The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 29

c2? i he fr Rscord MONDAY. DECEMBER 3, 1979 mm Business Classified Ads Editorial Pages Obituaries Sports, Racing Weather B-5 B-15-24 lB-26, 27 B-25 B-6-14 B-4 A town comes to a crossro ads ill L. ts 1 Tip i By Wendy Lin Staff Writer Like the houses that perch along the Hudson River cliffs, the Borough of Edgewater is teetering on the edge of a development boom. Among those who want to see the town take the plunge are the owners of new restaurants and art and antique shops that have sprung up among abandoned storefronts on River Road. Like the early entrepreneurs of New York's Soho, they are banking on a boom.

Not everyone, though, is anxious to see the borough develop like its neighbor, Fort Lee. Last month's election of a pro-growth mayor is the latest sign of hope for growth-pushers, but obstacles remain. Officials have refused to adopt a new master plan, and the town's spine River Road is hardly able to support any great growth. Even on the edge of growth, Edgewater appears to be a community uneasily contemplating a future it has never planned for. Among those who hope the borough is ready to pursue aggressive development policies is Susan Veasey, owner of the Hudson River Handicrafts shop near the North Bergen end of River Road.

"It just sense that this is an area that is going to grow," said Ms. Veasey, sitting under the bright rainbow sign of the sparkling white, museum-like shop she opened in April. "I've had a lot of artists ask me about studio space. They feel it's an up-and-coming area." Fulfilling a dream After nine years as a saleswoman and management trainee at Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the 29-year-old Queens resident decided to try to fulfill a dream of having her own crafts shop. She set it up in Edgewater near a friend's used-furniture store.

Her rent is 250 a month. Staff photos by Al Paglione Bubble and old barges on the Hudson River at Edgewater. She concedes that she may be taking a gamble. "This place has the potential for turning into something big, but whether it's within the next two years or 10 years, I can't tell." Others who have gambled on Edge-water's growth are the owners of a flotilla of restaurants on the water's edge. Their flagship is Binghamton's, a former Hudson River ferryboat that how houses a posh restaurant and a disco.

Several large apartment complexes are slated for the riverfront and Palisades, including a conversion of the old Alcoa plant and the 380-unit Marina Del Sol on the waterfront. Many longtime residents cringe at the thought of Edgewater becoming a modern boom town. "We don't want to become another Fort Lee," says Borough Clerk Charles Susskind. "When people buy a house here, they don't want to see the neighborhood change. These people are real people.

There's nothing artificial or snobbish about them." Various high-rise proposals have been periodically shouted down by suspicious residents, and this year a small but tenacious band of homeowners has waged a campaign against further development of the Palisades, on environmental igrounds. See EDGEWATER, Page B-28 The old Alcoo plant, ujhich might become luxury apartments. Teaneck installs first black judge Women fear more attacks at Rutgers By John Koster Writer An oath-taking ceremony that was more like a gigantic home coming party welcomed former Deputy Mayor Isaac McNatt back to the Teaneck municipal building last night as the township's first black municipal judge. "People have come up to me and said, 'Gee, it's great that Teaneck has a black said Councilman Bernard Brooks, who is also black. "I disagree.

Teaneck has a municipal judge who happens to be black. Let us concentrate on the position and not on who the person is or where he happens to live." The courtly 63-year-old McNatt, who served eight years on the council and in 1966 became the first black elected to the body, asked to be sworn at the Council chamber instead of the usual site for such inaugurations the County Courthouse in Hackensack out of nostalgia. Almost 500 friends attended the ceremo for me to be sworn in in this chamber. It brings back memories of earlier days," he said. "We all had the best interests of Teaneck at heart back then, even though we sometimes expressed our interests by voting differently.

"This is a nation of laws, and all of us are supposed to live within the limit of the laws, judges perhaps more than anyone else," McNatt observed, noting wryly that he must give up many of his ac-v tivities in local politics to avoid conflicts of interests. McNatt, who served as deputy mayor of Teaneck from 1970 to 1974, has twice been elected president of the Bergen Blacks for Action in Politics, a coalition and lobbying group. So many people turned out to see McNatt sworn in that there was not enough room in the council chambers. The crowd, predominantly black but including many white well-wishers, spilled out into the hall. Bergen County Judge Benedict Lucchi Staff photo by Dan Oliver Beroen County Judge Benedict Lucchi gives the oath to Isaac McNatt, whose wife watches.

ny. "It is something like a homecoming See TEANECK, Page B-28 Broadcasters find that pay TV pays off By Kevin Coughlin Correspondent NEW BRUNSWICK Women at Rutgers University say they are walking a thin line between caution and paranoia after four women students were sexually assaulted last month. "Just walking down the street, I'm paranoid," says Nancy Pierce, a Douglass College freshman from Emerson. "I used to walk around the campus a lot; now I won't walk far distances unless someone is with me." The students are not the only ones concerned. Prompted by complaints from students and parents, Assemblyman Anthony Villane, R-Monmouth, has scheduled meetings this week with Rutgers officials to discuss security and tour the five New Brunswick campuses.

The rash of assaults, which police say are unrelated, broke out this fall despite the university's bolstering of campus security. More night guards were added and police shifts were expanded for more night patrols. Since then, six police cars and 14 officers have been patrolling the campus after dark. Some undergraduate women, however, say adequate police coverage on the large campus is difficult, and one feminist organization, the Women's Collective, is sponsoring a daylong seminar this week to discuss dormitory patrols and other possible safety measures. 'A certain risk "Like any large community, there is a certain risk," says Robert Ochs, Rutger's vice-president for public safety.

"You find it any place you go. But in no way do I feel these campuses are a haven for muggers or rapists. Our community should not have any fear of walking about the campuses." Nevertheless: On Nov. 3 at 4 a.m., a Rutgers College woman was dragged into the shrubbery in front of Scott Hall by a passing white man who raped and beat her. Another woman was raped in her off-campus apartment Nov.

10. The victim did not report the crime immediately but is now cooperating in an investigation conducted by the university and New Brunswick Shortly after midnight on Nov. 12, a Douglass College, woman was raped in the Gibbons Campus parking lot after her assailant forced his way into her car. The university police arrested a Rutgers College sophomore, identified by the victim as her assailant, but last week a Middlesex County grand jury cleared the suspect of rape charges after a polygraph test and examination of forewsic evidence. At 6 ajn.

on Nov. 16, two men assaulted a Livingston College sophomore who was returning to hep dorm from a parking lot She was menaced with a knife, beaten and scratched, and burned wih matches. The campus police say they have some leads in the cases but have refused to give any details. In the past, about half of tha Rutgers rape cases have been solved, said police Capt. Thomas Thompson.

March on police station Last year, three rapes and two attempted rapes were reported to the university, prompting a coalition of more than 300 students and faculty and staff members to march on the university police station in April, chanting, "No more rapes." In September the university beefed up security by adding seven night guards to patrol school' property. In October the university's 54-membcr police force added an extra working shift to provide more evening patrols. A mounted policeman See RUTGERS, Page B-28 i. By Lou Lumenick Stall Writer When Channel 68 began broadcasting from studios in a West Orange frame house five years ago, it was hardly a candidate for the Fortune 500. Viewers who were curious enough to search out the station in the snowy wilderness on dials above Channel 13 were confronted with a potpourri of public affairs forums, old movies, and venerable reruns such as "Hopalong Cassidy" and "Dobie Gillis." In a market with seven major TV stations, Channel 68 Intrigued neither the public nor advertisers.

In its first year, the station went off the air twice when money ran out. In 1977, Channel 68 became the first TV station in the nation regularly to devote the hours between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. to commercial-free recent movies. The catch: The sound and picture are scrambled, intelligible only to those who pay $17 a month for a decoding device, plus a 45 installation fee and a refundable $25 deposit Now Wometco Home Theater, as the pay TV service is called, has more than 72,000 subscribers in the metropolitan area, 30,000 of them in North Jersey.

Channel 68's projected revenues for this year will top $13 million. A lavish new studio is being built in downtown Newark. Cable is growing Pay TV also has paid off handsomely for North Jersey's cable television operators, who have seen the number of cus tomers subscribing to Home Box Office nearly double to about 85,000 in the past year. Nationally, nearly one home in 15 subscribes to Home Box Office or competing pay cable services. By 1985, it is expected that the number will be one in five.

After struggling for acceptance for nearly two decades, pay TV has captured the imagination of a public searching for options to commercial television and the soaring cost of a night at the Bijou. "We used to go to the movies three times a week," says Diane Williams of Clifton, an office worker. "Now we're lucky if we go out twice a month." Mrs. Williams and her husband, a dental technician, purchased HBO service for both of their TV sets in March. By paying double the $8 fee for basic cable service, they can choose among recent, uncut feature films such as "The China Syndrome" and "Love at First Bite." The Williamscs' cable company, UA-Columbia, also Is pleased.

Of its nearly 66,000 customers In North Jersey, 55,700 also take HBO. In Saddle Brook, 96.3 percent of the 1,929 homes signed up by UA-Columbla since it began service there in August have also ponied up for HBO. Statewide, 55.3 percent of cable customers subscribe to pay services, up from 48 percent a year ago. Other North Jersey cable companies report similar pay TV success rates, and it appears that subscription service is See PAYOFF, Page B-4 A 1978 A I 1 1.