Secaucus will play a prominent part in an upcoming National Geographic photo spread on the Meadowlands, according to town officials who met with the magazine’s staff two weeks ago.
Hillel Hoffmann, who has done work on a variety of subjects from Gobi Desert fossils to the secrets of the gene for National Geographic, met with local officials to update the story, which has been in the works since the fall of 1998.
“They wanted to get some names of people in some of the photographs,” said Michael Gonnelli, a commissioner for the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission and superintendent of the Secaucus Department of Public Works. “The story is about the Meadowlands. But Secaucus plays a prominent part.”
According to residents and officials who have been contacted in connection with various photos, the magazine will likely use about 14 photographs that range in subject from a baseball player at Laurel Hill Park to the 1998 high school prom. The magazine’s freelance photographer took between 600 to 800 rolls of film or anywhere between 15,000 to 25,000 photos. Edna Duffy, who appears in background of one of the photos at the Butterfly Garden in Fountain Park, said she received a call from National Geographic Magazine in September 1997.
“They said they were doing something on the Meadowlands and needed to talk to a master gardener,” Duffy said. “That was about the same time the Secaucus Reporter had done a story on the butterfly garden in Fountain Park. So I sent them the story.”
Melissa Carlo, a freelance photographer from Pittsburgh, came to photograph Duffy for the spread.
“She spent 10 hours with me and I took her all over town,” Duffy said. “I took her to the butterfly garden and then to the Duck Pond and the Bike Track.”
Carlo spent several days in Secaucus, Duffy said.
“She wanted to spend the whole day with me, but I told her she would have to wait until Saturday,” Duffy said. “She had to change her ticket back to Pittsburgh and make new arrangements at her hotel.”
The butterfly garden photo shows a bed of flowers front and center with Duffy working in the background.
“Melissa said the place reminded her of the gardens of Monet (a famous 19th Century impressionistic painter),” Duffy said. “I took that as a complement.”
Duffy also was thrilled at the idea that out of all the photos taken in the Meadowlands, hers would be included in the magazine.
When Hoffmann returned to verify the identity of people and locations in each photo, he mistakenly presumed that the butterfly garden was located at the HMDC headquarters in Lyndhurst, which has an army of garden designers. Duffy took that as a complement, too.
A return engagement
The photographer Carlo returned to Secaucus a second time in June 1998 and again spent several days.
This time she went to the high school looking to do something on graduation, and school officials directed her to the Gonnelli household because Gonnelli’s stepdaughter Meryl Haslach was class president for the 1998 graduating class.
Carlo followed Haslach around for several days, taking pictures of her inside and outside her home.
“She [Carlo] started with the high school principal [Pat Impreveduto] and he put her in touch with Meryl,” Linda Gonnelli, Haslach’s mother, said. “The woman came to our home and stayed a couple of days with us, following Meryl around, taking pictures of everything she did.”
The photographer tagged along with Meryl on prom night, riding in the limousine with the several couples. One photo that will be used in the spread shows two couples seated in the back of the vehicle amid balloons. One girl is laughing, one boy is half-asleep. A second photo slated for the magazine feature two laughing girls on the dance floor dancing with a teacher. Carlo took a tour of various parts of Secaucus and the Meadowlands. One of her pictures shows two bullet-ridden mannequins at a shooting range. Another shows several ducks camped out on an old tire floating in the Duck Pond. The collection may also show an arial view of the twisting river like a huge question mark cut into the reeds.
Former Mayor Anthony Just saw the photographer at the firehouse and stopped.
“She followed me to Laurel Hill Park,” he said. “She seemed impressed that I was going down there to watch the sunset.” While there, Carlo took a photo of a baseball game with one of the players against the backdrop of the Fraternity Rock, a huge cropping of stone that overhangs the park.
“She spent some time on one of the HMDC’s pontoon boats,” said Mike Gonnelli. “She took a picture of a duck hunter and I remember how impressed she was when she could see the New York skyline in front of her and hear the Rolling Stones playing in Giant Stadium.”
Pictures from every angle
The photo collection may also feature a photo of a duck hunter poised in the reeds with the river behind him, and workers carrying sections of a wooden walkway through a narrow reed-walled path, as well as a canoe at sunset floating on one of the many creeks. Two other aerial shots show Jersey City where the Hackensack River sweeps past the PSE&G power plant as well rush hour at the NJ Turnpike exit toll in Secaucus.
Although Barbara Fallon, of the Washington D.C. headquarters for National Geographic, did not return calls, a sales representative for the magazine’s book division said the editors often would not confirm or deny the contents of an upcoming issue.
Local sources, however, said National Geographic staff members returned to the Meadowlands in September, gearing up for a February 2001 release.
A photo taken in Our Saviour Church will also be featured in the photo spread. This shot shows a mother and daughter reading from a prayer book with pews and stained glass windows around them. Several prominent parishioners such as real estate agent Catherine Murray can be seen in the background.
Several of the local people involved in the photo shoot said they originally thought the magazine had decided not to do the story, because it had been two years since the idea was first proposed.
“Then a couple of weeks ago, they called asking questions about the Meadowlands,” Mike Gonnelli said.