Peter Gillen, a four-term Township of West Milford Councilman celebrates his 88th birthday with his children Mary Ellen Gillen, P.J. Gillen and Ryan Gillen at Murphy’s Tavern, Greenwood Lake Village N.Y. (
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Elected to a Township of West Milford Council seat for four terms (1975-1987) while working as an Operating Engineer crane operator in New York City (1955-2005), Peter Gillen is fighting aging problems with a positive attitude.
He recently celebrated his 88th birthday at Murphy’s Tavern at Greenwood Lake Village N.Y. Pete’s late parents, Marion and Peter Gillen Sr. living in New York City, wanted to move to the country. Responding to a New York newspaper advertisement for sale of a bungalow in West Milford N.J., they bought a house built by the Genader family from Jersey City in the 1920s.
Mary Nicolai Genader, in her early 60s, died in 1936, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. Family members sold her house to the Gillens. Two years later, Marion Gillen was expecting her first child – and so was Verina Mathews Genader. The nearest hospital and maternity doctor were at St. Joseph Hospital, Paterson. The women were driven there together throughout their 1938 pregnancies and they both delivered sons that year – Peter Gillen, Jr. on April 10 and Joseph Arthur Genader on May 24. The children were lifelong friends until Joe died in 2006.
Pete married the late Patricia Ryan of Brooklyn, N.Y., a Wall Street secretary, at her home church on June 22, 1968. Their three children are Mary Ellen Gillen, P.J. Gillen and Ryan Gillen. Pete, confined to a wheelchair because of loss of a leg, still lives at his home, originally purchased by his parents, where Mary Ellen and Ryan care for him.
He served in the U.S. Army overseas as an assistant to U.S. Army Chaplin priests. A West Milford special police officer (1968-1993) Pete served on the Passaic County Democratic Committee for 55 years (1964-2019).
Like his father, Pete was an Operating Engineer crane operator. He drove to work in New York City daily and helped build the World Trade Center and the lower level of the George Washington bridge. The World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, was built between 1966 and 1975. The north tower 417 miles tall (1,368 feet) and the south tower 415.1 miles tall (1,362 miles) were the tallest skyscrapers in the world until 1996 construction of Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The core complex cost of the World Trade Center was estimated at $400 million. Terrorists destroyed the towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
On his way to work each morning before daybreak, Pete, driving his vintage Chevrolet, for many years took an envelope from a box outside my home and delivered it to Paterson News editor Bob Levine, who met him outside the old landmark Paterson News building at 143-145 Ellison Street. I was a correspondent covering West Milford, Ringwood and Wanaque news. After attending school board and council evening meetings I typed reports and put them in the outside box. Pete took the envelope with the stories to Levine who saw to it that the meeting news from the night before was published in the afternoon-early evening newspaper delivered by trucks throughout North Jersey towns. There were no computers. Years later, the building housing the Paterson Evening News for 60 years, was razed and a new building, at News Plaza was the final home of the paper when publication ended.
