A day (and a few holes) with the crew bringing cleaner water to South Orange By Adrianna Donat The lead service line replacement that took place in Maplewood last year has started in South Orange. We’ve probably all experienced the same moment of neighborhood déjà vu: you turn the corner and (surprise!) there’s a line of orange cones, a truck with flashing lights and a fresh street is auditioning for Holes: The Musical. Beyond the driving hazard, it can make you wonder what e

On roots, restlessness and the price of belonging By Ken Gagne A few months ago, I stood in a banquet room in Chicopee, Mass., attending my high school class’s 40-year reunion. Forty years? It felt like a clerical error, the kind I assumed someone would correct once I pointed it out. The faces were familiar in the way old furniture is familiar; you recognize the shape even after it’s been reupholstered. We hugged. We laughed. We squinted at name tags. Knee pain was discussed.

By Kristen di Gennaro Readers who grew up in the 1980s might be familiar with the classic R&B song A House is not a Home , made famous by the late singer Luther Vandross. The song was initially recorded almost two decades earlier by East Orange native and Grammy award-winning singer Dionne Warwick, who is a South Orange resident. As the song’s title illustrates, the words “house” and “home,” though often used interchangeably, are not completely synonymous, as we aim to “turn

The snow extended our trip and allowed us to see what he had become By Ellen Donker We enjoyed a visit with our son Timmy at the Charleston Tea Garden. Whenever someone hears that my son Timmy lives in Charleston, S.C., they talk about what a beautiful city it is and assume I must go there all the time to visit. Although Timmy has been there for almost eight years, most of it spent in college and grad school, I have been there just a handful of times. I have sometimes felt li