(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on November 27, 2022)

 

So there’s this drawer in my kitchen where I can’t keep much – maybe an oven mitt – because it’s filled with my mother’s collection of matchbooks……….hundreds of them.

I may have added to it over the years a bit, but I’m not a global traveler like she and Dad were.

I’ve been putting off posting about this collection for years because of its sheer size, but it’s gotta get done and I have some time to do it, so……………

Where to begin?

Getting them out of that drawer would be a good place to start, so I grabbed whatever handy kitchen containers would hold it all………

 

………..and dumped them on the living room floor:

 

Since they were mostly from hotels and restaurants, I separated out all the hotel ones:

 

Now, I have to tell you that mistakes were made. The plan was to photograph the fronts of multiple hotel matchbooks, immediately flip each matchbook in place and then photograph all the backs, so that each matchbook’s position would stay the same, but I’m finding that one or more had the wrong side facing (and I’m NOT going to go through them all again to recreate each shot just to flip one matchbook. You’ll just have to figure it out, assuming you have that level of interest).

I also found that I never made a restaurants-only pile, but all of those matchbooks are included in the front-and-back pix (I think).

I’m sure I’ll discover other little matchbook flubs, but I’ll be honest about them (and, being honest, it’s a lot easier to do that than to recreate images with a dozen or more matchbooks in them). And since some of them are clearer than others, if there’s something you need to see better, let me know and I’ll get you a better image.

SO – let’s hit the hotels.

The first 15 are matchboxes from all over the world (the one that says “The Grill” doesn’t sound like a hotel, but the side of the box says “Hong Kong Hilton”, so it got included in the Hotel group).

The “Inter-Continental Chicago” matchbox (upper left corner) was my contribution from when Sony Japan flew me to Chicago to shoot Public Enemy for Japanese publications in 1992 (story: https://bobleafe.com/, enter 09-012 in the search box).

Here are the fronts and backs:

 

Since it’s not clear where some of these hotels were located, I put 3 of them (the Regent, Polaris, and the aforementioned “The Grill”) on their sides to reveal that they came from Melbourne (Australia), Nashville and Hong Kong, respectively. Since the Melbourne one was still unreadable, I took a closeup of the side and added it to the bottom of the image (“Melbourne Vic” = Melbourne is the capital of the Australian state of Victoria):

 

Ten more hotels (fronts and backs):

 

Oops!

 

Duplicate hotel matchboxes (looks like I grabbed a few when I was staying at the I-C in Chicago):

 

On to hotel matchBOOKS………….here are 32 front and back:

BTW – very few have any matches missing, so most are unstruck.

 

15 more, front and back:

 

14 more, front and back…….and before you jump on me for having a Lobster Trap Restaurant matchbook in this lot, make sure you check out the back of it where it says “Hotel”:

 

23 more (bored yet?), front and back, including duplicates and triplicates:

The 3 Nikko Hotels matchbooks are mine from when I did the Michael Bolton shoots (mentioned further down) for Sony Japan, who put us all in the upscale hotel in the la-di-da Buckhead section of Atlanta.

 

How about some restaurant matchboxes? Here are 14:

BTW – that unreadable one in the upper left corner says, “Chanticler, Millburn, New Jersey”.

Pickwick’s was about 2 miles from where I live, but I don’t remember it. It was replaced by Feathers (or “Club Feathers”), a gay club. Next to that matchbox is De Shane’s Carriage Club in Teaneck, where I used to bring people when I drove a taxi in the early 70s. My personal contribution to this lot is right next to it – Dish of Salt, where I shot a few after-show parties. A quick look at my site shows some of the people I photographed there: Phil Collins (Genesis party in 1983) and the band Ratt, who had a party there in 1985 where I photographed Paul Stanley, Bruce Kulick and Eric Carr (all from KISS) and Andy Warhol. (Note: I just found the same Dish of Salt matchbox on Etsy for $22.)

 

And 11 more. The first two are mine: Fischer Scientific was from one of the chem labs I worked in and SKYY is my current personal poison. The Meadowlands one may have been contributed by my father, the Stone Harbor (NJ) one was from a place called Henny’s, the J. Rocciola Funeral Home in Hackensack is no more, Volk’s is the Teaneck funeral home that I’m most familiar with (unfortunately) and the unreadable bottom one says, “Oakland State Bank”:

You’ll notice that many of the boxes say “Made in Sweden” on the back.

 

And now for something a little different……….Mom had a small collection of matchbooks from weddings. I don’t know who “Peggy and Dan” are, but they must have really rated with Mom because she grabbed three of theirs (in two different colors) back in 1972. The unreadable one in the top row says, “Marianne and Walter, June 21st 1975”. Neither my sibs nor I have any idea who “Garnet and Charles”, “Carol and John” or any of these people are………..EXCEPT for that last one (“Meg and Ed”), which appears to be our cousin Meg.

Well, that was boring (except – of course – for you, Meg). And only Peggy and Dan had something on the back (two wedding bells………..yawn!), so there was no reason to scan the backs.

 

Back to the restaurant grind (30 matchbook versions, front and back)………..

Three of these are my handiwork. The Abbey was a nice place in Atlanta that Sony Japan publicists took me and several Japanese magazine writers for dinner in 1991. Sony flew all of us there to cover some Michael Bolton events (concerts, softball game…………see story/pix on my site under “Michael Bolton”).

Right below them are two that Mom grabbed from Villa Amalfi in Cliffside Park, NJ, where my brother Ed’s wedding reception was held in 1986. Right next to those is a black one with nothing on the front and “Delta Point River Restaurant” on the back. It’s located in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

There are 3 in the next-to-last row from “The Sea Shack”. I looked to see what shore town that place was in and was surprised to learn that it was in Hackensack! The name doesn’t ring a bell with me and I can’t find any images of it online. I can find an address, but no pix. I’m told it was torn down and I can find a couple of references to it being elsewhere in Hackensack, but they don’t give a phone number, so I have my doubts that it still exists.

The Playboy one in the top row gives no indication of a location or that a restaurant was part of it.

 

Next up are some odds and ends matchbooks and two matchboxes that I somehow missed before, which is strange because I contributed one of them – NYC’s China Club, where I used to photograph:

 

So we have 5 from a funeral home, 3 each from Norwegian Caribbean Lines and 3 different banks and one from a politician named Woodcock. But I couldn’t figure out what that streaking star one was, just from looking at it. It turned out to be quite clever after I opened it up. Read what it says and look at the matches:

 

The next front-and-back matchbooks pair features (top to bottom): 7 from Playboy, 8 from Tricky Dicky, and 3 political ones:

 

A blowup of the 3 political matchbooks’ information:

 

A mix of 6 from East Lansing, MI, 3 different supermarket chains, and 3 wildlife-related stamps (JFK was known for having had a bit of a wild life):

It’s likely that the top 6 were acquired when Mom and Dad attended my brother Ed’s graduation from MSU. Two thoughts: 1). I’d be surprised if my parents really did go to a ”nite” club in a college town and 2). If they DID go to “Beggar’s Banquet” restaurant (and saloon!), I KNOW they had no idea that that was the name of a Rolling Stones album or that its “Gimme Eat” slogan could be a take on the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”.

 

Has anyone ever heard of Overwaitea Food Centers in British Columbia? I sure haven’t, but Wikipedia – of course – has:

On March 8, 1915, Robert C. Kidd purchased a store at 746 Columbia Street in New Westminster, British Columbia. He developed several innovative merchandising techniques to attract customers to his store including odd-penny pricing and selling 18 ounces of tea for the price of a pound. The store was soon known as the “over-weight tea” store. When Kidd opened his second store, he decided to call it “Overwaitea”.

As of August 2015, the Overwaitea Food Group owned and operated 145 grocery stores in B.C. and Alberta under six different brand names. OFG later opened four stores in Saskatchewan and three stores in Winnipeg, Manitoba during 2016. Additionally, in 2017 a full-size store was opened in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Just thought you’d like to know that.

Dunno if/why Mom and Dad visited/shopped there.

And if you’re wondering what to get that special little kid you know in British Columbia for Christmas…………..

(or choose from the 20 other Overwaitea items on eBay, including hats, pins, books…………….even a teddy bear!)

 

MORE weirdness: Here are 3 matchbooks with 2 rows of wooden matches with the front row of matches taller than the back row:

There is no writing anywhere, save for tiny lettering at the bottom of the front flap where it usually says “Close before striking” (or words to that effect). Instead, it says, “stang fliken innan ni tander”. Google says it’s Swedish and translates to “close the tab before you teeth” (words to live by):

 

Odds & Ends time again (some are more “odd” than “end” and they’re all pretty self-explanatory) – the first 16:

 

The final 12:

I have a personal connection with two of these. Chubby’s was my local barber shop on Cedar Lane when I was a teen. Show Case in Cresskill (3 towns away from Teaneck) was where I saw Blue Angel in the early 80’s. Their singer was pre-solo-success Cyndi Lauper.

 

I made a local post about 4 Hackensack-related matchbooks: 2-Rudy’s, 1 Primrose House (which you just saw in the final 12) and one Packard’s Print Room:

 

The first Rudy’s shows what looks like a crude, hand-drawn map on the inside (it’s the same on the other one – you’d think they could have spent a little money and included one that’s a lot more readable):

 

 

I’m going to finish up with two items that I thought were just striker-less matchbooks………….until I read the bottom:

 

Here they are, opened up:

Oh, look – they almost………………match!

 

Sorry – I think I’m getting a little burnt out:

 

See ya.

 

 

 

                                (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on December 16, 2022)

 

You think I’m kidding?

 

His name’s Elliot and I met him on December 10 next door at the Second Reformed Church at this event:

(Elliot thinks my name is “Current Resident”)

 

Here’s the sign on the church property:

There was nothing about a camel on the invite or the sign (and you won’t usually find one in a petting zoo).

So I thought there might be some interesting photo opportunities and headed on over to the church parking lot, where many church events are held, but the only things to pet there were cars, so I walked around to the front of the building and this was the first thing I saw:

Not something that’s ever been seen before on the corner of Union and Anderson streets in Hackensack……..

 

A better shot of Big E:

 

NOTE: When you see the word “PANO”, that means that it’s a much larger PANOramic photo that you should click once or twice to see the fully-enlarged image. Hit your back button to return to the post. There are 10 such expandable images sprinkled about.)

 

(PANO – all 3) The Petting Zoo and its contents (sheep, goats, donkey……….BTW, that red brick building on the far right is where I live):

 

He’s sitting down! Selfie time:

 

Not so much for the donkey:

 

Pastor Dwayne Jackson gets a kick out of Elliot reading the church sign:

 

(PANO) There was a procession scheduled with all the participants – including the animals –  that was supposed to go around the block, but since I had some time before that happened, I decided to shoot somewhere other than the front of the church.

I started with the small, one-way side street between the church and my building (Ward St) where I found Elliot’s (and probably the other animals’) wheels:

A little hay in the back for authenticity:

 

(PANO) Let’s see what’s going on inside the church, starting with its gorgeous interior that includes Tiffany stained-glass windows from 1909 (learn more about them here: https://www.secondreformed.org/pages/tiffany-windows):

 

This reminds me of a couple of other pictures I took a few years ago……….

From a 2011 blog post:

 

From a 2014 blog post:

These two are HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos that require 3 exposures each.

 

(PANO) Moving on through the church, here’s where the refreshments and other activities were:

 

After exiting the room, I ran into Joseph and Mary (and Child):

 

A friend of theirs came by and tried to give Mary bunny ears, but only one ear showed up:

 

(PANO) Outside once again, I found out where the angels and The Three Wise Men hung out:

 

Ready for the Nativity scene (which I didn’t get to shoot):

 

Wise Man Pastor Jackson:

 

Time for The Procession, which will NOT go around the block (I’m not sure why). Instead, it will stay on Union St from Anderson St to Passaic St and back.

The Three Wise Men (and others) go past my building:

 

Then I had to run down Union St to get in front of the procession before they reversed direction at the point where I’m standing. Of course, I like this shot because it shows my apartment sitting on the roof of my building (and also shows how I can claim to be the 7th-floor tenant in a 6-story building):

 

Elliot gets turned around:

 

I never thought I’d get to shoot a camel in front of my building and I appreciate Elliot’s nod of acknowledgement toward it, but……..

 

……..I need a full shot of him looking straight ahead:

 

(PANO) So as the procession reaches its end at Anderson St, here’s a panoramic shot of the whole group of marchers:

 

(PANO) And once the Three Wise Men crossed the finish line, the procession was officially over:

 

“Are you STILL taking my picture?”

 

“Yeah, I HAVE to………..you dropped something and then you grew a fifth leg!”

 

Strange things can happen when you take panoramic shots and you have to pan the camera from left to right (or vice versa) and your subject is moving. You think the fifth leg is strange? Check this out:

 

Elliot starts to get a little rambunctious:

 

After calming down, he’s ready for his closeup:

 

A passing bicyclist can’t believe his eyes:

 

Elliot and his handlers:

 

The action moves closer to the church, but it’s not as interesting to the animals as the grass is:

 

As you’ll see later in one of the videos, Elliot started acting up again and had to be taken for a walk to calm him down. As the handlers took him down Anderson St toward the church parking lot, I was shooting video and followed.

At a certain point, Elliot appeared to have had about enough of all this and kicked his handler. This is a still from the video:

 

They all walked through the parking lot and exited on Ward St to get to their trailer:

 

(PANO) As far as I know, a camel had never been seen before on tiny, one-way Ward St, so I had to take this wide shot:

I wonder if any of the first-floor tenants in my building happened to see this. A few moments later, Elliot was in his trailer and I was in my apartment.

 

As for the videos, I took a bunch of short ones (between 3 and 40 seconds each) and stitched them together. Don’t expect smooth transitions, but DO expect small bits of conversation going on around me, including an important question about what Uncle Beaky(?) is wearing (“RED!”).

Six of the vids were taken vertically (Part 1 takes you up through the end of the procession in 1min, 16sec) and nine horizontally (Part 2 – everything else – runs for 3 minutes).

1 – https://youtu.be/my3YszCHPww

2 – https://youtu.be/1m6uTAcCZLg

 

Because I followed Elliot around, I missed the Nativity scene, but you can hear some of it in the video (a bit of the “No room at the inn” part).

After Elliot entered his trailer – and since I was already home – I went up to my apartment to start downloading all these interesting pix and vids.

 

This was certainly an unexpected visual treat, the crowd was very enthusiastic and the event was a first for this neighborhood.

 

I hope it’s not the last.

 

……………………………………………(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on December 23 , 2022)

 

I’ve written previously in this blog about my friend, Eric Leefe, whose father is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a legendary recording engineer at RCA who recorded Elvis’ “Jailhouse Rock” and the hits of an endless list of rock’s luminaries (and whose name was Bob Leefe, so he’s GOT to be a star).

Eric’s been confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy his whole life, but that hasn’t stopped him from fronting bands, writing songs and putting out albums.

I’ve photographed him with people like Joan Jett, Rick Derringer, Tommy James (a personal friend of Eric’s who his father recorded way back when) and others.

If you want the whole story, check these out:

https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6242

https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=8104

https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=8163

http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3385

https://www.facebook.com/TJandtheShondells/photos/here-i-am-with-eric-leefe-the-son-of-bob-leefe-who-was-recording-engineer-on-man/1265141860164305/

 

Eric’s been telling me since we met in 2014 that his body’s breaking down and he’s only got a year or two left to live, but he’s still going strong.

Want proof? With the help of his good friend, John Auli, he recently went to Nashville to record some songs at Dark Horse Studios and he fell right in with all the folks there, including Bekka Bramlett, the daughter of the well-known late-60s, early 70s duo of Delaney and Bonnie (she was in Fleetwood Mac for a couple of years in the mid-90s and you’ll see her singing in the video).

Film producer Andrew Rozario decided to record Eric’s Nashville visit and one of the results is the 5:23 YouTube video (below) that inspired this post.

It all takes place in the studio, but it’s mainly just Eric talking realistically about his life. I thought I knew everything about him, but I found out a couple of things I didn’t know – especially his DIRECT connection to a Mott The Hoople recording as an 11-year-old!

Overall, this is a pretty powerful video that you may want to break out the tissue box for. I’ve already sent it to the Rock Hall of Fame, which requested it to add to his father’s file, which I believe has a sub-file on Eric, which I guess sorta puts him in the Hall as well. BTW – the Hall asked him to do a show with the Hall house band at the Hall a couple of years ago and off to Cleveland he went.

He’s asked me to also send the video to a Cerebral Palsy organization on Long Island that he was a part of, hoping that it will inspire others who are burdened with CP to do great things.

The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEa8jnYGTkY

 

Whaddaya think?

If you feel so inclined, please leave a comment either at the bottom of the video page or here.

And a very Merry Whatever-It-Is-That-You-Celebrate to you.

 

 

 

 ………………………………………..(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 2, 2023)

 

NOTE: Many of these images are LARGE and should be clicked to make them bigger. A few of them – like the note closeups and the panoramic ones – should be clicked TWICE to fully-enlarge. Hit your back button to return.

 

If you have zero familiarity with Bergen County – specifically, the Teaneck, NJ area – this won’t mean much to you, so you can wait until my next brain burp (but I’m hoping you might find this interesting anyway).

Bischoff’s – THE premier after-movie or after- date destination on Cedar Lane in Teaneck for almost 90 years, has closed its doors for good.

I grew up about 5 blocks away from it, so you know it was a big part of my young life. I even worked there for 9+ months in 1964, thinking that every cute girl who dropped by would show appreciation for an extra dollop of whipped cream on their sundaes (didn’t happen).

I was paid a dollar an hour and – after 9 months – got a big raise to $1.10/hr. I was then fired two weeks later. The “reason”? I was told it was because I was “making too much money” (the boss actually said that!).

That idiocy aside, they still made the best ice cream and continued to be an after-date destination. Check out this petition: https://tinyurl.com/BischoffsPetition

I hadn’t been in there in years, so I was surprised to find out a month ago that they were going to close up shop on the last day of 2022.

It seemed to be a shame, but I didn’t feel inclined to make a final visit. Then I read that they ran out of ice cream a couple of days before closing, so I REALLY had no reason to go there.

(Various stories about Bischoff’s closing: https://www.northjersey.com/search/?q=Bischoff%27s)

THEN, I read that there was a ceremony where part of what was a street two doors away from them was renamed “Bischoff’s Place” (that part of the street had become a pedestrian plaza).

That did it, I had to go take some pictures before the sign was stolen, but I didn’t want to go on the last day – it would probably be a zoo on the 31st – so I went a little after 10am on the morning of the 30th to beat the lunchtime crowds.

The sign:

 

I then decided to go inside and shoot a couple of panoramic shots. It would take about two minutes to do that, so why not?

Well, here’s why not:

New hours – they wouldn’t open until 11:30am. Now I have to come back later.

 

In the first picture, did you notice all the colorful pieces of paper in their windows? They were customer remembrances on “My Bischoff’s Story” paper that the store must have collected after the closing was announced.

This was definitely a picture worth taking LARGE, so some of them would be readable. Here are two LARGE pictures to try and read a few of them:

At the bottom of the second one – below the silly chicken/road thing – is an old Bischoff’s yardstick. How old is it? I would guess early 1960s (no ZIP code or phone area code).

 

I returned just after 2pm and went right inside. I immediately took this panoramic shot of the whole scene once you’re inside the door – fountain on the left, candy on the right and something else right in the middle that was empty space when I worked there:

It’s not sharp in the middle because when I started the camera pan on the far left, the camera focused there, but did not change its focus on nearer or more distant things in the middle. That’s why it’s also sharp on the far right………….it’s equidistant to the far left.

 

Same thing with the next two PANOs of the dining area and the fountain – sharper on the sides and not so much in the middle:

 

No problem with the multi-noted freezer that sat right in the middle between the front half and the dining area:

 

The last picture I took inside Bischoff’s was of the two merchandise-related signs:

The QR code still works, if you’d like to give it a try. If not, you can still get overpriced stuff here: https://www.bonfire.com/store/bischoffs-confectionery/

 

I actually have a black Bischoff’s t-shirt that I bought years ago – probably on eBay:

But I noticed something that mine has that none of their current offerings has. Remember seeing this sign in the first picture?

“Confectioners of Distinction” has been their saying for as long as I can remember. Why would they drop it? One the one hand, it detracts from their current items, but on the other hand, it makes mine more valuable.

 

Big deal…………..I’d rather that Bischoff’s stuck around instead.

 

 

 

 

         (ignore the April 30, 2017 publish date………I mean, c’mon – the guy died in 2023………..do the math! Anyway, this was published on January 15, 2023)

 

 

If I read one more thing about how he’s up there jamming with Jimi and Eddie, I’m gonna barf (actually, I haven’t read that anywhere – I just said that in hopes of stopping some talentless writer from saying that).

This was a biggie. Nobody doesn’t like Jeff Beck. He was great to listen to, but I also got to photograph him a half-dozen times and I consider myself fortunate that I was able to do that.

Here are those stories (and if you see “PANO” anywhere in this writeup, it’s a bigger image that you should click to enlarge):

 

1975

I had forgotten about the first time I got to do that. While I was researching what I thought was the first time (1976), I found a couple of slides labeled “1975” in the 1976 folder. So I went through my ticket archive – yeah, I have one – and found one from April 27, 1975, when Jeff headlined at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ – my future “house” (the Mahavishnu Orchestra opened the show).

The slides were nothing to write home about and none were razor-sharp, but I found one not-quite-passable image where he was using a voicebox/talkbox (that tube going up to his mouth), like the kind that Peter Frampton made popular a year later on “Do You Feel Like We Do?”:

 

1976

Forward to October 16, 1976: I was a (non-teaching) faculty member at Bergen Community College in Paramus, NJ, running all the chemistry and physics labs for the night classes. I knew the Director of Student Activities well because I was a student there for my first two years of college.

He knew of my involvement with music and always asked me about the bands that were on the lists he received from booking agents. When he mentioned that Jeff Beck was available, I was stunned and uncalmly screamed, “YES! YES! GET HIM!”.

And he got him.

I took my favorite shot of Jeff at this show. In it, he seems to be posing like a bathing beauty in a Star-Trek t-shirt while staring right at me in the middle of a song:

What more could I ask for?

 

The Jan Hammer Group was one of the openers (REO Speedwagon was the other). Jan joined Jeff at one point. When the set finished, Jan came off the stage first, followed by Jeff:

 

Backstage, I hadn’t asked anyone about photographing Jeff there because no one was around, so I just walked in. Jeff doesn’t look thrilled and thinks about what his next move should be. As you can see, I backed away when he picked up the racket:

The truth is, I just made that up after looking at the pix. I really don’t remember what happened there, but I know I felt very awkward – probably a little star-struck – as he just sat there. I hadn’t yet developed my backstage chops yet, so I just took a couple of shots and left – grateful to have gotten anything.

 

The BCC school paper was The Monitor and I contributed photos from the shows I shot there (PANO):

If you look at the crowd shot, you’ll notice that the front row of the gym was empty. That was always saved for faculty, so that’s how I got to shoot so many shows there from up front without any sort of official photo pass.

 

Here’s the story that ran under that photo:

I’m just glad I had a hand in getting Jeff Beck to play BCC.

 

1980

By now, I had been the house photographer at the Capitol for a couple of years and I did MUCH better shooting Jeff there this time around on October 7, 1980. I shot the February, 1984 magazine cover that opened this post at this show and got a lot of other images published as well, including the September, 1981 cover of Guitar World magazine:

 

A similar shot got a full page in Guitar & Bass magazine in England:

 

These three images also got published:

As you can see, shooting Jeff Beck was NEVER boring!

 

1983

There was a series of superstar benefit concerts in the UK and US for multiple sclerosis that was inspired by Ronnie Lane (Small Faces founder), who was afflicted with MS.

Here’s the lineup for the show I got to shoot on December 9, 1983 at Madison Square Garden (as taken off the press release): Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Kenney Jones, Andy Fairweather-Low, Joe Cocker, Ronnie Lane, and an All-Star band of the finest sidemen in the world, including Ray Cooper, Simon Phillips, Fernando Saunders, Jan Hammer, and Chris Stainton.

All I saw was “Page, Clapton & Beck” and all I wanted was a shot with the three of them in it.

Before the show started, the photographers were all given positions in the pit. We were not to run around there because of the video crews. “Stay in your spot!”

Well, when the Big 3 finally got together on stage, they were to the right of center. My position was well left of center, so I got what I could, shooting across the stage when there were many musicians between us.

I focused on Clapton because he was in the middle, distance-wise. That meant that the other two would be somewhat out of focus, but either alternative would have put Jimmy or Jeff VERY out of focus.

So these are what I came up with:

I’m just glad that I had the chance to finally shoot the Big 3 together.

But I’m sad that MS took Ronnie from us in 1997.

 

 

1989 – “The Fire Meets the Fury” tour

 

This tour paired Jeff with Stevie Ray Vaughan. To keep things equal, they alternated as headliners. I got to shoot them at The Spectrum in Philadelphia on November 7, 1989 and at Madison Square Garden in NYC on November 11.

 

Here are two shots of Jeff from Philly:

You’ll note the “word” BOZZ in the first pic. Jeff’s drummer on this tour was Terry Bozzio – (former) husband of Missing Persons’ singer Dale Bozzio.

 

Got a little more at MSG on the 11th, starting with my favorite shot of Jeff that night:

 

Two more of Jeff before Stevie joined him onstage:

 

Things got a little crazy during what looks like an “axe-behind-the-head” duet. Have you ever seen Jeff Beck doing that while lying on the floor laughing?

 

This would have been a great shot if Jeff was closer and Stevie opened his eyes (photographers are never satisfied):

 

I absolutely do not remember the two hot chicks on the stage. Did their presence twist Jeff into a knot and make Stevie seem to be handing his guitar to the closest person (me?)

Yeah……….I wish.

 

I have never printed or scanned this image before. I just saw it – the last image on a B&W contact sheet – when I was putting this post together.

 

Anyway, I’m sad that he’s left us, but I’m glad I had these opportunities to document this amazing six-string hero.

And I know he’s up there jamming with…………..oh, wait – I’m not supposed to say that, according to this post’s opening paragraph.

 

 

                             (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 20, 2023)

 

As usual, here’s my bi-annual slog through 90 million pictures to pick my favorites from the second half of 2022 in sequential fashion.

It really DOES take weeks to put this together, so I hope you like it. I’m pretty sure I will……………………eventually.

By the way……….”Bob’s Obs” was something similar I used to do every year for my family on VHS tape back in the ’90s and ’00s.

 

JULY

 

7-1 and 7-9 (above) – I found a way to save some picture space.

 

7-1 – Fireworks in Ridgefield, NJ (taken from my living room – click to enlarge):

 

7-2 – Conscientious neighbor:

 

7-2 – Neighborhood Cranes:

 

7-2 – This was strange. I still don’t know for sure what was going on here. I saw this woman carrying a crazy balloon – sculpture? – in the parking lot to her car. I could see that a couple of small black balloons said “TikTok” on them, so that’s a clue………I guess. Then I saw a girl (her daughter?) wearing a “The Birthday Girl” shirt and posing with the balloon contraption. Then Mom(?) jammed it all into the back seat and took a picture (click to enlarge):

I’m not up on my TikTok culture, but was this some sort of TikTok birthday challenge?          

 

7-2 (and 7-16, 7-23) – Consistent with his bracelet and headgear:

 

7-3 – I shot these fireworks from my back room through glass (click to enlarge). As I recall, these are from Saddle Brook (a couple miles west of me):

I especially like the third one because they backlit a triple cross that’s atop a Hackensack church that’s just under a mile away from me.

 

7-3 – This shows two shots of a crescent moon that’s setting behind a Hackensack high-rise:

 

7-4 – This shows that triple cross I just mentioned. I shot this through a dirty window in my kitchen (I can’t get outside to clean it) with the tripod in the sink:

Whatever works!

 

7-4 – What’s more Fourth-of-July-ish than a string of red, white, and blue balloons from a car dealership?

 

7-4 – FIREWORKS, that’s what!

These are the first July 4 Hackensack fireworks with the new building in the way, but it’s not so bad…………they look like they’ve been shot off from that building’s roof. OK, building……..you can stay.

 

Right after the Hackensack fireworks ended, New York City’s Macy’s fireworks began on the East River, which – for all you non-locals – is on the other side of Manhattan from me.

I shot this from the same spot in my living room that I shot the Hackensack fireworks from:

A photo of Manhattan skyscrapers backlit by East River fireworks is NOT a shot you see very often – especially from Hackensack, which is at least 7 or 8 miles away from the Macy’s show (he says modestly).

 

7-9 – Colorful man with smiley-face shorts (no thanks):

 

7-9 – Looking 7 floors straight down from my living room, you can see what’s overhead (I’m shooting from the window on the left):

 

7-9 – This was the panoramic view of the Hackensack River and both campuses of Fairleigh Dickinson University (Teaneck on the left, Hackensack on the right) as I dined at a table on the pedestrian bridge between the two (click to enlarge):

BTW – the Whopper was excellent! (and, yes, that’s most of the moon to the right of the upper middle)

 

7-13 – There was some sort of summer church program next door for a bunch of kids. Here you see some boys jumping rope (dunno what the girls were doing…………building houses?):

 

And here they all are enjoying the ice cream truck behind the church:

 

7-14 – Picking up (or depositing) a can (I’ll assume the former):

 

7-16 – Uh-oh………..look out, little girl!

 

7-23 – Fish crow closeup:

 

7-26 – Two sunset shots:

 

7-27 – I woke up just after 5am and could NOT get back to sleep, so I took the opportunity to take some early photos that I usually never get the chance to take, starting with these two shots that show a side of the skyscrapers lit as I’ve never seen them before:

By the way – that local building with the lights that look like fireflies is a new, under-construction building in Hackensack with the unusual designation of “Ivy and Green”, as you can see on the far right of the top pic.

I have no idea what’s up with those lights………..I just hope they don’t interfere with my night photography (he says selfishly).

 

7-27 – An early AM, new-to-me view of the World Trade Center:

 

7-27 – Looking in the opposite direction, I see the early sun bouncing off two high-rise buildings:

 

7-27 – I decided to go out for an early AM photowalk. The first thing I saw were some of my good-looking, nosy neighbors two blocks away. Click to enlarge anything in this post that says PANO……….like this (PANO). You can click this one twice (hit back button to return):

 

7-27 – An early-AM and unusually empty Main St (PANO):

 

7-27 – Oh, look – it’s Ivy and Green again! To orient you locals who may not be familiar with Hackensack’s ever-changing look, if you cross the Hackensack River on the Midtown Bridge via Fort Lee Rd in Bogota, this is what you’d have seen last summer (PANO):

But where are the firefly lights?

 

7-27 – Well, here are some of them. Fortunately, they’re no longer there (do fireflies fly south for the winter?) (PANO):

 

7-27 – Across the street, geese have arrived in Foschini Park for breakfast (PANO):

 

7-27 – As I walk around the Ice House (skating rink), I find someone doing what I normally would be doing at that hour (but not in my car):

 

7-27 – Time to take a walk across the river on the Midtown bridge. As I look south towards the Court St Bridge, I see something I’ve never seen before: a truck on the Susquehanna railroad tracks across the river. It makes a nice picture with the bridge and construction behind it:

 

7-27 – I decide to go for a wider shot that includes the dome of the Bergen County Courthouse and the steeple of the First Reformed Church (Church on the Green) – a church that was familiar to George Washington (but that’s another story):

 

7-27 – I’ll bet that you didn’t notice a WWII submarine in the previous pic. Well, take another look here:

That’s the USS Ling and as of this past January 1, it’s been moored there for 50 years (but not for long).

 

7-27 – From Olsen Park on the other side of the river in Bogota, I took this unusual sky shot that also includes the side of the Ice House, where I found Sleeping Handsome:

 

7-27 – Now back in Foschini Park at its northernmost point – the Kipps Bend section of the Hackensack River – I came across these two photogenic ducks on a rock:

 

7-27 – The river’s fairly calm, so I was able to get a couple of shots of them AND their reflections (click to enlarge):

 

7-27 – I zoomed in on that last shot to get the duck making out with its reflection. (What the duck?!)

 

7-27 – On my way out of the park, I got this shot of a furry bee amidst some colorful flowers:

Busy day! And it’s only 8am! But that was it – photographically – for July 27.

 

7-31 – I came home that day to find festive-looking balloons in the garbage and by the time I got up to my apartment, someone had pushed them into the dumpster:

 

Interesting month………….

 

 

AUGUST

 

8-3 – Remember the ice cream truck from July? Here’s a shot of the ice cream man deciding which cold confection HE wants:

 

8-5 – One lucky girl gets to pay for everyone else’s frozen treats:

 

8-5 – I just thought that an upside-down “Stones Throw” sticker – whatever that’s about – was an unusual thing to see on a post in a supermarket parking lot:

 

8-6 – Apparently, it was “Dark Pants, Red Shirt, Weird Black Head Covering” Day in the parking lot:

 

8-6 and 8-9 – Two dogs become three:

 

8-9 – You can see Manhattan in the background. The old smokestack of the Federal Paper Board Co is in Bogota, NJ, and the crane is doing something in Hackensack:

OK – 3 locations in 2 states in 1 picture…………big deal. But I had to stay with it and see if I could make it into something else (must have been really bored that day).

I noticed that whatever the crane was carrying seemed to be destined for the top of the smokestack and appeared to have landed there:

Is that more interesting than the first picture? (Probably not).

 

8-9 – On to more illusions…………..the moving part of the back gate of the truck shows much less surface area than the stationary part, yet its shadow shows much more:

 

8-9 – Both of these photos were taken at sunset, but the top photo faces EAST and the bottom one faces WEST:

If that isn’t strange enough, this section of the bottom photo appears to have a tornado inside the cloud:

To top it all off, this steeple is just south of me. Look at its west-facing window:

Geez……..it’s even affecting my watermark!

 

8-12 – Nice sunset illumination of clouds and a reflection off a building that I think is in Jersey City:

 

8-13 – Asian lady beetle drops by for a visit:

 

8-13 – Non-Asian lady non-beetle former neighbor’s interesting – albeit grainy – sequence (click to enlarge):

 

8-16 – Well, I guess that clears things up:

 

8-16 – Brand-new wheel-less car:

I saw this in a small parking lot a couple of feet from the road near a busy section of Hackensack. I have no idea what happened or why or how:

 

8-18 – Peeping-Tom-in-training?

 

8-18 – “Lemme out!”

 

8-18 – This is the shadow of that just-south-of-me steeple (First Presbyterian Church) on the State St side of the 389 Main building at sunset:

 

8-20 – Awwwwww…………..

 

8-20 – Sunset:

 

8-23 – This is the story of a guard bug that I’ve had for 32 years. It begins at Madison Square Garden in 1990 and ends with a buzzed George Washington in 1964. (huh?)

Here we see a picture I took of Mark Slaughter (of the band Slaughter, which opened for KISS that night) holding the bug. You can read what it says:

 

And here it is guarding stuff:

 

What kind of stuff? How about a real quarter (25-cent coin) that’s been cut to simulate GW smoking weed in his pipe?

 

Don’t believe it’s real? Check out this closeup of both sides of the coin – especially the back (click to enlarge):

 

8-23 – This photo – which shows Hudson Yards (upper left) in Manhattan, the two towers of the PSE&G plant just below Hudson Yards (but actually in Ridgefield, NJ, next to the NJ Turnpike), and all kinds of colorful construction going on in Hackensack – was originally meant to be a closeup of the bright blue truck that caught my eye (and is sitting below PSE&G):

“Well, maybe I’ll include this…………and maybe I should add that…..and maybe………”. I barely notice the truck in the final result.

The evolution of a photo…………..

 

This is a compilation of 3 different commuter trains on the same tracks that are close to structures and bisecting 3 different parts of Hackensack (click to enlarge):

 

This is a fashion statement I could have done just fine not ever seeing. Is this guy serious? Is any female finding this attractive?

This is a look (and color!) that I would only expect from a former president.

 

8-27 – Did this young lady steal these balloons from a British naval ship?

Too obscure a reference? Go look up the initials.

 

8-27 – Ooo, I see a texting-while-pedaling ticket in this guy’s future:

He doesn’t look too distracted from his surroundings, does he?

 

8-30 – No comment…………happy August:

 

 

SEPTEMBER

 

9-3 – Happy Labor Day from your Nissan dealer!

 

9-3 – From the look on this guy’s face, he may have just received that burned-in Omega branding:

(Ouch!)

 

9-3 – Not sure why, but I liked this shot:

 

9-3 – Cross………….where? (PANO)

 

9-6 – “Texting-while-boarding”………….ticketable offense?

 

9-10 – The funeral procession for the world’s tallest man? (PANO):

 

9-11 – Hey……..if red, white and blue “SALE” balloons work for car dealerships, they’ve GOT to work for street light dealers too, right?

 

9-13 – I’ve shown parts of this ice cream place in Hackensack before, but never a full frontal. So if it’s good enough for Bella Hadid (https://tinyurl.com/CranberryBella), it’s good enough for you (click to enlarge):

 

9-15 – OK – this is a weird one. Let’s start with the image on the left. What you see is the side view of the front of a small strip mall about 4-5 blocks west of me. I took that picture from my kitchen window. Keep the location of the red X in mind:

Now go to the right picture. I’m standing where that X is in the left picture, but I’m now facing east – past the construction, past a house and past the front of a brick apartment building and all the way to my apartment on the roof of that building, 4-5 blocks away (my kitchen window is circled in red).

Got it? Me neither.

 

9-17 – Smoke and chug (and eyeball my watermark):

 

9-17 – Another candidate for a texting-while-pedaling ticket:

 

9-22 – The setting sun reflects off the towers in Fort Lee and the high-rises in Cliffside Park:

 

9-23 – A sign I never thought I’d see in a supermarket parking lot:

Fortunately, New Jersey’s in the process of reversing the paper bag ban.

 

9-24 – I’ll take chair #259:

 

9-24 – An American goldfinch!

 

9-24 – I happened to be walking past a cemetery’s locked funeral chapel and saw something bright and colorful inside. I placed my camera against the glass door to eliminate all outside glare and got this:

 

9-24 – I don’t recall which town set these fireworks off (or why), but they went off seemingly mid-way between me and the World Trade Center, which is visible in every pic (PANO):

Who expects great and colorful pyrotechnic displays like this in the fall?

 

9-27 – A private jet comes in low on its approach to Teterboro Airport, which is about 4 miles south of me:

 

9-27 – This interesting-looking building is on Railroad Ave in Hackensack (PANO):

 

9-27 and 11-9 – I wanted a clear picture of this without the SUV that the eagle looks like he’s about to pick up with his talons and when the sun was shining on it. I got it a month-and-a-half later and enhanced the coloring (click to enlarge):

 

9-27 – A cement pumper on a construction site encloses the cupola on the Johnson Public Library:

 

9-27 – Sears – closed and in the clouds:

 

9-28 – Sunset starts to turn red:

 

9-28 – Sunset goes all red south and west of me:

 

9-29 – The landmark Hackensack YMCA, where Mom took me when I was a kid to learn how to swim – the only class I ever failed (PANO).

This building is about two blocks from where I live and has just been sold. I thought that was the end of it, but I recently found out that this cherished and historical edifice will be torn down and a 14-story residential monstrosity will replace it……………..ugh!

 

 

OCTOBER

10-6 – I don’t know if this is true where you’re located, but the biggest bug problem lately is the spotted lanternfly. If you want to know why, go here to see what neighboring Pennsylvania says about it: https://www.agriculture.pa.gov/Plants_Land_Water/PlantIndustry/Entomology/spotted_lanternfly/SpottedLanternflyAlert/Pages/default.aspx

 

NJ wants them all killed:

 

I have no idea why this plant-hopping bug was seven floors up on my living room window screen/sill:

Sorry, PA and NJ, but with no direct access to it, I had to let it go.

 

10-6 – Chasing spotted lanternflies, no doubt:

 

10-8 (another photowalk) – I can see this directly from my living room window…………looks better up close:

 

10-8 – Tale of Two Flags – I took this PANO shot because the flag on the left was at half-staff with no wind at all, while the flag on the right sits atop a building at full-staff in obvious wind. How does that happen?

 

10-8 – A block south of the previous shot, I took this full-block-long PANO of a large construction site:

I’ve been doing this occasionally since it began and will continue to do so until completion.

 

10-8 – I’m now on Main St, where I couldn’t get this snobby girl to talk to me:

 

10-8 – “99-cent Dreams”? Sounds like everything in the store must be that price…………until you zoom in on that small sign in the window:

Big deal…………one thing could be 99 cents and the sky’s the limit on everything else (no – I didn’t bother going in to check).

 

10-8 – This looks odd………..two cell phone competitors right next to each other?

I guess if you don’t like the deal in one place, you don’t have far to go to try to get a better one.

 

10-8 – I thought a PANO shot of the truck and logo would look cool:

 

10-8 – But then I noticed something………..the store’s clock says that the time is 4:53. I took this in late morning, so I zoomed in on the clock and took a time-and-date-stamped photo:

 

10-8 – This reminded me of another clock problem two blocks away that I photographed a month or two earlier. It was at the Hackensack Bus Terminal – a place that runs on critical schedules and should show EXACT times always.

I walked over there and – sure enough – the west-facing side’s clock was way off. I took a picture and then walked around to the east-facing side and – surprise, surprise – that clock was off too with a wrong time that was different from the west-facing one! Here are those time/date-stamped images, taken two minutes apart:

Five days later, on a hunch, I walked over to another exact-time-dependent transportation site – the Anderson St Railroad Station and took a picture of their clock at 10:38am:

Unbelievable! How is it that the clocks at bus and rail facilities are not corrected immediately? BTW – I DID post these pix on a Hackensack site, but I haven’t yet returned to either place to see if the clocks are fixed. I’ll try to do that before I post this.

This just in: I was just out. I took a ride to see what time it was……….x3. NONE of the 3 transportation facilities’ clocks were fixed and two of them showed the exact same time they did three-and-a-half months ago! I asked someone sitting at a desk inside the bus terminal when the clocks would get fixed.

“It’s not my job” was the informative response.

 

Back to the photowalk……………

I’m not sure why, but I found this shot interesting:

 

From a distance, it appears that the bowling alley has a car wash:

 

I read this PANO as “It Hertz to eat hamburgers because you might get gas”:

 

And the photowalk concludes with images of something everybody wants to see – squirrel teeth:

Fun facts:

• As squirrels are rodents they have four front teeth (two top, two bottom) that keep on growing.
• Squirrel incisors grow about 14 centimeters a year (they are worn down gnawing).
• The front of a squirrel’s teeth can look orange (it’s the hard enamel).

 

10-8 – Back home, fathers teach their sons how to climb fences and ride bicycles:

 

10-11 – Sunset off skinny skyscrapers:

 

10-12 – This was a smaller photowalk with a surprise ending. I decided to cross the Hackensack River into Teaneck to go to the Hackensack River Greenway, which is about 6 blocks away.

I usually don’t go there until all the leaves are down because I can barely see anything back across the river into Hackensack, but – for some reason – I wanted to go there on this day (a premonition?).

On the way there, I took this PANO of a ridiculously-long truck:

 

Crossing the Cedar Lane/Anderson St bridge (the name depends on which town you’re from: Teaneck or Hackensack), I stopped in the middle to take a PANO that included Teaneck on the left and Hackensack on the right. It may not look like it, but that’s the same straight road on both ends:

 

Some of the changing foliage colors on the Hackensack side caught my eye:

 

100’ or so beyond the river was the entrance to the Greenway:

 

Once inside, I was maybe 100-200’ past this entrance when I saw something large with a big rear end – and possibly a tail – burst out of the bushes a hundred feet ahead on the left (non-river) side, scamper away for a few feet and then re-enter the foliage.

Was that what I thought it was?

I proceeded slowly, trying not to step on anything made of wood that would make a loud snap – which was almost impossible. I scanned the thick brush for any signs of movement, but saw nothing.

Suddenly…………

 

Were there more? I continued on the Greenway path. Fortunately, there was no one else around…………..I had the entire path to myself. I scoured every inch of its left side.

Nothing (but I DID manage to take a couple of across-the-river shots):

 

I started back, REALLY taking my time.

Then I saw something in the distance. I didn’t have a rifle, but I DID have a Canon with a great zoom.

Young buck!

 

Then two deer that – from a distance – looked like two bodies with one head:

 

I took a few other pictures, but then they started to leave. I DID get off a nice shot of a doe-eyed honey (saying goodbye?):

 

There’s a separate post that includes a video about this adventure here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=17285

So I guess I made the right decision about visiting this place before the leaves came down. Maybe the deer were there because the foliage afforded them some cover.

 

10-14 – These are 3 pictures that were combined to show the reflections of the downward sun as it set (click to enlarge):

 

10-15 – There was some event in Lodi, NJ, that ended with fireworks that are seen here behind a Hackensack high-rise (click to enlarge):

 

10-18 and 10-22 – I wouldn’t dare try to guess what caused the young lady’s reaction. Maybe she somehow was feeling the pain of what this guy must have endured to acquire all that ink:

 

10-22 – Sunset reflections by the Empire State Building:

 

10-25 and 10-27 – Fall foliage colors (click to enlarge):

 

10-27 – Fish crows like to congregate on the roofs of local buildings. Today was my building’s turn:

 

10-27 – This array of money-grabbing options is what you see when you come out of the car wash (I didn’t get my car washed – I just ran up on the property to take a quick PANO:

 

10-27 – If you look at the photos of the setting sun’s reflections over the last 2 weeks, you see the southward movement of the sun:

 

10-29, 30 – This is the street banner and venue (the Clairidge Theater) for the Montclair (NJ) Film Festival. I took this while driving home after a screening on the 30th:

 The event was the world premiere of the “Banded Together – The Boys From Glen Rock High” movie – an amazing story about a bunch of guys (and their inspirational music teacher 50 years ago) from Glen Rock High School in NJ, who went on to great things.

If you’re from NJ, chances are you know who Uncle Floyd is, his brother Jimmy was the band leader/guitarist on the Conan O’Brien Show, while other brother Jerry played sax in the same band, another guy was in The Four Seasons, the others were involved in Broadway and elsewhere………..they all did great.

The producer – from the same high school – got them all together back to Glen Rock H.S. for a reunion concert that he filmed on 12-2-21 and it became the movie. I shot the show and have a blog post about it: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=14920

Here is the movie’s trailer: https://bandedtogethermovie.com/

I also shot the movie premiere and – of course – have a blog post about it: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=17345

 

Nice way to end the month………….

 

 

NOVEMBER

 

11-2 – Crossed cranes in Hackensack, World Trade Center in the background:

 

11-2 – Woman impersonates a barbeque grill (read what’s on her head):

 

11-5 – Fish crows gather on my roof to watch satellite TV:

 

11-5 – A fish crow becomes a Dish crow and sits (I really need to put an “h” in that word) on his new commode:

 

11-5 – Same lot, same afternoon……………same call? That might make her “Paula”:

 

11-5 – Bicycles dwarfed by their shadows:

 

11-7 – I never saw someone push something that odd through the parking lot before. Maybe that’s why the (his?) woman keeps her distance behind him (“Never saw the guy before in my life!”):

 

11-8 – Looking straight down from my living room window:

 

11-8 – I saw this kid going through all sorts of gyrations and had no idea what they were about until I zoomed in. Apparently, he was trying to smash a plastic milk container that was filled with frozen liquid. He threw it, he jumped on it………….he went on for quite a while. Meanwhile, I’m snapping away not knowing what he was raging against until I saw the pix on my computer:

 

11-8 – Looking straight down once again, I see someone trying to hide a disembodied redhead in the garbage. Ho-hum………….nothing new:

 

11-9 – (left) Yeah, I voted yesterday. (right) Speaking of left and right, this undecided gentleman is trying to figure out which side to perpetrate voter fraud on. Either way, he’s prepared:

Can you guess why the question mark is purple? (think “purple states”)

 

11-9 – Meanwhile, I’m wondering if he’s the clown who left these two odd items at my front door (no, I don’t have a dog………….or monstrous energy):

 

11-9 – Will the city PLEASE get someone to rake the fountain? (PANO):

 

11-9 – An interestingly-attired gentleman with a Hackensack High School hoodie (Go, Comets!), green gloves, U.S. and Israeli flags, something that looks like a broken cane and he’s carrying a bag that says ZOLL. There’s a company by that name that makes defibrillators.

 

11-12 – My Surroundings. On the right is the back of my next-door neighbor – the Second Reformed Church. On the left – on the other side of me – is the steeple of the First Presbyterian Church. In between them is the back of my 6-story building………..except that the left half is 7-stories. That 7th-floor is my apartment – a separate unit that sits on the roof.

The two smaller windows on that floor are in my bedroom. The larger window to the right of them is my living room picture window, out of which I do most of my home photography, including most of the pix in this post. The white dot that you see in the darker triangle below the plane is where I’m sitting, typing this.

Believe it or not, there’s a third church right across the street from my building’s front door.

 

11-12 – Pointer pugs?

 

11-12 – This image is on the wall by the front door of a Korean storefront church on State St – a few blocks away:

 

11-12 – Planes appear to be landing on the roof of a former bank:

 

11-12 – Interesting-looking bench outside of a Main St eatery:

 

11-12 – Almost two weeks after Halloween, 16 pumpkins remain unsmashed outside the Johnson Public Library (also on Main St):

 

11-12 (right – and on Main St) and 1-27-13 (left and elsewhere in town) – I wonder if the medical office and the barber shop appreciate the implication that injury may afflict their patients/customers. After taking the barber shop picture on 11-12, I recalled the similar sign pairing from almost a decade prior.

 

11-13 – How unimaginative and unattractive our cars have become in both color and design. Yuch!

 

11-14 – It took a couple of weeks after last month’s sun/reflection-travel update, but it’s finally made it down to the World Trade Center at the southern tip of Manhattan:

 

11-17 – I shot this video from my living room……..never saw this before:

 

11-26 + 12-30 – Similar shots I took about a month apart:

 

11-26 – Teen-sized howitzer shell has finally arrived!

 

11-30 – BIG rainstorm and high winds from the east have soaked my screen and blown it against my window:

 

 

DECEMBER

 

Sometime in December – Cheap granddaughter!

 

12-1 – Early AM sun reflections and odd clouds:

 

12-2 – Fairly-clear Moon craters:

 

12-2 – Back on his/her heels, begging for treats:

 

12-2 – Colorful cones protect basket until net gets replaced? (just a guess):

 

12-2 – Lotta colors in this one. I’m stopped at a red light and decide to take a picture of the pink, orange and blue building whose bar/eatery has just been renamed. As I frame the shot, I notice the firetruck in my rearview mirror. Just as I go to hit the shutter, a car dressed in green whips by………click!

And then the light turns green…………..

 

12-3 – Awwwwww…………. (haven’t used that title since August 20)

 

12-3 – Redhead:

 

12-9 – As I start another photowalk, the first interesting thing I see is a skinny CarKey wind dancer outside of an open key shop that’s behind a permanently-closed Sears. I’m guessing that most people figure the key shop is closed too, so the owner has to draw attention somehow.

35 minutes later, on my way back on a different street, I see that the dancer has collapsed on its iron lung:

 

12-9 – We saw the Cranberry Junction Ice Cream Shop back in September. Here’s a side view of the place, along with the curving railroad tracks. For you locals, the overpass in the distance is Route 4:

 

12-9 – From across the street, these steps look like maybe half of a person’s foot could step on them:

 

12-9 – Winter replacement for leaves?

 

12-9 – How do you hire a smile?

I wasn’t curious enough to scan the QR code to find out. If you do, let me know so I can hire some.

 

12-9 – This is a nice looking building, but this picture is just the opening act (the headliner is in the shadows):

 

12-9 – The headliner (PANO):

 

12-9 – Two blocks from home, I saw this:

I wonder if he’s related to that girl I showed you in October:

 

12-9 – One block from home showed a sign I’ve never seen on a church before:

If you don’t know English, how can you read the sign?

 

12-10 – There was no one in this car, but the trunk was open, revealing all sorts of colorful goodies:

 

12-10 – Later that day, a camel visited the church next door:

It was a whole Nativity event that also included sheep, a donkey, Three Wise Men, a procession and a kick.

 

12-10 – The church interior (PANO):

 

12-10 – The procession (and my building with my separate rooftop apartment):

 

12-10 – I never thought I’d EVER be taking a picture of a camel walking past my building!

 

12-10 – A closeup of Elliot the camel:

 

12-10 – Elliot kicks his handler (video still):

 

12-10 – (Later that evening) This is the entrance to the church I mentioned earlier that’s right across the street from my building’s front door:

 

12-11 – The next morning, I come out of my apartment and find a house sparrow flying around in the stairwell! He kept flying into the closed window and bouncing off it. After sternly lecturing him, I opened the window and off he went:

 

12-17 – The Queen…………at least that’s how she’s identified on her overly-large purse:

 

12-17 – A nice PANOramic shot of the view from my living room window:

 

12-19 + 12-21 – Shapes of Things (great Yardbirds song). These are cement pumpers at a construction site a few blocks away, as seen from home:

The cupola on the left in the above picture sits atop the Johnson Public Library that I showed earlier.

 

12-21 – Shapeless Things. Cement pumper is fully extended at various angles:

I never saw one straight up before. Maybe that’s a gravitational method of clearing cement from it?

 

12-21 – I used to see this all the time when the building was being constructed, so it looks odd to me now:

 

12-21 – The same unit is waiting to be bucket-driven into the building’s parking area once the gate rises:

 

12-21 – This was taken straight across the street/parking lot from my living room window: the dead traffic cone, the colors, the guy on the bench (and also on the phone) staring at the wall, the “Emergency – No Parking” sign, the looks-like-it’s-about-to-fall-over telephone pole (is that the emergency?)………..it all makes for an interesting shot that I didn’t have to leave home to get:

 

12-22 – Geese flying over the PSE&G plant in Ridgefield, NJ (and past the Hudson Yards buildings in Manhattan and the cement pumper in Hackensack):

 

12-24 – All the smoke/steam should tell you that this was a VERY cold Christmas Eve:

 

12-24 – SO cold that almost all the geese in the area made their exits on this day:

 

12-24 – A few of the speedy geese beat the airplane to the Empire State Building:

 

12-24 – I really wanted this to be sharper, but……………

 

12-24 – Last-minute Christmas gift doesn’t look like it’s gonna fit in the car:

 

12-24 – The church lot is full for Christmas Eve services, so a latecomer exits one lot and enters another:

 

12-24 – When I took the previous picture, I noticed these windows near the top of the image:

 

12-25 – All the eggnogged-out geese who missed the Christmas Eve air-train outta town fly past the Hackensack University Medical Center (or as some of us still call it – Hackensack Hospital):

 

12-27 – Sunrise behind The Modern 1 and 2 towers in Fort Lee:

 

12-28 – The last hundred or so hung-over geese beat it outta town:

 

12-30 – Swerving jet (how did I know THAT was gonna happen?):

 

12-31 – Pouring rain in the parking lot on New Year’s Eve:

 

 

And on THAT note……………….DONE!!

 

Never thought I’d make it all the way through this ton of pictures, but I always do somehow.

 

I hope it was worth your time to view and read about them.

 

 

 

 

                            (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 4, 2023)

 

I’ve always wondered what I would do with myself in retirement. I have no interest in what most retirees wind up doing, so I was waiting for an old, energy-inefficient light bulb to go off over my head with the answer. Meanwhile, I’m still photographing everything in sight that interests me.

 

“A-ha”, indeed! It appears that I’ve just answered my own question. I want to do what I’ve always been doing. I love what I do, I’m fairly good at it, I can do it from home and it also gets me outside to walk all over (exercise)…………why would I NOT want to continue with it?

So I will!

 

As the moderator of the site of the Hackensack city historian for the last 15+ years – something I also used to do for the Bergen County Historical Society site’s forum – I’ve had a strong interest in the way this city has changed over the last century+ and now it’s changing rather drastically once again right in front of me with a plethora of new construction going on all around me, so documenting where I live is the perfect complement to documenting music history for a couple of decades (and I’ve still got a toe or two in that pool).

So this post will be about most of the construction that I photographed in January 2023. I don’t know if that means this will become a monthly thing – I kind of doubt it since I can’t stand summer heat and humidity – but let’s see where this goes.

I’ve picked out 19 shots – 6 from home, the rest not.

 

FROM HOME

This shows a crane in Hackensack with the World Trade Center in the slightly-hazy background. If you look just below the crane, you’ll see a car and a truck……..that’s Route 80, which goes from here to San Francisco:

 

These are two shots I took of work being done on the roof of a building on Main St. For you locals, that building used to house the Oritani Theater. The building with the green cupola is the Johnson Public Library:

 

Any idea what these two odd-looking things are?

They’re cement pumpers. The large cement mixer trucks are parked on the street and this is how they get their payload delivered to every nook-and-cranny of a very large construction site. If you look at the ends of the pumpers, you’ll see a long rubber hose that the workers can aim at specific spots. From here, it appears they’re laying a floor.

 

The blue pumper’s hose hangs in the air as it’s being positioned:

 

This pumper’s arc frames its project, old and new residential buildings, the public library’s cupola and part of the building that used to have the movie theater:

 

This shows a lot of what you saw in the previous pic, plus a different pumper, 2 cranes, a bird in flight (not a crane) and the hazy World Trade Center:

And I took all of these pix from the comfort of my living room.

 

AROUND TOWN

10 of the 13 “walking around” shots were taken on January 2, so I’ll start with those sequentially.

The project you just saw from home is bordered by 4 streets: Berry, State, Camden and Main, so let’s just call it BSCM.

This image was taken at BSCM and I purposely included the sculpture atop 210 Main – a couple of blocks away. It was previously a bank and is now a residential building:

 

This PANO is the block-long view of the BSCM project on the B side. Click all PANO images to enlarge and click this one TWICE to fully-enlarge and then scroll laterally. Use your back button to return:

 

I walked down from 324 Main to 76 Main, where a building had been torn down after a fire in 2015. They’ve finally started on whatever will replace it:

 

 

For this PANO, I’m a couple of blocks east of 76 Main and standing in the middle of the Court St Bridge over the Hackensack River, looking north. In the center is a WWII submarine – the USS Ling. It’s been there for 50 years, but will somehow be squeezed out by all the residential projects being built along the length of the river on the Hackensack side, all the way up to the next bridge, which you can see in the distance (this one will also take two clicks to fully-enlarge):

 

The thing I’m concerned about is illustrated in this picture, also taken from the bridge. You can see many projects in various stages of construction, including the brand new ones closest to the sub that are only up to the second floor:

As is, this is what you see as you cross the Court St Bridge from Bogota – lots of new residential buildings. When the newer ones are completed, it appears that some buildings will be surrounded by others. Who would want to pay exorbitant rents to only see other buildings?

I realize I’m asking this from looking at an incomplete, two-dimensional image, but it just makes you wonder if things are getting a bit too dense in some areas.

 

Coming off the bridge and making a right onto River St, I managed – despite the fencing – to take 2 PANOs of this recently-begun construction that you saw on the left in the previous PANO (two clicks):

 

At the first opening I came to, I walked in and took this shot looking back down River St:

The sign caught my eye because it shows an artist’s rendering of the completed project, but right below that, you can see “OPEN 24 HOURS”, “COCKTAILS” and “SALAD BAR”.

A bit incongruous, no?

This sign used to be for the long-standing and much beloved Heritage Diner, which was next to it. The Heritage’s “H” is still on top and some of its offerings are on the bottom. But in-between, the developer slapped on his future building’s image.

That’s fine, but why leave on the lower stuff? It looks idiotic.

 

Looking across River St in this PANO, guess what’s going to fill that big space between the Hackensack Bus Terminal on the left and the building on the right. Hint: it’s NOT an aviary for the prospective tenants who are already lining up on the wires:

 

So much for January 2nd.

 

On January 29, I thought I saw from home that more work may have been done on the BSCM project that might merit an updated PANO, so I walked over there and took 3 unusual shots.

In the first one, it looks as if a piece of equipment had been built around, trapping it. Maybe it’s an A.I. maze:

 

On the same corner, I backed up onto Main St (when the light was red) and took this PANO shot – unusual because it appears that I unwittingly took it when the light was red in both directions:

This shot also shows you the real distance between the roof-sculptured former bank building on the far left and the street where I took the first shot in this “Around Town” section (far right). In THAT shot, the distance was greatly compressed by the zoom lens to make that building look a lot closer.

 

And now for the grand finale………

The second shot in this “Around Town” section was a PANO of the entire block on January 2, so I planned to do another PANO on January 29.

As I was about to frame the left-to-right PANO shot, I saw a bicyclist in bright-colored clothing pedaling down the street, moving in the same left-to-right direction as my planned panning motion.

PERFECT!

I had maybe two seconds to make adjustments, but I knew just what to do and re-framed to accommodate him as he went past me. Here’s what I came up with:

Have you ever seen a photo like that before?

And for interrupting my work, it appears that I’ve flattened his front tire.

This was originally a wider photo that actually included a full image of the man behind (to the left of) what you see here, but this image is perfectly balanced without him (he’s actually got 3 right ears in the back end and 3 in the front end………looks pretty balanced to me!).

So I can’t really call this a construction photo in the buildings sense, but it’s definitely a constructed-by-Bob-Leafe image.

 

I think I like my version of retirement.

 

 

……………………………………………(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 20, 2023)

 

 

This is more of a local issue, but the writeup might deserve a look-see. Whether it does or doesn’t, crank up the volume for a see-hear.

                                                                                         (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on March 10, 2023)

 

And while you’re ignoring the old publish date, you can pretty much ignore the title too. There’s no one named Rudy in this story who is renting anything to anybody.

Aside from its alliterative value, it’s a title that I pulled outta my………um, hat, that represents something in both the beginning and the end of this tale.

As for the opening image, it’s just something that caught my eye along the way and was part of the process. I’ll try to explain that later.

 

We begin with an aerial shot of the business section of Anderson St in Hackensack, NJ, about 3-4 blocks from where I live – specifically, the outlined area where it says “SITE”:

Within the SITE are several buildings, including the offices of the Hackensack Building Department, a Hackensack Police substation, a restaurant and others that are all gone now,

In the bottom right corner of the SITE, you can see a building with two green things: one running along the Anderson St side and one smaller one protruding from its side. This building was a revered local restaurant called “Rudy’s”, whose entrance featured a green awning on the parking lot side.

 

When Rudy’s was ready to be torn down, the local history guy thought it was important to document it. The awning was gone, the entrance was boarded up and the first bite out of it was ready to be taken, as you can see in this PANO shot:

(NOTE: when you see a shot labeled “PANO”, click it once or twice to fully-enlarge it. Use your back button to return.)

 

But there was a problem. No one put up “No Parking” signs on Anderson St (10 feet away) and any cars parked there could get hit with demo debris. And wouldn’t you know it – someone had parked a nice shiny Escalade right in front:

I was ready to rock at the appointed time, but the crew couldn’t roll with that car there, so there was a long delay. Gee – I wonder who could have put that car with the customized plate there……………..

 

Anyway, I wasn’t there when they finally started tearing the place down.

 

By the time I got back there, this is all that was left (PANO):

 

 

So over the next couple of months, the lot was slowly cleared and flattened.

 

While passing the site on Valentine’s Day this year, I noticed what appeared to be drilling going on where Rudy’s stood (PANO):

 

You can see one of the workers walking toward me in the above pic. Trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about, I asked him if soil core samples were being taken.

“Oh, no! That’s where Rudy’s basement was and the ground isn’t super-solid under the surface.”

 

“See that pile of rocks next to it?”

“They’re loaded into the receptacle and get deposited in many injections in that area to provide more solid footing”.

 

A couple of weeks went by. One day – from my KITCHEN, no less – I noticed a yellow cement pumper and 4 days after that, I saw another tall, skinny rock-pumping apparatus:

Time to head on over there and shoot what’s new.

 

First, I went on a Sunday (no one around). Here’s the PANO view from Anderson St, looking south:

 

PANO looking east (Anderson St is on the left):

 

In this PANO – still facing east – I came across a yellow sign with no message on it. I thought that looked pretty stupid, so I wrote something even stupider on it:

(Yeah – I know they’re Port-O-Johns and not urinals, but I could only fit “URINALS” on the sign.)

 

Somewhere between the above image and the next one, I came across the muddy boots that started this post. I have no idea what the story was with them……….let them dry and hope no one steals them? I hope the owner’s back in them right now.

 

This is a small PANO of the rock pumper (and a ton of rocks), looking north toward Anderson St. This was shot from the back fence of the Hackensack Market on Passaic St:

 

Three days later, it was time for some live action.

As I headed west on Anderson St, I could see the sidewalk up ahead was blocked off, so I stopped where the fence started and got this shot of the rock pumper:

 

I thought that was it until I noticed a load of rocks heading toward the pumper…………..and in they went:

 

I walked over to the middle of the blocked-off sidewalk, held the camera high over the no-peeking-allowed fence covering and got these shots of the pumper and its next delivery of rocks:

 

Now looking back east from whence I came – you can see a tiny corner of my building between the prominent building behind the rock pumper and the evergreen tree (the First Presbyterian Church’s steeple is in the same plane) – I finally got a shot of some workers……………something I may not get much of as this building rises:

 

Moving a bit to my right, I found the open driveway for all the equipment. This northeast-facing PANO shot that shows the Holy Trinity Church steeple to the immediate right of the rock pumper sets up the next image pair of another rock load being dumped into the pumper:

 

And once again, we finish up with a north-facing PANO from behind the Hackensack  Market:

 

 

So……….would you like to see how this is all supposed to end up?

 

I don’t understand the 3-1-2 end-product-current site-proposal sequence………….I guess that’s why I’m not an architect:

BTW – it’s not a PANO, but it’s large, so treat it like one.

Perhaps you noticed that I added the number 29 to the second and third above images. Perhaps you also noticed a black building on the right in the same images that says “RITEAID” on it (it’s been a Walgreens for the last couple of years).

95 Anderson will be 6 stories tall. As I understand it, that ENTIRE RITEAID block – better-known as 123 Anderson – will also be 6 stories. I inserted the “29” on 29 Linden, an already-built 6-story building.

 

Here’s how the whole thing looks straightened out:

 

I’m not sure, but it appears that 29 Linden may lose its view of Manhattan and only be able to see 123 Anderson.

 

Before it opened, I took this picture from the 6th floor of 29 Linden, closest to Anderson St in 2010:

It would be a shame to lose that view.

 

But the thing I’m most curious about is who at 123 Anderson would want to pay thousands of dollars every month to live RIGHT next to an active commuter railroad line? And 95 Anderson would be almost as close.

29 Linden, however, might now be shielded from some of the sound by 123 Anderson.

 

I think I’ll keep my old apartment. I’m better shielded than all of them AND I have a better Manhattan view.

 

A message to you, Rudy: You can keep your rentals…………..

 

 

 

…………..and I’ll keep these:

 

 

 

 

……………………………………………(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on March 22 , 2023)

 

Local bracket-busters Fairleigh Dickinson University gave me a great March Madness idea: since I grew up about 4 blocks from FDU and still live within walking distance (and still walk on both sides of the Hackensack River Walkway on either side of the river through their campus), it’d be an interesting story to walk through the campus just a few hours before the No. 16 seed took on Florida Atlantic in the NCAA Tournament game in Columbus, Ohio, on their quest to make the Sweet 16 that starts next weekend at Madison Square Garden.

The students must be going nuts at FDU, I figured, and every dorm building must be festooned with banners of encouragement.

The obvious place to start documenting the madness would be their home court building – the Rothman Center – on the Hackensack side of the campus. There MUST be a huge rally going on there.

There were cars in the lot, but not that many. I expected big activity at the building’s entrance, but here’s what I saw:

 

(Let’s get a closeup of that sign in back):

 

But – other than me – there was not a soul around. Looking back, I took this shot of the uniquely-roofed Rothman Center as I walked north towards the pedestrian bridge over the river:

By the time I got there, I had seen a total of 3 people: a man, a woman and a small child – a family, I guess – coming out of a building.

 

Now on the Teaneck side of the river – where all the dorms are – the goal was to shoot all the bustling student excitement amidst the nice scenery.

Here is “The Globe” – a gift from the Class of 2008 – with the Rothman Center to its left across the river:

 

This wide (click twice to fully-enlarge and then scroll side-to-side) view shows some special swings and the Rothman Center………..

…………….and not a student in sight!

 

There’s more to explore, but first, let’s spend a minute on the swings (figuratively speaking, of course):

 

Two swings get their own plaque? What’s THAT about?

The swings are another gift………..this time, from the Swinging Class of 2007.

 

I remember Dr. Sammartino being the FDU president when I became of college age in the 60s (though I went elsewhere).

 

A tribute to Dr. S: https://portal.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/05ws/tribute.htm

 

Meanwhile, back to my search for signs of NCAA excitement at a school that would be playing in a few hours for a chance to go to the Tournament’s Sweet Sixteen next weekend at Madison Square Garden.

 

I swung around to the front of the Teaneck campus on River Rd. Here’s a campus map to show you what’s where:

I’m where the red marker is on the Teaneck side. I’ve put a red circle around the Rothman Center on the Hackensack side. Just north of it is the pedestrian bridge that connects the two sides.

 

From where I am, I walk a bit north and come face to……..um, face with something I remember well from over 60 years ago:

 

FDU acquired this sculpture  – called “Epic of America” – sometime around 1962 and placed it on the front of their library.

 

A 30’x32’ LIFE-LIKE SCULPTURE WITH NAKED BREASTS IN PLAIN VIEW ON A VERY BUSY STREET IN TEANECK IN 1962? ABSOLUTELY SCANDALOUS!

 

But instead of protesting, young teenage boys started visiting the wooded area in Phelps Park – RIGHT across the street – more often than they used to (just to make sure the sculpture was still there, of course).

 

As I’m taking this picture, wouldn’t you know that a male student with a knowing smile on his face happened to walk by.

 

“Are you a student here?”, I asked.

 

“Yes”, he replied with a British accent.

 

“Where IS everybody? I expected banners and rallies all over the place!”

 

“Spring break. They’ll all be back tomorrow. And a whole bunch of them are in Ohio for tonight’s game. There’s a big Watch Party at the Rothman Center tonight at 7:30.”

 

“Oh, great – thanks.”

 

Nothing’s going on here – time to head back to the pedestrian bridge.

 

Just before I reached the bridge, I noticed this free school newspaper dispenser – the kind that no one pays any attention to (that’s why it’s still got a bunch of old, yellowing/browning newspapers in it that look like they’ve been there since 1942):

 

I pulled one out of the middle of the pile that looked the least-damaged:

May 18, 2022 – only 10 months old! I wonder if there’s anything interesting in it.

 

Normal college stuff:

 

But then I notice that the pile in the top half of the dispenser has the front page showing while the papers in the bottom half have the back page showing…………..and then I notice a back-page headline of possible interest:

 

I grab a paper from the middle of THAT pile to bring home, clean up and read (click to enlarge):

 

With all the March Madness coverage that’s out there, I’m guessing that this might be the only place where you’ll read about how it all began – when it all began – with FDU’s “new” basketball coach.

BTW – it’s just been announced that Tobin Anderson has already left FDU for the same job at Iona, replacing Rick Pitino, who is now the new head coach at St. John’s. Anybody wanna be FDU’s new head coach?

(Note: Too late! Anderson’s top assistant – Jack Castleberry – has been announced as the new Knight head coach.)

 

So my visit to a deserted FDU wasn’t a COMPLETE zero.

 

But there was still one short trip to make.

 

After I went home, I was doing some online research when I came across a single sentence that mentioned something I wasn’t aware of in Teaneck, about a mile away.

 

Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing on the center stripe of Cedar Lane taking a picture of this banner:

 

So I finally found a banner, but skipped the Watch Party at the Rothman Center. I watched at home.

Unfortunately, that was a good decision. No one around here wants to see pictures of a thousand sad students.

 

But thanks to the Knights’ b-ball team for the fun ride. Let’s hope it’s the first of many that go much deeper.