The Montclair Pod

Montclair needs a new electrical substation, and PSE&G is eyeing the site of the municipal building at 205 Claremont Avenue. We talk with Town Manager Stephen Marks and resident Glenn Pascrell and share the Montclair Center BID’s account of why an earlier Bloomfield Avenue site fell through. We also speak with Dave Placek, a developer who's got a stake in the matter. And, of course, PSE&am...

This week on The Montclair Pod, Farnoosh Torabi and Mike Schreiber sit down with the three candidates on the ballot for Congress in New Jersey’s 11th District : Rep. Analilia Mejia (D), Joe Hathaway (R) and Alan Bond, who is running under the label “Hope for Tomorrow.” With days to go before the Nov. 3 election, we asked Mejia and Hathaway the same questions on taxes, schools, small business, immi...

This week on The Montclair Pod, Farnoosh Torabi and Mike Schreiber ask what it takes to keep youth sports affordable in Montclair. Their reported package features Peter Daddabbo, who has spent 18 years helping run Montclair United Soccer Club; Michael-John Van Rhyn, who started Montclair Ultimate when his son couldn't find a middle school team; and the volunteers and donors who kept Clary Ande...

This week on The Montclair Pod, Farnoosh Torabi and Mike Schreiber revisit the Pod's first candidate forum, co-hosted with MPACT, featuring the six candidates running for three open seats on the Montclair Board of Education in the Nov. 3, 2026, election. They play two exchanges: how each candidate voted in the March school referendum, and what academic success should look like for Montclair st...

Six candidates. Three open seats on Montclair’s Board of Education. Who’s asking for your vote—and what do they hope to accomplish? In this bonus episode, The Montclair Pod partners with MPACT , Montclair Partnership for Accountability, Clarity and Trust, to host a forum featuring all six candidates: Andrew W. Gideon, Ayelet Haran, David Moon, Corey Pierson, Richard Reynics and George Simpson. Whe...

A nor’easter pushed Uptown Sound back a week, and it still drew a huge crowd. Mike and Farnoosh recap the festival and talk with organizers Dan Campeas and Dayana Ordonez. Plus, filmmaker Craig Schattner on his school-funding documentary Referendum, a What the Hell on the parking ticket cameras headed to Montclair, a shakeup in the Board of Ed race, Church Street comings and goings, and more. In t...

This week on The Montclair Pod, a chance encounter with Gov, Mikie Sherril, Montclair Film's Tom Hall previews the 2026 festival, and public tickets go on sale today. Plus: religious signs at a Bloomfield preschool, the lieutenant governor's resignation, a shuttle bus report, and the end(?) of the swim school saga. WHAT'S IN THIS EPISODE We're Signal Awards finalists! Vote for us f...

This week, Supper with the Super is basically doing double duty as What the Hell Is Going On With That? — Montclair Schools Edition. We sit down with Montclair Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Ruth B. Turner for a candid conversation about the first weeks of the new school year — and some of the biggest questions parents, students and taxpayers are asking right now. We get into the district’s fin...

This week on The Montclair Pod, we dig into how the school district quietly updated the middle school dress code — and the very loud debate it's kicked off among parents, students, and now the Board of Ed. We hear from the 8th grader at Glenfield Middle School who started a petition over it. We also check back in on freshman sports: the community raised enough to bring them back this year, but is...

This week, we sit down with comedian and Trump impersonator J-L. Cauvin — who also happens to be a full-time eviction prevention attorney and once ran for Congress in this district — to talk about his viral impression, why he never left the law, and what it was like campaigning against Anna Lilia Mejia. Plus: a Church Street development finally gets a tax-break green light, Montclair's water lines...

It's the first day of school, and we're digging into Montclair's new cell phone and Chromebook rules with Screen Aware Montclair co-founder Jordan Goldberg, breaking down the massive Meta settlement, and introducing you to Beltley — the brand-new "town" that popped up overnight in a field between Nutley and Belleville, whose founder has some choice words for Montclair. Plus: a loaded magazine (no...

This week on The Montclair Pod, the new school year is almost here — and there’s a lot changing inside Montclair’s schools. Farnoosh and Mike sit down with MPACT founding member Dan Hafetz to unpack the group’s new report on Board of Education governance, what stronger oversight could look like, and why it matters heading into a wide-open school board race with zero incumbents running. They also l...

Montclair's 07042 ZIP code just landed at #2 on Realtor.com's list of the hottest housing markets in the country — so naturally, we wanted to know: is this a bubble waiting to burst? We put the question to Professor Joshua Harris, a real estate economist at Fordham, and break down what's actually driving the numbers, including a wild bit of compounding-interest math on a Bellevue Avenue building t...

What does Upper Montclair need — and what should it look like in the years ahead? This week, we’re digging into the conversation about Uptown’s future, following a community meeting where residents and business owners weighed in on what’s working, what’s missing and what they want to see next. We’re also catching up on a busy stretch of Montclair school news: the long-awaited forensic audit is mov...

This week: Christian McBride stops by ahead of the Montclair Jazz Festival, Madonna's new single traces back to a Montclair DJ, and we get real about how (and when) we use AI on this show. In This Episode Christian McBride & the Montclair Jazz Festival Eleven-time Grammy winner and Montclair Jazz Festival artistic director Christian McBride joins us to talk about how he and his wife, Jazz Hous...

This week on The Montclair Pod:Church Street goes car-free (for now), Urban Outfitters quietly leaves downtown after 20 years, and our youngest correspondents ask Montclair what they’d change about their town — plus fried chicken, a music festival, and an ab robot. Urban Outfitters quietly closed its downtown Montclair store after 15+ years, the chain’s first-ever NJ location. We dig into why, wit...

This week, Columbia Journalism Review takes a close look at how The Montclair Pod became a go-to source for the school budget story, and where Mike and Farnoosh want to take the “Montclair-ish” format next. We also break down why Montclair only has about 13 liquor licenses for a town of around 41,000 people, and what that means for your next dinner reservation. Plus, two throwbacks worth a re-list...

Welcome to our World Cup Rehash. (Watch for special clips on YouTube) Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time at MetLife Stadium — and Montclair had a front-row seat. In this special reflection episode, Farnoosh and Mike step back from their nonstop World Cup coverage to look at what the last few weeks revealed: about the town's surprising love of soccer, about how hard it is for Montclair to coord...

Weird NJ founder Mark Sceurman stops by to talk all things weird in the garden state, not to mention the story of a Montclair poet obsessed with writing letters to the police, and three decades of chasing New Jersey's strangest stories — plus a visit from local zine Eighty-Six'd . We track down who actually owns the giant banner flapping over Bloomfield Avenue, sit down with MC Hotel owner Jeff Si...

With the World Cup playing eight matches down the road at MetLife Stadium and national teams bunking at the MC Hotel, Montclair business owners expected a boom — instead they got a shrug. We dig into who was supposed to own that moment (the BID? The township? Nobody?), welcome British Guy Living in New Jersey Ollie McAteer as our guest host, and break down the wildest real estate sale we've covere...

With 36 hours' notice, Farnoosh was asked to deliver the commencement address at Montclair High School — and we play you the full speech. We also debrief all the "this is so Montclair" moments from graduation day, debut our new Saturdays in the Park series with a remarkable chance encounter at Brookdale Park, and catch up on spiking real estate prices, a school principal shuffle, a stolen car on B...

This week on The Montclair Pod , we go inside a Board of Ed meeting that ran past 1 a.m. — and somehow still ended with a discussion about how to make meetings more efficient. We also hear from outgoing student rep Wyatt Foster, who's heading to Brown in the fall and has plenty to say. Then we sit down with Anne Mernin, Executive Director of Toni's Kitchen, about what the SNAP cuts in the Big Beau...

This week on The Montclair Pod , we're serving up a packed episode featuring school budget questions, local food news, community concerns, and a few major updates from around town. For the latest installment of Supper with the Super , we sat down with Montclair Schools Superintendent Ruth B. Turner at Turtle + the Wolf for an honest conversation about the issues residents are talking about most: t...

We have a very food-forward episode this week. We dive into our unforgettable dinner at Clementina, the new Adriatic-inspired Italian restaurant on Valley Road, and explain why we think it's one of the most exciting openings Montclair has seen in years. We share the remarkable origin story of chef and co-owner Michele Rocchi, whose dream of opening his own restaurant was sparked by an unexpected c...

This week on The Montclair Pod , we tackle some of the biggest conversations happening in town—from breakfast sandwiches to PrideFest, the World Cup, school finances, and a local immigration case that has touched many residents. The Great Montclair Bacon, Egg & Cheese Taste Test After asking listeners for recommendations, we embarked on a highly scientific (and cholesterol-heavy) tour of six l...