In late January, former U.S. Senator Bob Torricelli stared out the window of the Jersey City Hyatt Hotel at New York Harbor watching the ice flow. Although only 52, he looked a little older and a bit grayer than when he pulled out of the 2002 U.S. Senate race, but his face also lacked the agonized look that the turmoil of public scrutiny had put him through during the campaign.
Although as no-nonsense as ever, he seemed a bit more introspective than in the past, staring as if seeing the water for the first time. The Hudson River was spotted with heavy chunks of ice, giving it a kind of scaled look.
“Sometimes you wonder why it doesn’t freeze up completely,” he said, taking a momentary break from a one-on-one interview with the Reporter.
Normally bristling with efficiency, Torricelli had these few moments for reflection, taking in a vision of the Manhattan skyline in the post-Sept. 11 world. He even smiled slightly as the ceaselessly moving ferries made their way to the Exchange Place dock, their fronts breaking through the ice packs.
Although Torricelli had come to give a progress report on his work at the Honeywell contamination site in Jersey City, the cleanup effort a federal court had put him in charge of (see sidebar) he reflected a little on his political career – which he voluntarily ended two years ago when he agreed to give up his re-election bid for the U.S. Senate. Accusations had run rampant in the press that he had done favors for and taken gifts from political contributors.
Friends called his retirement the ultimate political sacrifice, shedding his personal political ambitions for the good of the Democratic Party. Critics still bristle over his name – and a recent poll showed his popularity had not risen among the public since his leaving office.
Hounded by a Republican opponent whose sole campaign centered around Torricelli’s alleged campaign finance abuses, Torricelli – after days of soul-searching and closed-door discussions with the state Democratic leadership – withdrew from the from the race, making way for Frank Lautenberg.
“Bob was the man who worked to get the Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate,” said one political observer. “He was the guy who got the 50-50 split in the Senate, and he was bound and determined not to be the cause of losing it.”
While not saying outright that he regretted giving up the race, Torricelli did say, “I could have won that race. It would have been close, but I would have won.”
A suburban legislator
Born in Paterson but raised in Franklin Lakes, Torricelli has been called the state’s first suburban federal legislator, although his grandparents were steel and garment workers, and his mother – raised in the Great Depression – was obsessive about saving. She was also a librarian who encouraged Torricelli to read at an early age.
While his parents were liberal in their politics, Torricelli started out as a conservative, and still believes strongly in traditional American values although his politics have shifted to a more centrist position over the years. Until the early 1970s, he was strong supporter of America’s position in the Vietnam Conflict. His change of position later occurred because of the cost in lives and impact on the U.S. economy. Even after this change of heart, he remained staunchly anti-Communist.
This is not to say he disagreed with his parents totally. Torricelli did not always agree with the exaggerated notions of the Cold War mentality, such as the value of air raid drills in the event of an atomic attack.
He recalled the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as one of the defining moments of his generation, and remembered John F. Kennedy with some awe – although in interviews done over the years, Torricelli related more to Robert Kennedy, especially on race relations. He and RFK came to the Civil Rights movement from out of similar suburban enclaves as they encountered people of different colors and ethic races. Although not always in tune with his generation when it came to the War in Vietnam – he once dreamed about becoming a Marine – Torricelli seemed to pick up on the civil rights issues as well as those on the environment and women’s rights. These issues pushed him more towards political moderation.
Unlike many kids of the 1960s, Torricelli did not engage in drug use. He even initially disliked the Beatles until later in life. His first taste of bitter politics came when he was at boarding school, and for years claimed no political race was as hostile as those at school. He ran for class president (and won) as a matter of survival, and once equated those elections to the vicious chaos depicted in the book “The Lord of the Flies.” It was an election mentality he never seemed to shake, combining his mother’s lessons about gathering money and his school’s drive to survive.
Once out of college, he found himself deep in the mix of political elections, helping with other people’s campaigns, although he came to national prominence when he apparently helped rescue the seemingly-doomed re-election bid of Gov. Brendan Byrne in the late 1970s, after which Torricelli began his long climb through the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate.
Future won’t likely be politics
In 1996, Torricelli’s aggressive campaign fundraising came under heavy scrutiny – eventually leading him to being censured the U.S. Senate. These questions became the chief fodder for his political opponent, Doug Forrester, last year in the Senate race, leading Torricelli to resign from the race. Even before a Republican-sponsored opinion poll pegged him as the most unpopular political figure in the state of New Jersey, Torricelli said he would not likely seek office again.
“After 20 years and eight general elections, I’m tired,” he said. “I’m tired of the constant fundraising.”
But he is not disillusioned.
“While I do not believe we are at the high point of American electoral process, I still believe in the process,” he said. “I started out in public office to improve the quality of life. I think I’ve done that. But now there is a high price to get involved,” he said.
Torricelli said there are good people in politics, such as Sen. Jon Corzine and Hillary Clinton, two people he admires a lot. And Torricelli still talks to his colleagues in the Senate and is fond of many people in Hudson County such as Bayonne Mayor Joe Doria and North Bergen Mayor and state Senator Nicholas Sacco.
“I’m very found of Brian Stack and Glenn Cunningham,” he said. “Glenn is a very good mayor.”
Torricelli neglected to mention the pivotal role he played in helping Cunningham get elected as state senator last November, both through fundraising efforts and sharing his political wisdom. Torricelli’s political instincts are still sharp. Months before the presidential race heated up, he had already thrown his support behind John Kerry, even as many of the state’s political powerful supported Howard Dean. While he also raised money for the Dick Gephardt campaign – out of friendship – he said his heart and efforts are behind Kerry.
When asked what he’s found best about his retiring from public office, Torricelli grinned. “Time,” he said. “I have more time.”
Torricelli is making good use of that time. He has purchased real estate in western New Jersey for development. He sits on the boards of four corporations, he travels a lot out of the county, and he has moved onto a farm in Hunterdon County with his St. Bernard. SIDEBAR Contamination cleanup along Hackensack River on schedule
In May 2003, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli was tapped by a federal court to oversee one of the biggest environmental cleanups in history.
U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh – an old friend whom Torricelli had helped become a judge – put Torricelli in charge of the massive cleanup effort. Cavanaugh had ruled that a contaminated site located on the eastern bank of the Hackensack River near Route 440 in Jersey City presented an “imminent and substantial” danger to the public health. This ruling came as a result of lawsuit filed in 1995 by the Interfaith Community Organization and other citizens living near the 34-acre site.
Torricelli said that his history of environmental initiatives while in the Senate and his reputation for strong management were responsible for the court deciding he should oversee the cleanup.
Torricelli was responsible for a massive cleanup project in Bergen County years ago, one of the largest of its kind at the time.
Torricelli described the restoration and cleanup of the Route 440 site in Jersey City as “a challenge and a great responsibility,” potentially the largest environmental cleanup of its kind in the United States.
“We will be moving more material than was excavated from the World Trade Center after Sept. 11,” he said. “More hazardous material will be removed from that place than all the states combined in a single year.”
Torricelli believes the cleanup has the potential to create for Hudson County a second Gold Coast similar to one that exists along the Hudson River.
The site was originally owned by Mutual Chemical Company and later taken over by the Honeywell Corporation. Mutual took over the site just after World War II when the Morris Canal (now Route 440) ran through the area. The site is near Society Hill on Route 440 and across from the Home Depot about one mile north of the Bayonne border. Mutual acquired the site to dispose of Chromate ore residue left over from their other manufacturing.
Over the years, more than one million tons of the contaminant was dumped there in piles 20 feet high, almost one third of which was considered highly toxic. When operations ceased in 1954, Mutual sold the property, which was then converted into a drive-in movie theater. Later, commercial buildings were constructed on the site, many of which had to be torn down because the contaminants caused walls to buckle and parking lots to crumble.
Because of the high health risk and the fact that the land cannot be redeveloped until the contamination is removed, the court ordered Honeywell and others to pay for the project, and for Torricelli to make certain the land is cleaned up.
While the court order fits into the concept of redevelopment of former industrial sites as proposed by Gov. Jim, McGreevey’s open space initiative, Torricelli said this is in a category of its own.
The project is currently in the engineering phase, and this means they must remove the soil, then fill it with clean fill. It also means groundwater treatment.
“Much of what is being proposed there has never been done before,” he said.
The challenge, he said, will be doing the work without disrupting life in Jersey City.
Eventually, this site could be combined with other nearby properties for a continuous 100 acres that could see significant development and mean the creation of thousands of jobs.
He said the time frame for this project is about five years, starting with the engineering plans, then the construction of a containment wall, and then treatment of the groundwater.
He said he has been meeting with residents, citizen groups and public official through the area.
Getting rid of the material will likely involve barges because of the location next to the river. Torricelli said he wanted to avoid the use of trucks because of the impact these would have on local roads. The barged materials would then be linked up with rail lines and taken to land fills throughout the county.
Torricelli refused to speculate on the final cost, but news accounts elsewhere have put the cost at between $500 million to $800 million.
‘Ambitious’
Hackensack Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan, who has raised concerns about other contaminated sites in the area, said Torricelli’s time schedule is “very ambitious.”
“He’s moving the process very rapidly,” Sheehan said. “I am very impressed with the work the senator is doing on our behalf. He’s making certain that the contamination is cleaned up and the land becomes productive as quickly as possible.”
Sheehan said the cleanup is moving ahead despite an appeal by Honeywell, and because of the rapid time frame, the cleanup may be done before the appeal is resolved.
“The court has said that cleanup has to continue during the appeal process,” Sheehan said. “It is an amazing and ambitious effort to get from where we are to complete cleanup in such short a time.” – Al Sullivan