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MOONACHIE — Daniel Gonzalez, 29, lives in the Vanguard Mobile Homes and said Sandy's destruction has wrecked the lives of many residents without lifelines.

Gonzalez has been unemployed for two years and said about half his neighbors living at the trailer park are also out of work. It goes without saying that most folks don't have home or flood insurance, he said.

"It's devastating," said Gonzalez, standing barefoot in the waterlogged street wearing a black jacket and black cargo shorts.

As Sandy barreled through New Jersey on Monday night, floodwaters from creeks surged into trailer park communities like Vanguard Mobile Homes, located off Moonachie Avenue. Gonzalez has lived there with his wife, Heather, and stepson for two years.

Parts of Moonachie Avenue were still under three feet of water today.

The intersection of Moonachie and Washington Avenues is still completely submerged. Some SUVs have plowed through the water while other cars divert through a waterlogged Sunoco gas station where pumps are shut down. But most cars just back up and turn around.

Jeff Monk, 33, found both his cars completely destroyed this morning.

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He and his girlfriend, Ele, along with his 7-year-old son Nathan, walked up and down the street trying to figure out what to do.

The two cars were filled with water, he said.

"The cup holders were full of water."

Gonzalez had just finished rebuilding the deck for their home on 5th East Street in time for Heather's 32nd birthday on Sept. 12. But the flooding ravaged his home, separating the hammered wood on the deck. The waters picked up and moved his shed to an entirely different spot, he said.

It all happened so fast, Gonzalez said.

Around 10:30 p.m. he had ducked out to go to the store. Soon he returned home and was having a cigarette outside when the waters came rushing.

"The water came up so fast," he said. "There was no time to evacuate."

All they had time to do was throw valuables like his wife's work portfolio, family albums and his stepson's video games up onto the couch and bed. Then the family and Gonzalez's sister, Elizabeth, went to Heather's parents who live in the park farther from the creek.

Power was out but they stayed up all night, Gonzalez said. He worried about the four tall trees surrounding his trailer.

"I was here all last night through the worst of it. I'm not going to leave now," he said.

Complete Hurricane Sandy coverage

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Faropoint is continuing its foray into North Jersey’s red-hot industrial sector, picking up a last-mile logistics center in the Meadowlands for 35 percent more than it traded for a year ago.

The Israel- and New Jersey-based investment firm acquired a 62,000-square-foot property at 121 Moonachie Avenue, about two miles north of the Meadowlands Sports Complex, for $17.7 million. Digital printing company Content Critical is the building’s sole tenant.

The seller was Valley Stream, New York-based Triangle Services. Property records show a Triangle Services affiliate acquired the building for $11.5 million in December 2020.

The deal comes three months after Faropoint’s acquisition of a 10-building industrial portfolio across Bergen and Morris counties from Kushner Companies for $132.5 million. At the time of the sale, the portfolio — largely made up of last-mile properties — included more than 654,000 square feet and was a combined 98 percent leased.

In a statement, Faropoint’s Orry Michael cited a lack of supply and growing demand for industrial assets in northern New Jersey as reason to believe rents will continue to grow from the all-time highs recorded last year.

Benefits of the Moonachie Avenue property include its proximity to Interstates 80 and 95, easing access throughout the New York metropolitan area.

A Meridian Capital Group including David Schechtman and David Benharouch brokered the deal.

Faropoint said it spent more than $730 million last year on 144 industrial buildings totaling 8.5 million square feet across the country. The firm expects to double that spending this year. It has collectively raised about $700 million in equity capital over the last three years and aims to raise a third fund with $750 million in the coming months. The firm also plans to increase its headcount from 70 employees to 120.

Few industrial real estate markets in the nation are hotter than northern New Jersey’s. Average asking rents for its industrial properties rose by 23 percent in 2021 to $10.85 per square foot, according to Savills Research, and are even higher in submarkets like the Meadowlands.

Net absorption across the region hit 15.8 million square feet for the year, more than double that of the previous year, while the vacancy rate was just 2.3 percent.

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Johnny Meatballs - he of the black spiky hair, dark shades and abundant chest hair spilling from his open white shirt - is telling a visitor why his meatballs are special, and why he should have been included in Inside Jersey's Meatball Issue.

"Tomatoes - lot of people swear by San Marzano tomatoes,'' says Johnny DeCarlo. "But I use only La Fede tomatoes, from Jersey (Passaic, actually).''

Wait, there's more.

The meatballs are made from beef, pork and veal, and are enlivened with caramelized onions.

"That's the secret,'' says the 32-year-old, who grew up in Palisades Park. "Lot of people just put in raw onions. The caramelized onions kick it up, give it a little sweetness.''

When you go by the name of Johnny Meatballs, you better make good ones, and Johnny's are pretty good. He sells his meatballs on the Jersey feast/festival circuit during the summer.

This time of year, you can find him at the Lost Brothers food truck on Moonachie Avenue in Moonachie, just off Route 17 and just down the road from Teterboro Airport.

Johnny's meatball obsession started from childhood; he ate them constantly as a kid.

"I could have been Johnny Macaroni or Johnny Sunday Gravy but I figured it all starts with the meatballs,'' he says.

Also working inside the truck is Frank Antipasto, aka Frank Appollo, who makes his Frankie Antipasto sandwich - hot and sweet sopresata, fresh mozzarella, sharp provolone, roasted red tomatoes and sun-dried tomatoes on Italian bread from Venice Bakery in Garfield.

Oh, and don't forget Frankie's excellent Oh My Garlic Dressing - a garlic/oil mix drizzled over the meat and cheese.

"I don't like dry; I like juicy and dramatic,'' Appollo says.

The two met on the festival circuit; if DeCarlo looks familiar, it's because he appeared on the VH1 reality TV show "My Big Friggin' Wedding.''

"I'm normal,'' Johnny Meatballs insists. "He's a little more nuts than me,'' he says of Frankie Antipasto.

And check out our redesigned mobile site by visiting NJ.com from any mobile browser.

The truck is owned by Howie Stern, who also uses it as a mobile pizzeria. The Lost Brothers truck can be found at 106 Moonachie Ave., Moonachie. It's open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. See the Lost Brothers Facebook page for more information.

Peter Genovese: (973) 392-1765 or [email protected].

MOONACHIE, N.J. – The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is New York’s iconic welcoming of the holiday season, and it brings something new every year.

“I don’t think that there’s anything like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Paradee,” said Director of Production Operations Kathleen Wright. “You really can’t top that feeling on Thanksgiving morning.”

In the upcoming 97th annual parade is a suite of new floats, like some from candy companies Brach’s and Wonka.

“We have ‘House of Sweets’ by Brach’s, which is a really fun, whimsical sweet float featuring giant, oversized pieces of candy,” said Wright. “We also have the ‘Deliciously Delectable’ Wonka float that will be in the parade this year. Almost 600,000 pieces of candy.”

Parade watchers can warm up to a new campsite float, ‘Igniting Memories,’ from Solo Stove. “It looks like it’s a moving campsite down the parade route, which is so fun in and of itself, but to see a campfire moving down the parade route in New York City, it’s just a really fun element that I think all of our fans will enjoy on Thanksgiving morning,” said Wright.

Of course, it’s not a parade without Snoopy, Charlie Brown’s best friend who is taking on a new persona this year as Beagle Scout Snoopy. Also, back for another parade, New York City’s own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While they are veterans of the parade, they’re riding on a brand-new float for 2023.

“‘Mutant Mayhem’ going to be back in the City, all of the turtles going to be on the float this year,” said Wright. “A lot of fun animation on that float, it won’t disappoint.”

There’s so much work behind the glitz and glamour of the parade that makes it possible, something that’s not lost on executive producer Will Coss, who is back for his third year running the iconic display.

“As a native New Yorker and someone who grew up with it, I fully understood the weight and the impact that this parade has because it’s had it on me,” said Coss. “I took that as an opportunity to lean in and to continue to find new ways to evolve the work that we’re doing.”

With performances by Cher, John Batiste, and more, Thanksgiving morning can’t come soon enough.

An essential element of one of New York’s most iconic events is right here in New Jersey.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade—which organizers expect to be “closer to its original form” this year after 2020’s scaled-down festivities—snakes through the streets of Manhattan each November, but the creative process happens at the Macy’s Parade Studio in Moonachie, located in Bergen County.

The 72,000-square-foot facility is a veritable “fantasy world,” where about 30 artisans work year-round to create the parade’s iconic floats, massive balloons and flashy costumes, says Rick Pomer, creative director for Macy’s Branded Entertainment.

“Soup to nuts, it’s all there,” he says of the studio, which moved to Moonachie in 2011 from the old Tootsie Roll factory in Hoboken. “It’s incredibly overwhelming how much creativity and imagination is at hand.”

On a typical day at the studio, the action starts early—around 7 am. Most artists and makers have more than one skill set, says Pomer. A sculptor, for example, might also paint, while a welder might have carpentry chops, too. At any given moment, one person might be sculpting giant blocks of foam in one area of the warehouse, while another is sewing costumes.

With 30 employees and a massive studio space, social distancing was never an issue, even in pre-pandemic times. Now, the facility requires masks and daily wellness checks for everyone working in-house on the upcoming 95th annual parade.

Each year, the team typically makes between four and six new floats, and between three and five giant balloons. The several dozen being reused are stored in a different, nearby facility, and are given touchups and refurbishments as the parade draws closer. Work on the 2021 parade began almost immediately after Santa gave his final wave at the 2020 event.

Among the new creations this year are a four-story-high balloon of 8-year-old Ada from the Netflix series Ada Twist, Scientist, and a Heinz gravy boat “floa-lloonicle,” a new type of creation that is part float, part balloon and part vehicle (and features some pretty fun-looking “gravy pirates” aboard). Then there are the perennial favorites, like Snoopy, the longest-running character balloon in the parade,

After the parade elements are completed in New Jersey comes the difficult task of transporting them into Manhattan. So how is it done?

“Everything is built in New Jersey and needs to go through the Lincoln Tunnel,” Pomer says. “They’re big, 3 1/2 stories tall. That’s not going through Lincoln Tunnel as is. Everything has to collapse to 8 1/2 feet wide by 12 1/2 feet tall.”

After a “giant convoy of trucks” takes the pieces through one tube of the tunnel, which is shut down to other drivers, they are reassembled on-site in Manhattan the night before the parade.

The action kicks off on Thanksgiving Day at 9 am at Central Park West and 77th Street. There are 2.5 miles of public viewing spots along the route, which ends at the Macy’s flagship in Herald Square. Vaccinations are not required for the general public watching the parade live, but vaccinations are required for volunteer participants and staff (with a few exceptions) that day.

The parade airs live on NBC, with Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker hosting.