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Weehawken Reporter NINE WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS SERVING HUDSON COUNTY • STORIES UPDATED CONTINUOUSLY AT WWW.HUDSONREPORTER.COM • A PUBLICATION OF THE HUDSON REPORTER
VOLUME 27, NUMBER 13 • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2012
2014 Super Bowl stay at local hotel: $619/night and up Photo courtesy of Ken Durden / Shutterstock.com
Some have a few rooms left; local residents’ apartments available
HOW DO I GET IN? – It’s a wonder Weehawken resident Neil DeCosmis and his tenants at 40 El Dorado Place can get in and out of their homes at all, given the ghoulish gathering that stands guard outside.
Happy Halloweehawken! Resident continues tradition of spook-tacular holiday décor By Gennarose Pope Reporter Staff Writer
here’s nothing like a flying, bloody clown to put one in the mood for every dentist’s favorite holiday: Halloween. Add a few ghosties, that stringy cotton stuff that takes half a year to fully remove from trees post-rainfall, a couple of rotting corpses, and a
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bunch of pumpkins, and lucky children all over Weehawken have got a full gathering of ghouls to walk through on Oct. 31. One spot not to be missed? Neil DeCosmis’ house at 40 El Dorado Place. In fact, it’s hard to miss the lawn packed with a giant blowup skeleton coachman and buggy, dancing ghosts in a cauldron, and other giant scary things, blow-up and otherwise.
“By the time 8:30 rolls around, we run out of candy.” – Neil DeCosmis
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“My mother used to decorate every year for every holiday since we moved here 40 years ago,” DeCosmis said. Though Antoinette passed away 33 years ago, DeCosmis has taken it upon himself to continue the family tradition. He’s also roped in his tenants who help arrange the spectacle, dress up on Halloween, and sit with DeCosmis to hand out the $250 worth of candy he purchases every year. “It’s part of the deal when you sign the lease,” he laughed. “By the time 8:30 rolls around, we run out of candy. It’s a lot of fun, and everyone really gets into it.” Tenants Debbie Denatille, Dee and Bobby Calman dress to the nines and really play up
see HALLOWEEN page 4
By Adriana Rambay Fernández Reporter staff writer
or the New York-New Jersey Super Bowl Host Committee the clock is winding down, literally – their website has a ticker that counts down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the 2014 Super Bowl, which is slated to take place nearby in the Meadowlands and be the biggest Super Bowl celebration in history. Last week, the clock said there were 472 days, 23 hours, 57 minutes, and 20 seconds and counting left until the big game day. While the game isn’t taking place in Hudson County, a few local towns plan to host related events, including Hoboken and Secaucus, which have been designated Super Bowl primary impact zones.
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While area residents are still debating who will host the next Sunday football gathering, out-of-town visitors will soon start thinking about which hotel will host them during their visit in February of 2014. Some area hotels are already sold out for that time period, and some local residents are renting out their apartments or rooms during that period, using web sites.
Two types of fans Is it time to get out the air mattress and set-up the futon for a visit from Aunt Bea in Florida with family and friends in tow? Local business leaders anticipate a “frenzy” of reservations immediately following the 2013
see BOWL page 7
Rent someone’s apt. in Weehawken, UC or JC – with stipulations With the possibility that hotels will be booked solid during the Super Bowl 2014, some local residents are offering up their apartments, or rooms in their apartments, through web sites like AirBnB.com. A search of that site for the period of Jan. 20, 2014 to Feb. 4, 2014 revealed a number of listings in the area. One Weehawken dweller lists a private room with NYC skyline views for $59 a night. A Jersey City resident offers to share a sunny two-bedroom apartment for $170 a night, but the individual must like cats, because the host has one named Tyson. One listing in Union City for $60 a night has photos of a room that simulates a hotel setting with a sleigh bed, duvet covers, fluffed pillows, and even a bottle of champagne on a silver tray. The host includes in the description that after a day in the city the, “private luxurious room with a queen size bed…will welcome you with open arms,” and that the visitor can “take a bath or soak in marble soaking tub with a shower head that makes you feel like your bathing in the rain.” The host goes on to describe the kitchen as out of a scene from a James Bond movie. -AF