The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 167

RECORD OF1 TUT! CrNTTIHY THE RECORD BR-3 A region prospered, did tiny daily SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 1995 a it wirrtr ti i I ON THIS SITE I WILL BE BIIILI THE FUTURE HOME I WITH A COMPLETE MODERN NEWSPAPER EQUIPMENT. A LOT 5085 FEET FRONTING ON CAMUtN ihlli, ADJOINING THE REAR OF THIS LOT IS INCLUDED. i WM.y ii ir At left, John Borg and his wife Hazel. Borg, a millionaire by age 30, was one of eight investors who bought the company in 1920. Top, a sign in 1921 announces plans to build a modem newspaper plant.

Above, Borg's son Donald, who was given a half-share of the business in 1930. -v. A 1 .7 iiiinrifi niiii ifii nnrir- over the telephone in October 1935. in 1946. .101 f'W 3 -J Vt I A -VI At right, The Evening Record's 1 1 W'fll i i Borg family set agenda for success By PATRICIA SHERLOCK Special to The Record The history of The Record and Bergen County have been closely intertwined from the days when the county was a rural, farming region to the present, when Bergen is a prosperous, suburban area with growing pockets of urbanization.

That shared history dates back 100 years to June 5, 1895, when the first edition of The Evening Record, then a tiny daily, was given away free on the streets of Hackensack by its founder, Evan G. Runner. Runner had listened to itinerant tramp printers who passed through Hackensack and wondered why the county seat had no daily newspaper. His dream was to found such a newspaper and he did, with $500 in capital and two partners. However, newsprint had to be bought, and money remained a pressing need for the little operation.

Over the next 25 years, a succession of interested and sometimes disinterested financial backers failed to set the newspaper on firm financial footing. It wasn't until 1920, when a syndicate of eight investors bought the paper then called The Evening News and Bergen County Herald that the newspaper began to grow. There were two men in the syndicate who believed that the paper had the potential to become the most successful regional daily in the eastern United States. One was veteran newspaperman Matt C. Ely.

The other was a self-made Wall Street millionaire named John Borg. Borg, the son of German immigrants who settled in Hudson County, began his career as a clever, 14-year-old messenger on the New York Curb Market (now the American Stock Exchange). By the time he was 30, he had accumulated his first million. After he bought into the newspaper business, printer's ink began to work its way into Borg's blood; so, in 1923, he gave his Wall Street business to his employees, earning him the nickname "the Santa Claus of Wall Street." Over the next several years, Ely and Borg bought out their remaining partners, changed the name of the paper to the Bergen Evening Record, built a modern newspaper plant at 295 Main and saw the newspaper start to earn real profits as it played an increasingly important role in the lives of Bergen County residents who came to rely on it for news and information. In 1929, failing health forced Ely into retirement, and Borg bought out his partner.

From then on, the Borg name became synonymous with the success of the county's only daily newspaper. By that time, Borg's son, Donald, was working for the newspaper, and in 1930, John gave Donald a half-share of the business. Within a few months, novice publisher John Borg would find himself and his newspaper in the middle of one of the biggest political scandals ever to hit New Jersey the Lodi Township sewer scandal. His crusade to rid the county of crooked politicians gained John Borg a national reputation as a firebrand publisher, but not before he was wrongly indicted on a charge of fraud a charge that would later be quashed and his life and those of his family were threatened. All the powerful political machinery at the hands of corrupt government officials was brought to bear on the Bergen Evening Record in an attempt to prevent the paper.

from exposing crooked leaders. It failed. Borg began keeping a submachine gun in his office, and police were assigned to guard his wife and children; yet the inexperienced publisher continued hammering away at the truth with story after story. Borg prided himself on his independence and honesty. His newspaper's ongoing expose of rotters and rottenness resulted in the impeachment of a state senator, the removal of two judges from the bench and a county prosecutor from his post, and the eventual reform of the system by which grand juries are selected in New Jersey.

John and his son worked closely as publisher and editor until John retired in 1949. Donald was a punctilious and formidable editor. His style was more sophisticated and reserved than that of his outspoken, diamond-in-the-rough father, but the two worked harmoniously together. Under Donald's guidance, the newspaper's circulation growth paralleled the phenomenal growth of Bergen County during the post-World War II home-bjlding boom and the ad- i rw ''TVrr't irf Above, a reporter taking a story city room during a quiet moment 1 vent of shopping malls in the Fifties and Sixties. Over Labor Day weekend in 1951, the newspaper moved operations from its overcrowded plant on Main Street to a spacious new facility at 150 River St.

By I960, when Donald's two sons, Malcolm and Gregory, were working at the newspaper, its name was changed to The Record as its coverage area was extended beyond the boundaries of Bergen County, and in 1961 the paper opened its first Trenton bureau. Mac and Greg, as they were called, were no strangers to Record employees. As mischievous small boys, they had swept and painted at the paper for nickels and dimes. And as strapping teenagers, they helped on delivery trucks during summer vacations. When they joined The Record as full-time employees, both jroung men trained i Behind the scenes: Above, a stereotyper rolling page mats in 1935.

At Jeft, a compositor placing stories on a page in 1966. The Record went from hot, or metal, type to cold type using computers in 1975. and honesty, as well as a growing business acumen. On Jan. 27, 1971, he was elected the president and chief executive officer of The Bergen Evening Record Corp.

Donald stepped down as publisher, retaining the titles of editor and chairman of the board. In May of the same year, Record staffers celebrated when the late William A. Caldwell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Caldwell had been a highly respected Record editor and columnist for more than six decades. During those years, he wrote more than 12,000 columns.

He had been called the voice of Bergen County's conscience for more than half a century. Before 1971 ended, The Record diversified by acquiring Gateway Communications which holds four CBS-affiliated television sta tions in Binghamton, N.Y.; LancasterLebanon, Altoona, and HuntingtonCharleston, W.Va. Further diversification came about in 1973 when The Record purchased The Reporter Newspapers in Toms River and two weekly newspapers published in central New Jersey under the name Freehold News Transcript. Greg Borg became a director of the new Toms River Publishing overseeing that operation. The Record was functioning on two very strong fronts acquiring other business holdings while improving the journalistic quality of the product.

Mac had been instrumental in creating the position of investigative news editor at The Record. In 1973, the paper established a news bureau in Washington, D.C. Continued on Page BR-4 in all departments to learn the whole newspaper operation. Afterward, Mac's interest remained rooted in the newsroom and Greg enjoyed work that was production-oriented. In 1964, The Record bought the floundering Paterson (N.J.) Call and renamed it The Morning Call.

Mac and Greg were named The Call's assistant publishers. Over the next five years, that award-winning newspaper produced some of the finest journalism Passaic County had seen. Meanwhile, Mac recognized that Bergen's explosive economic growth would soon outpace The Record's ability to keep up with it. He convinced his father that the status quo would not do for the future and urged him to begin enlarging the paper in a myriad of ways, starting with a four-story plant expansion, which was begun i in 1963. When completed in 1965, the addition more than doubled the size of the original building and increased the paper's capacity to three Scott letterpresses.

Then, in 1968, Mac persuaded his father to launch a Sunday edition of The Record. On Sept. 29, 1968, the Sunday paper was born. It became an instant editorial and advertising success, so much so that many people have called its inaugural date the most important date in The Record's history. The Morning Call was sold in 1969.

In its five-year life, it won numerous journalistic awards but advertising was locked into the established competition, so the paper made no money. Like his grandfather before him, Mac had fallen in love with journalism, demonstrating a strong commitment to the principles of editorial integrity, independence,.