Wednesday, 6 October 2021
www.TheObserver.com
Vol. CXXXIV, No. 22
ON THE INSIDE 2 Belleville heroes honored for saving man’s life in the height of floods caused by Hurricane Ida. See Page 5
BELLEVILLE • BLOOMFIELD • EAST NEWARK • HARRISON • KEARNY • LYNDHURST • NORTH ARLINGTON • NUTLEY
Going back in time ... 50 years ago
1971: When Kearny was concert haven Many major, famous acts took to the stage at KHS Stadium over a 3-year period
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By Kevin A. Canessa Jr. kc@theobserver.com
t’s not too often you could ask someone what they were doing on an obscure date 50 years ago and get an accurate response. But for Harry Carr, who taught business at Kearny High School from 1966 to 1976, Oct. 6, 1971, is a date he forever remembers. That date, he and a lot of others were at the football stadium at Kearny High when
The 5th Dimension played the stadium at Kearny High School exactly 50 years ago today, Oct. 6, 1971. The concert allowed the Class of 1972 to help purchase a radioisotope scanner for the former West Hudson Hospital.
it became a concert venue for the ages as he and the class of 1972 welcomed The 5th Dimension — a fundraiser to keep the cost of prom low and to help the former West Hudson Hospital purchase a brand new, state-of-the-art radioisotope scanner for the radiology department. (Harvard Medical School says they’re called radionuclides now.) “They needed the machine badly,” Carr recalls. “The nearest one was at Clara Maass in Belleville, but there wasn’t always time to get patients there when they were See CONCERT, Page 19
Santos urges all who are eligible to get COVID-19 vax By Ron Leir For The Observer
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sing his bully pulpit, Kearny Mayor Alberto G. Santos exhorted town residents who remain unvaccinated against the COVID-19 virus to take action and get the jab. And, Santos noted, the remedy is
near at hand. All they need do, he said, is go to the town Health Department, 645 Kearny Ave., to get the shots. The Health Department is vaccinating people on Tuesdays and Thursdays, between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., and on the first Saturday of the month, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. No advance registration is required
and there is no cost to the public for the shots, he said. Santos said the Health Department has available all three vaccines approved for use in the U.S. — Moderna, Pfizer and J&J. Santos said booster vaccine shots of the Pfizer-BioNJTech COVID-19 See VAX, Page 19