In The News

Two-year-old Mari-Lena Theli is recovering from a bone marrow transplant that she received March 31 in a hospital in Greece, thanks to some friendly strangers in Jersey City who sympathized with the leukemia-stricken tot.

Mari-Lena's granduncle and grandaunt, Theodore and Christine Papageorgeiou, are the owners of Larry and Joe's Pizza on Newark Avenue in Jersey City, located across the street from Dickinson High School. The location is near where the Downtown section ends, and where the Journal Square and the Heights sections begin.

Two bone marrow donors have been found in Europe for a little girl in Greece who has Leukemia, but her Jersey City-based relatives need to help raise funds for the operation.

Theodore and Christine Papageorgeiou, owners of Larry and Joe's Pizza on Newark Avenue in Jersey City, are Mari-Lena Theli's grand-uncle and aunt. Mari-Lena is 20 months old and lives in Greece with her parents and older sister.

Jersey City developer Tony Deluco wants to do more than vent about the alleged shooters of a 43-year-old man near his workplace under the Pulaski Skyway on June 18. He is putting up a $1,000 reward for their capture.

"These scumbags need to be caught," DeLuco said. "What happened to that man was horrible, but they are on the loose, and someone can get hurt or killed."

Young men and women darted in and out of the traffic lanes, smiling and talking with pedestrians and drivers alike, all the while asking anyone who looked their way a question you don’t hear every day: “You want some free condoms?”

Even for Journal Square, where people from all walks of life converge, the scene was strange.

Former property owner says Hudson County Freeholders need to vote down resolution for new courthouse. Tony DeLuco tells Hudson County TV the history of the Jersey City property that could potentially become the next Hudson County Court House.

Journal Square, the once (and perhaps future) of Jersey City’s heart, is “empty” according to one Ward C Council candidate. Another candidate points to the homeless population that gathers there as a failing on the part of the city, bemoaning the limited space available in shelters. A third candidate says development is important only if it conforms to the needs and requirements of the community.

Jersey City developer and resident Tony Deluco is not proposing a new idea, but one that may result in hundreds of new ideas. He'd like to bring all the city's neighborhood associations together to form one super group.

Deluco is the head of the Deluco Organization, a real estate development firm that builds residential projects in Jersey City, southern New Jersey and Florida.

While estimates vary on just how much it will cost to replace the county administration building and court house at 595 Newark Ave., some freeholders say local taxpayers can’t afford it.

This is not just because the construction costs could be as high as $250 million, said Freeholder Jose Munoz recently, but also because to make the transition work, the county would have to take private property currently on the tax rolls in Jersey City.

With just about two months until May’s election, only two of the five Ward C Council candidates are certified, meaning they received the required 195 signatures to appear on the ballot. One of those candidates is incumbent Ward C Councilwoman Nidia Lopez. In office since 2009, Lopez has joined mayoral candidate Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop’s ticket, which to date has raised more money than Mayor Jerramiah Healy. The other certified candidate, as it turns out, is not Healy’s Ward C candidate, Janet Chevres (None of Healy’s slate is certified yet).

The Planning Board at its meeting on Aug. 23 approved site plans for two condominium projects.

One was for 92 condos with 92 parking spaces to be built on an empty lot between Oakland Avenue and Cook Street.

The second was for 83 condos with 100 parking spaces to be constructed on the site of an old chemical factory on Sussex and Van Vorst streets. There will be 19 one-bedroom units, 62 two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units in the proposed project, to be known as Lofts at Van Vorst.

The county is seriously considering vacating their Newark Avenue court administration building and erecting a new one across the street - which could mean taking over private property by eminent domain.

Residents of the area are criticizing the move, saying it would prevent private development that would contribute to the tax rolls. And one developer who owns property there said he has been told by his attorney not to try to build on his land because he may have to sell it to the county.