OR................you can send ME the $2.95 instead for the complete article (below).
BTW - this was on the front page of the main section of The Record.
Fear on high -- Cellphone antennas unnerve a 'penthouse' dweller
MIKE KELLY
Date: 10-07-2003, Tuesday
Bob Leafe figured he had his own humble patch of paradise.
OK, it wasn't exactly the Garden of Eden. This is downtown Hackensack, after all.
And Leafe's place is just a two-bedroom flat on a tar roof atop a six-story apartment building. Up there, you can still hear buses snort on River Street.
But a few months ago, Leafe awoke to find workers bolting a bouquet of cellular antennas to a wall next to his apartment and a chimney that runs through a wall near his front door.
So began the battle for Bob Leafe's paradise.
This is really a story about an ordinary guy trying to fight the system. But finding the right target is a bit of a battle in itself.
Which system do you fight when your enemy is a cellphone antenna that just about everyone tells you is as safe as that TV in your living room? And where do you turn when you discover that the state agency assigned to protect older buildings like yours from all manner of modern ugliness admits that it gave the go-ahead to the rooftop antennas because it thought no one lived in the penthouse?
Put another way, New Jersey did not seem to know Bob Leafe existed in his corner of paradise. And when the state realized it made a mistake, nothing was done to fix it.
To understand what the invasion of the antennas means, you need to understand how Bob Leafe sees his rooftop world.
"This is my yard," he said Monday as he pushed open a storm door from his apartment and stepped onto the roof.
It's not luxury, Leafe readily concedes. The place carries the designation of "penthouse," but the rent is akin to "garden apartment" - less than $900 a month. As for sheer beauty, well, even Leafe admits the place is a little worn. The masonry is chipping. An awning frame is rusting.
But Leafe smiles when he looks over his rooftop world. He is 56, and has called this place home for 15 years. It was his retreat from a hectic job of photographing pop music performers - "from Led Zeppelin to Liberace," he said. In his living room, he keeps a Fender guitar signed by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.
On sunny days, Leafe could erect a hammock on the roof. In summer, he kept a small garden.
But now, Leafe rarely ventures onto the roof, not even on those hot summer nights when he would bring his TV outside to watch the Yankees.
This is now a story about paradise interrupted.
On Monday, as Leafe took a short - and rare - stroll on his roof, he looked up to a perfect azure sky and puffy cotton clouds and a golden October sun. Then he looked at the gray and silver antennas, which resembled the picked-over bones of a standing rib roast.
Leafe shook his head. "I'm afraid to come out here. I have no idea whether I'm getting zapped or not."
Federal and state guidelines say cell antennas are safe - as long as you do not get too close.
The state Department of Environmental Protection's Web site recommends staying at least 5 feet away.
Leafe's living room is about 10 feet from the antennas. Is that too close?
Leafe passed on his concerns to local, state, and federal officials. But as Democratic Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg noted, "It's much harder to remove these things after the fact."
Meanwhile, Hackensack zoning officer Joe Mellone, who did not work on Leafe's case, now wonders whether the city zoning board understood that it was approving the cellular antennas so close to Leafe's apartment.
In studying the file, including a transcript of a hearing in which Leafe voiced his worries, Mellone said he did not think the zoning board understood that Leafe actually lived on the roof.
"He never mentioned that he lived there," Mellone said.
Leafe said he fully described his penthouse abode to the board.
So who's right?
Like so much of this story, that question is difficult to answer clearly.
Leafe called Nextel, the phone company that installed the antennas. He also complained to his landlord, Sarna Properties of Englewood. Both insist he has nothing to worry about.
"We feel they are absolutely safe," said Stephen Montag, the Sarna Properties manager who oversees Leafe's building at 430 Union St.
Montag would not say how much Nextel pays to rent the space for the antennas, nor would Nextel confirm the amount. But Nextel spokeswoman Diane Rainey said the company generally rents rooftop space for $1,500 to $2,000 per month.
Rainey added that an engineer hired by Nextel tested the antennas atop Leafe's roof and found radiation emissions below federal standards. "Less than the TV or microwave oven," she said.
Still, Leafe worries.
"I don't want to be a guinea pig," he said.
As for aesthetics, well, that's another matter. Leafe figured he might win there. Because his apartment building dates to the 1920s, he sought the support of the state Historic Preservation Office.
It's not that Leafe's apartment building is especially historic. But the building's design and brickwork bring it under the protection of the preservation office.
And it was the preservation office that offered a final piece of daffy irony to Bob Leafe's battle for paradise: It might have blocked the cell antennas if it realized someone was living in the penthouse.
The preservation office opposed the original Nextel plan to bolt the antennas to the side of Leafe's building, where they would interfere with its architectural appearance. But the agency thought the antennas would be sufficiently hidden on the rooftop - near the penthouse.
Of course, that was before preservation office official Kurt Leasure conceded to Leafe that he thought the penthouse was empty.
"If I had been aware of possible problems related to locating the antennas in close proximity to tenants, I would have been open to discussing alternate designs," Leasure wrote in an e-mail to Leafe.
Leasure no longer works for the Historic Preservation Office. Meanwhile, Leafe wonders to whom he can appeal.
"What did they think the penthouse was for?" he said.
Bob Leafe gazes again over his rooftop. It's a beautiful autumn day in paradise. But he stays inside.
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E-mail: kellym@northjersey.com
NOTE: I never had a garden, but there was one here decades before. When the building opened around 1928, there was a restaurant in the basement that was THE place for the City's bigwigs to meet. The restaurant's chef lived in the penthouse.
The original definition of a penthouse has nothing to do with luxury. It simply meant a separate unit that sits by itself on the roof. It's almost like an afterthought. The building is listed everywhere as a 6-story building, but I'm the 7th-floor tenant.
In that sense, my unit - I'm told - is the only true penthouse in Hackensack.
