana Feiner, Vice-President/Sec
Stephen Petrick, Treasurer
Marie Bicks
Tony Damiano
Catherine Donnelly
Kathleen M. Entwistle
Janet Fricke
Kathleen Gatens
Paul Goldberg
Jeffrey Karpf
Helen Kim
Cara Murray
Anne Ramsey
Rahul Sharma
Melanie Stern
Associate Directors
Glenn F. Jorgensen, Founding President
Harlen Coben
Dan Cummings
Elia Desruisseaux
Thomas Dougherty
Josh Grunat
Jacque Harlow
Gwenn Hauck ****
Phyllis Heilborn
Teresa Hutchins
Michele Lenhard
William J. Meakem
Barbara Moreira
Ellen Quinn
Joan Popkin
Deborah Primiano
Albert Pucciarelli *****
Fred Strype
April 9th is Founders Day for the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, April 9, 2014 – The Ridgewood blog was founded in March of 2006 by James J Foytlin aka PJ Blogger .[1] Mr. Foytlin was born and raised in Ridgewood ,New Jersey and is a graduate of Ridgewood High School .[2] [3]
After many years living in New York City[4] Mr Foytlin returned to Ridgewood after a divorce and the tragic events of 9/11 . Once he settled in he noticed a lack of sufficient news coverage of local events . One day a friend from Brazil[5] showed him her home town on the internet and to Mr. Foytlin’s great surprise when he tried to reciprocate he was utterly dismayed at the absolute lake coverage of his home town. After all Ridgewood is only 18 miles from midtown Manhattan[6] the media capitol of world and there was not a single picture of Ridgewood to be found . How could this be? Ridgewood is a picturesque upper middle class village of around 25,000 located in Bergen county in northern New Jersey[7] . Founded by Dutch settlers before it became an English colony[8] . The town or village as its called is steeped in rich history and tradition .Known for a large amount of Victorian era housing , a quality school system and a family friendly atmosphere.
Though busy getting reacquainted with his home town the fact that the Village of Ridgewood was so under represented on the internet continued to disturb Mr. Foytlin. Mr. Foytlin had been writing news letters for his job in financial services since the mid 1990’s . The popular flip, off beat investment strategy news letters had become email blasts with the advent of readily accessible internet.[9] By 2004 the email blasts were converted into blog format for the One Small Voice blog (https://onesmallvoice.blogspot.com/ ). [10]
Around that time the Village of Ridgewood had finally completed it’s much anticipated and long delayed renovation of the Village hall which has been flooded out due to Hurricane Floyd.[11] The renovation was marred by huge cost over runs and lengthy delays. In 2005 it opened with great fan fare , was once again flooded with the very first rain . Mr. Foytlin was more shocked by the abject lack of responsibility taken by elected officials than the fact that the $9 million dollar renovation had to some extent been a failure . That was the breaking point and Mr. Foytlin had had enough so he decided to give , citizen journalism a go and created the Ridgewood blog in March of 2006. [12]
The birth of PJ Blogger .By this time Blogging its seems had become quite the rage and mainstream news anchors such as Dan Rather had questioned the validity of information from non professionals sitting around in their Pajama’s blogging.[13] Mr. Foytlin not a fan of Dan Rather or any of the mainstream media decided to blog under the name PJ Blogger as a play on words and to plant himself firmly in the camp of the new digital media.
Innovations by the Ridgewood blog to citizen journalism.
“The Fly” is a column on the Ridgewood blog the originates from the expression ,”I’d like to be a fly on the wall “ . The idea is that every citizen has both a unique perspective and experience and these two factors can be used to gather news and opinions about local issues. Originally only of handful of people in town participated but with time the Ridgewood blog can now count on 30–50 semi regular contributors. These post are both anonymous and signed and are largely opinion as well a breaking news.[14]
The Ridgewood blog brings a free market lassie fare point of view to local issues . Mr. Foytlin aka PJ Blogger has stated that for local issues there are only two kinds of people ;the ones who say spend what every you want because I will not be around to pay the bill and the second group which are more focused on the ,”be careful this is my money your spending” . The Ridgewood blog is dedicated to the interplay of there two groups.[15]
[1][12] the Ridgewood blog website https://theridgewoodblog.blogspot.com/
[2] Birth Certificate born in Valley Hospital , Ridgewood 04/09/1962
[3] Ridgewood High School Class 1980
[4] 444 East 86th street ,530 East 72nd
[5] Monica Rocha
[6] Mapquest
[7] United States 2000 Census, the village population was 24,936.
[8] https://www.americantowns.com/nj/ridgewood/organization/vi…
[9] Fahnestock & Co. now Oppenheimer & Co.
[10] https://onesmallvoice.blogspot.com/
[11] https://www.ridgewoodlibrary.org/localhistory/lh_vh_pease.htm
[13] https://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005611
[14] [15] James J Foytlin
Summer Fun House – Information on Area Camps
History of the Village of Ridgewood
Bolger Heritage Center, Ridgewood Public Library
The Bolger Heritage Center remains open all the hours that the library is open (see www.ridgewoodlibrary.org), but for the summer, reference hours are by appointment (email [email protected]) and during the following hours: Tuesdays, 10 am – 2 pm, Wednesdays, 9 am – 12 pm and 1 pm – 5 pm, Thursdays, 10 am – 2pm. Call the Reference Desk to verify hours (201-670-5600, x 130). Happy researching!
https://queenofliberty.com/2013/08/14/mark-levin-rolls-out-his-new-book/
Mark Levin: Reader says not so fast Mark
Mark was shown where he made a mistake in stating in a footnote that delegates from Vermont belatedly attended the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In reality, Vermont was not even a state until 1791. Before that it was a disputed territory between New Hampshire and New York. So Vermonters were not asked to nor were they qualified to attend the Philadelphia convention. He gave his challenger no credit for reading his book carefully and bringing this non-trivial mistake to his attention. He then refused to sign the book on the page where the footnote appeared and showed distinct signs of impatience and annoyance when he opened the front of the book and began to sign it.
At this point, Mark was challenged about Cruz’s eligiblity. But the challenge did not happen as Mark said it did. The challenger asked this: “Under what possible definition of the term natural-born Citizen does your friend Ted Cruz qualify to be president?” At this same time the challenger placed an annotated copy of an earlier TheRidgewoodBlog posting repeating CNN’s recent article questioning Cruz’s eligibility, and was pointing at the document. After cursing at the challenger , Mark replied: “I never said he was a natural-born Citizen.”, upon which his challenger said: “But you must be a natural-born Citizen to be President!”. Mark then said: “No you don’t!”, and the challenger said “Yes, you do. Read the Constitution.” Levin was showing no signs of changing his tune. The challenger then turned around and left the booksigning. There was no time during any of this dialogue for Mark to ruminate on the challenger’s motivations or talk about Canada or Cruz’s mother or anything like what he said on his Radio program
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February 6, 2013 7:41 AM
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ– The U.S. Postal Service has announced that it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. Saturday mail cutback would not begin until August.
The move allows the USPS to focus on package delivery which has increased by 14% since 2010, At the same time technology which aids in package delivery has caught up with the delivery of letters and other mail declining significantly with the ever increasing use of email and other Internet based technologies. .
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. and Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.
The Postal Service for some time has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages . The US Postal Service is an independent agency that gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
The agency would need congressional approval to make the change and It was not immediately if that would be forth coming or even necessary.
Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general , says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.
Vincent Loncto is sworn in as Ridgewood schools trustee
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2011
BY EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD – A former chief financial officer for major corporations was sworn in Monday night as the school district’s newest trustee.
Vincent Loncto took his seat as a trustee at Monday’s school board meeting at the district’s Education Center on Cottage Place.
The certified public accountant was one of six candidates interviewed for the trustee post after Charles Reilly resigned earlier this year.
“The school budget is in the process of being developed, so I’m coming in at the right time,” said Loncto, who retired earlier this year from a 40-year career in financial management.
“It has to be done collaboratively,” he said. “What we are talking about here is enhancing the quality of the school system under budgetary constraints. It is detail-intensive work.”
https://www.northjersey.com/news/Ridgewood_school_board_to_swear_in_new_member_tonight.html
>Ridgewood school board interviews six candidates for open seat
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011
BY JOSEPH CRAMER
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Board of Education (BOE) interviewed six candidates this week for the seat left vacant by trustee Charles Reilly’s departure last month.
Six candidates applied and were each questioned by board members on Monday night regarding their professional backgrounds, reasons for applying for the position, and goals as a potential BOE trustee. The decision on Reilly’s replacement will be announced at a public meeting on Nov. 7.
Among the candidates – James Morgan, Gwen Sullivan, B. Vincent Loncto, Janice Willet, Rei Shinozuka and Eric Gross – several themes were consistent across the six interviews. All expressed a desire to contribute to the reputation of the Ridgewood school district, which was a primary reason behind moving to the village for many of the candidates.
Issues of communication, whether relating to complex technical matters such as yearly budgets or simple instances of parent feedback, were also paramount in candidates’ responses.
>Interviews will be held on Monday, October 24, 2011 for Vacant Board Seat
APPLICATIONS RECEIVED FOR VACANT BOARD MEMBER POSITION
As of Friday, October 21, 2011, 4:00 p.m., the district has received applications for the vacant Board Member position from the following people:
Eric Gross
B. Vincent Loncto
James Morgan
Rei Shinozuka
Gwen Sullivan
Janice Willett
Interviews will be held starting at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, October 24, 2011, at the Regular Public Meeting, in the Board Room on the third floor of the Education Center.
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig is the Gaelic way of expressing a wish that you have all the blessings of St Patrick’s Day and the “luck of the Irish” to go with it. There are many humorous explanations for this expression. One comes from the legend of the ‘Little People’ of the land, know as leprechauns. Finding or catching a leprechaun (who would then give you gold) was a lucky event that could only take place in Ireland ! The Irish are descendants of great Celtic and Viking fighters and invaders. Their natural fighting skills often ensured survival & hence they became known as the ‘lucky’ people .a classic case of making your own luck ! But then “The Luck of the Irish” may all be legend.
Saint Patricks Day Parades Worldwide, Irish Pubs all around the globe, Fun Runs, Irish Associations, Irish Music Festivals, Irish Names, Irish Dancing Schools, Irish Music Irish Roots, Irish Festivals,Scottish Highland Games USA & Canada, as well as, Scottish Pipes & Drum Bands.
St Patricks Day is for thinking about our Saint as well as a time to think of loved ones across the water.
So, why is it celebrated on March 17th? One theory is that that is the day that St. Patrick died. Since the holiday began in Ireland, it is believed that as the Irish spread out around the world, they took with them their history and celebrations. The biggest observance of all is, of course, in Ireland. With the exception of restaurants and pubs, almost all businesses close on March 17th. Being a religious holiday as well, many Irish attend mass, where March 17th is the traditional day for offering prayers for missionaries worldwide before the serious celebrating begins.
if you can’t handle Ridgewood’s tax burden, then i suggest you MOVE. nobody is holding a gun to your head to live here. if you don’t want to pay state income taxes or don’t want to deal with high property taxes go to Texas!
if you can’t pay our taxes then you’re clearly too poor to be living in ridgewood.
May 28,2008
the staff of the Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, During the last Maple Ave library expansion,the library patrons went to the Pease. When the new library opened, the Portrait of George Pease and some other pictures, memorabilia was moved to the main floor of the renovated libary; the section was renamed “The George L. Pease Memorial Library” Once that was done, the library board, headed by Nancy Greene, and with Janet Fricke on the board, the council went to court and voided the will, because “the functions of the Pease were being served at the new library building” This was done in 1999.the Library Board (not the Village) and Sidney Stoldt, who argued the case for the Library,were in agreement that the building be closed to the public as no longer necessary.The 911 emergency center rent goes directly to the library board, and not one cent to repairs. The village residents have paid twice: once in library budget, and once separately for all repairs, including the roof. All rent from upstairs tenants, e.g. realtor, lawyer, etc. would go directly to the LIbrary Board, not the public. No member of the public was alerted to the court appearance.
All was readied for commercial rent when, in the Fall of 1999, Hurricane Floyd hit, and the police were moved into the building since it was so high and dry. The police worked closely with the Historic Preservation Commission to make certain that no part of the wood structure was ruined; they kept it as pristine as possible.
This entire lawsuit was done under the radar; in fact, when one resident attended a council meeting in 1999, and the title of a resolution was read, the resident questioned what it meant and was told that she couldn’t ask questions “at that time”.
Nobody cared, and to this day, most residents don’t care, so we have what we deserve.
Yes, I wish we could all chip in to save the building; that was the plan agreed upon by the Council when the historic grants were supposed to be applied for. Most of the matching grants would have been paid for by private funds, it was privately promised; and this was told to the Council. The promise was made that the building would be open to the public. For David Bolger to appear 24 hours before a promise to keep the building open and apply for grants is no mystery. The fix was in from the beginning. Now the council could look as if they really were considering public use, but they weren’t. All the Council members voted to accept the Bolger money.
Is it too late? Its up to the readers of this blog. Others have done more than their share; if more people would stand up, things could be reversed. But if only a dozen people are interested, the building will be stolen.
