Wheeler Antabanez is the alter-ego and pen name for Montclair, New Jersey-based writer Matt Kent (born January 31, 1977). Antabanez is best known as the author of best selling special issue of Weird NJ, Nightshade on the Passaic and gasstationthoughts and The Daily Journal of Wheeler Antabanez, published by Barricade Books.
Growing up in West Caldwell, New Jersey, Kent discovered the abandoned Essex Mountain Sanatorium near his parents’ house at a young age. He became obsessed with the decaying and damaged buildings and created a website in honor of the sanatorium. The site, ‘welcometohell.net’, later became the online home of Kent's developing alter ego, Wheeler Antabanez.
On April 19, 2000 Kent was arrested in the lead-up to the first anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre for his alter ego's writings about the school shooting on welcometohell.[1]
The charges were eventually dropped, and Kent took welcometohell offline, transforming Antabanez's daily journal into a book. “gasstationthoughts and the daily journal of wheeler antabanez” was published by Barricade Books, the controversial publisher of The Anarchist Cookbook and The Turner Diaries.[2]
Nightshade on the Passaic
For two years, Antabanez traveled up and down the Passaic River, occasionally with his daughter, Star, as first mate, exploring abandoned buildings on its shores as well as the river itself. The Passaic is one of the most polluted waterways in the US and is home to the world's largest collection of the deadly chemicals, dioxins.
Seeking out the worst possible places, Antabanez chronicles his exploration of abandoned buildings in Paterson, New Jersey, such as the old Colt Mill, which made approximately 5,000 firearms between 1836 and 1841.[3] In addition to the river and the decaying structures that surround it, he also researched murders that involved the Passaic River, including the horrific case of Jonathan Zarate who attempted to dump the mutilated body of his 16-year-old neighbor in the river, but was thwarted by a police officer who happened to pass by at the time.[4]
The 78-page magazine also follows Antabanez as he explores homeless haunts along the river's shore as well as the infamous “Buttonwoods” neighborhood in Lincoln Park, New Jersey.
Nightshade on the Passaic was released as a special issue of Weird NJ magazine in July 2008.
The Passaic River continues to be full of unusual stories, including the discovery of a child's body that had been taken from a grave in Connecticut as part of a suspected Palo Mayombe ritual. With no one more familiar with its macabre history, Wheeler serves as an expert to curious reporters interested in the river.[5]
In September 2010, Wheeler co-hosted a live broadcast from the last working boat yard on the Passaic for Billy Jam's Put the Needle on the Record show on WFMU. Guests included WMFU's X.Ray Burns and Mark and Mark from Weird NJ.[6]
Wheeler's adventures on the Passaic River caught the eye of NPR in late 2010. National Public Radio sent a two-person crew to NJ to travel the Passaic River and its shoreline with Wheeler as their guide. The resulting stories and interviews turned into a feature on All Things Considered with a radio segment, written article and video.[7]
Passaic River floods
The Passaic River overran its banks in the spring of 2010 and again in 2011. For both floods, Wheeler was on-site to capture the destruction. In March 2010 Wheeler visited the flood zone near Willowbrook Mall and talked with those affected.[8] Almost exactly a year later, the neighborhoods surrounding the river flooded again. Wheeler traveled the streets by canoe and followed the flood for seven days to create a short documentary, Following the Flood.[9] Wheeler states in the video that he is currently filming a movie, Wheeler on the Passaic.
Further works
In addition to his published works, Wheeler has an unpublished novel, Matt & Jess Forever. The story follows a young couple through drugs, murder and an intense love and is available online in its entirety.
In March 2009, Wheeler returned to his roots writing online and began a photo-based novella, Lucky Cigarette. With a new photo and entry each day, the website is a combination of Wheeler's skills as a photographer/videographer as well as novelist.
In early 2010, Wheeler uncovered writings from his youth and added them to Lucky Cigarette. Even in his childhood writings, it is clear to see the start of Wheeler's style and his flair for storytelling.[citation needed]
The Passaic River is a river, approximately 80 miles (130 km) long, in Northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, called the Great Swamp, draining much of the northern portion of the state through its tributaries.
The Main Line is a commuter rail line owned and operated by New Jersey Transit running from Suffern, New York to Hoboken, New Jersey, in the United States. It runs daily commuter service and was once the north–south main line of the Erie Railroad. It is colored yellow on NJ Transit system maps, and its symbol is a water wheel.
NJ Transit Rail Operations is the rail division of NJ Transit. It operates commuter rail service in New Jersey, with most service centered on transportation to and from New York City, Hoboken, and Newark. NJ Transit also operates rail service in Orange and Rockland counties in New York under contract to Metro-North Railroad. The commuter rail lines saw 45,838,200 riders in 2022, making it the third-busiest commuter railroad in North America and the longest commuter rail system in North America by route length.
The Morristown Line is an NJ Transit commuter rail line connecting Morris and Essex counties to New York City, via either New York Penn Station or Hoboken Terminal. Out of 60 inbound and 58 outbound daily weekday trains, 28 inbound and 26 outbound Midtown Direct trains use the Kearny Connection to Penn Station; the rest go to Hoboken. Passengers can transfer at Newark Broad Street or Summit to reach the other destination. On rail system maps the line is colored dark green, and its symbol is a drum, a reference to Morristown's history during the American Revolution.
The Montclair Connection is a short section of double-track railroad on the NJ Transit Rail Operations system in New Jersey, United States, connecting the former end of the Montclair Branch at Bay Street station to the old Boonton Line southeast of Walnut Street station.
Montclair High School is a comprehensive four-year public high school located in Montclair, in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades as the lone secondary school of the Montclair Public School District. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1928.
Bay Street is a New Jersey Transit station on Pine Street between Bloomfield and Glenridge Avenues in Montclair, New Jersey, along the Montclair-Boonton Line.
Upper Montclair is a New Jersey Transit station in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, a census-designated place of Montclair, New Jersey. The station is part of the Montclair-Boonton Line. The station is located between two grade level crossings on Bellevue Avenue and Lorraine Avenue, and between North Mountain Avenue and Upper Montclair Plaza parallel to the railroad, and is within steps of the Upper Montclair Business District. The station is at mile point 13.7 on the Boonton Line. Closing the grade crossing of Lorraine Avenue is being considered for safety reasons.
Mountain View, signed on the platform as Mountain View–Wayne, is a station on the Montclair-Boonton Line of NJ Transit in Wayne, New Jersey. Prior to the Montclair Connection in 2002, the station was served by the Boonton Line. The station is located on Erie Avenue, just off of US 202 and Route 23 in Downtown Wayne. Since January 2008, Mountain View station is the second of two stations in Wayne, the other being the Wayne Route 23 Transit Center, a station off the Westbelt interchange.
Boonton is a NJ Transit station in Boonton, Morris County, New Jersey, United States along the Montclair-Boonton Line. It is located on Main Street, near Myrtle Avenue and I-287. The original 1905 station was built by architect Frank J. Nies who built other stations for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. Unlike most of his stations which tended to be massive Renaissance structures, Boonton station was built as a simple Prairie House design. The station house is now a bar, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 13, 1977, two years before the establishment of New Jersey Transit and six years before becoming part of their railroad division.
Kingsland is a railroad station on New Jersey Transit's Main Line. It is located under Ridge Road (Route 17) between New York and Valley Brook Avenues in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, and is one of two stations in Lyndhurst. The station is not staffed, and passengers use ticket vending machines (TVMs) located at street level to purchase tickets. The station is not handicapped-accessible. Originally part of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's Boonton Branch, the current Kingsland station was built in 1918.
The New York and Greenwood Lake Railway owned a line between Croxton, Jersey City, New Jersey and Greenwood Lake, New York. Service on the line was provided by the Erie Railroad.
Arlington is a neighborhood in Kearny in the western part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Great Notch is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located in eastern Little Falls, in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It gets its name from a gap in the first of the Watchung Mountains. Located in Great Notch are parts of Montclair State University and the Great Notch Fire Company.
Benson Street is a former train station in a residential section of the town of Glen Ridge, New Jersey.
The Montclair-Boonton Line is a commuter rail line of New Jersey Transit Rail Operations in the United States. It is part of the Hoboken Division. The line is a consolidation of three individual lines: the former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad's Montclair Branch, which ran from Hoboken Terminal to Bay Street, Montclair; the Erie Railroad's Greenwood Lake Division, which originally ran from the Erie's Jersey City Terminal to Greenwood Lake, NY; and the former Lackawanna Boonton Line, which ran from Hoboken to Hackettstown, New Jersey. The Montclair-Boonton line was formed when the Montclair Connection opened on September 30, 2002. The line serves 28 active rail stations in New Jersey along with New York Pennsylvania Station. It crosses through six counties, serving six stations in the township of Montclair, two in the town of Bloomfield, and one in the city of Newark. Trains along the Montclair-Boonton Line heading eastward usually originate at Hackettstown, Mount Olive, Lake Hopatcong, Dover, or Montclair State University, bound for either Hoboken Terminal or New York Penn Station. On system maps the line is colored maroon and its symbol is a bird, after the state bird, the eastern goldfinch.
WR Draw is an out-of-service railroad bridge crossing the Passaic River between Newark and the Arlington section of Kearny, New Jersey. The plate girder rim-bearing swing bridge, originally built in 1897 and modified in 1911 and 1950, is the 14th bridge from the river's mouth at Newark Bay and is 8.1 miles (13.0 km) upstream from it. Last used for regular passenger service in 2002, it is welded in closed position as its height is not considered a hazard to navigation.
The Lyndhurst Draw is a railroad bridge crossing the Passaic River between Clifton and Lyndhurst in northeastern New Jersey. Built in 1903, it is owned and operated by New Jersey Transit Rail Operations (NJT).
North Newark was a former commuter railroad train station in the Woodside section of the city of Newark, Essex County, New Jersey. Located at the intersection of Broadway and Verona Avenues, the station served trains on NJ Transit's Boonton Line, which operated at the time between Netcong and Hoboken Terminal. The station consisted of two low-level side platforms, accessible by stairs from Broadway. The next station to the east was Arlington in nearby Kearny, with the next station to the west being Rowe Street in Bloomfield.
The Essex–Hudson Greenway is proposed state park and greenway in the northerneastern New Jersey counties of Essex and Hudson. It will follow an abandoned railroad right of way (ROW) across the New Jersey Meadowlands, over Hackensack and Passaic rivers, as well pass through densely-populated neighborhoods. The nearly 9-mile (14 km) long shared-use linear park/rail trail will encompass nearly 135 acres (55 ha) and will average 100 feet (30 m) in width. Running between Jersey City and Montclair it will pass through Secaucus, Arlington in northern Kearny, North Newark, Belleville, Bloomfield and Glen Ridge.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
