By David Lieberfarb
Former Editor of The Observer
Thanksgiving 2024 marked the 50th anniversary of a tumultuous week in the history of The Observer.
It was a very different operation, including a different address, 531 Kearny Ave., an office staffed by seven people, the youngest of whom was myself, a newlywed aged 26. There were no computers, no website, no pagination, no streaming broadcasts. Another big difference: today’s tabloid Observer was a broadsheet half a century ago — more New York Times than Daily News.
The publisher was Ralph Bever; the associate publisher was Theodore (Ted) Wales; the editor was Bob Bush; the advertising manager was Vincent Carchidi, and the office was staffed by Laura Conlon and Nellie Stanley. My hiring about 15 months earlier had doubled the size of the news staff.
My wedding in Trinity Episcopal Church took place on Nov. 25, 1974, the Monday before Thanksgiving. It snowed that night, but my bride, Jocelyn, and I were on a plane to Hawaii the next morning. When we returned a week later, I was greeted with three shocking developments. Mr. Bever had just passed away at age 70; the similarly aged Mr. Bush retired on the spot; and Jocelyn’s apartment had suffered a break-in. The timing couldn’t have been worse.
Wednesdays were the days we pasted up the pages of the paper at a print shop in Clifton. I probably did serious damage to my marriage when I chose to go to the printer’s office while Jocelyn was more than a little upset about the break-in.
It was too late to publish a full obituary on Mr. Bever for the Dec. 5, 1974, edition, so that had to be held until the following week. I was now the sole staffer on the news side until I could hire someone to fill my former role.
If anybody could wear the title of a pillar of the community, it was Ralph Bever. A lifelong resident of Kearny, he was not only the publisher of The Observer for over three decades, but he was also chairman of the board of Kearny Federal Savings and Loan and a director of First National Bank & Trust Co., Kearny. He also had served as chairman of the Board of Governors of West Hudson Hospital.
Mr. Wales assumed the publisher’s desk, which lasted until his death several years after I went on to other newspaper jobs. I’ll let his niece, Lisa Feorenzo, the current publisher, tell us about her Uncle Ted. All I remember about him was that he was an avid golfer and a sharp dresser.
I headed the editorial staff for about two and a half years, departing in mid-summer 1977.
A couple of short-lived journalism jobs preceded my settling down in 1978 as a copy editor at The Star-Ledger, a 30-year stint that was 18 years longer than my marriage lasted.
Near the end of my Observer tenure, I hired as my far more experienced assistant Al DePoto, who, like Bob Bush, had worked for years at the Newark Evening News before going into semi-retirement, then coming to The Observer.
What goes around comes around.
Now that I have reached the age of men like Mr. Bever, Mr. Bush and Mr. DePoto when I knew them, I keep my hand in by enjoying a part-time job as a proofreader for a pair of weeklies, the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News.
All that’s missing is an office with younger colleagues by my side. In this computerized post-COVID era, I proofread the pages in my living room on my laptop and call for help when I encounter technical problems.
