Twp. bulldozes last two squatters’ homes
Don’t ‘romanticize’ deplorable living conditions, official says
BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer

The tiny blue-trimmed house in the Hopelawn woods behind Pathmark was crafted by its maker to resemble a castle — something out of a fairy tale.

Despite its origins and a 13th-hour effort by various people to save it or buy it, there was no way to save the house built 17 years ago by Hopelawn squatter Pink Bellamy. Woodbridge Township bulldozers razed the final two squatters’ dwellings last Wednesday night without fanfare.

“They were like thieves in the night,” said one former woods resident, who refused to give his name. “What’s the point? It’s all over now.”

The township had left a notice at each of the shed-sized, squatters’ shacks in January, stating they had until March 1 to get off township property or be deemed trespassers. But Bellamy was still living in his on March 1.

“See that,” he said on the first day of March, pointing to snow on the ground. “How do they expect me to move in these conditions? They gave me ’til March 15.”

March 15 found Bellamy packing his belongings into milk crates but still living in the woods.

“They’re not coming today,” he said. “I figure they would be, but they gave me a couple more days. I’m not going to cause no problem. I’ll just walk on out, but how the hell they can put someone out in the middle of winter …”

The other five squatters who had shared the 2.3 acres of woods between New Brunswick Avenue and the Route 440 connector with Bellamy had been placed in transitional housing by that Tuesday.

But Bellamy was far from alone.

Some 50 feet away, Joe Hing Lowe, an artist from Cranford, sat painting Pink’s countenance. The house stood in the background of Lowe’s painting.

“We’re here trying to preserve this little house on canvas,” Lowe’s wife, Darla Jung, said. “Mr. Bellamy did a magnificent job of building it. We just think it’s astounding. The artistic value of the house is so very special.”

The couple read a newspaper story about Bellamy’s home and the township’s plans to knock it down.

So Lowe and Jung traveled to Woodbridge, thinking they could perhaps buy the house, Jung said.

She expected to find the house in a fairy tale setting, Jung said. But what she found in the woods was not what she expected.

“It’s mind boggling,” she said. “This is so very sad. No human should live like this. I’m happy to hear the township is helping these people. That is so much more important than any structure or anything.”

As Lowe and Jung were painting Pink, a constant stream of visitors and reporters could be seen trekking the few hundred yards between the opening in the chain link fence in the supermarket’s back corner, up a dirt hill and along the railroad tracks to Bellamy’s home.

Michael Kopek, of Perth Amboy, said he had befriended Bellamy a few days before.

“He’s a really friendly guy,” Kopek said. “I feel real bad for him.”

Kopek carried a copy of Weird New Jersey, a collection of stories published in the late 1990s.

He opened to a page that featured a story about Bellamy’s home. Bellamy had signed his name in block-like letters at the bottom of the page.

“I don’t know why they don’t relocate [the house],” Kopek said. “He spent all this time building it.”

Township officials decided not to relocate or sell Bellamy’s home for two reasons, Business Administrator Robert Landolfi said.

“Number one, it’s not a house,” he said. “Number two, it’s irrelevant.”

Bellamy’s fairy-tale castle wasn’t a house, it was a “shack,” Landolfi said. “You have to put into context what you had there. There was a great deal of squalor. Those people had physical and emotional problems. They obviously didn’t have adequate housing.”

Bellamy’s home was romanticized and made into something it wasn’t, he said.

Sharon Simon, who lived in Bellamy’s home for three years, disagreed.

She described the inside of Bellamy’s home as “cute” and said it looked like a “doll’s house” inside and out.

“There was no real structure to it,” Landolfi said. “There wasn’t any substantial framing, even if we wanted to move it. There was no foundation. It rested on top of a dirt floor.”

Despite several phone calls from interested buyers, the township for philosophical reasons could not sell the home Bellamy had built with crumbled sidewalk cement and his bare hands, Landolfi said.

“You can’t take his shack and remove it from the overall environment,” he said. “It glorified and romanticized the living conditions there. It was deplorable. He had no place to go to the bathroom. Where do you think he went to the bathroom?”

Bellamy managed to survive 17 years in the woods without a bathroom.

“That speaks to him,” Landolfi said. “Glorifying it is making it into something it’s not. Why would people want to perpetuate that? A lot of people say they want Pink’s house, but nobody said they’d take the house and Pink. Nobody wants the squatter in their back yard, but they’ll take the squatter’s hut.”

Bellamy was escorted out of the woods Tuesday evening, Landolfi said at a recent Township Council meeting.

The next day, he was still in the woods.

Simon said she and Bellamy did not leave the woods until 10:30 Wednesday night.

He is now at a local motel, but Landolfi won’t give details.

The township will put Bellamy up in a motel until “all his cards are in order,” Landolfi said. Literally.

A driver’s license, Social Security card and Medicare card are forthcoming for Bellamy, Landolfi said.

“Pink did not accept public housing,” Landolfi said. “We’ll keep him in housing until all his credentials are in order. We can’t force him into public housing, but we can give him the opportunity to make a good decision.”

Bellamy’s identification cards are due in about a week, Landolfi said.

Simon was placed in senior housing two weeks ago, she said.

Thursday evening, just before dusk, curiosity seekers were still coming to Hopelawn with hopes to glimpse Bellamy’s famous creation.

“That’s what we came here to see,” Mike Nazzaro, of Iselin said.

When all Nazzaro saw was a gaping hole where Bellamy’s house stood only hours before, he expressed disappointment.

“That sucks,” he said. “I wanted to see that house. Even if I met the guy, that would’ve been cool.”

Nazzaro was accompanied by his friend, Jason Thomson, also of Iselin.

“If he was here for that long, why would they bother him?” Thomson asked. “Why didn’t they just leave it alone.”

Last Tuesday, Bellamy had said he would wait out the winter in Woodbridge, but once the weather warmed, he was headed for Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“It will be sad, but let them take it,” he said. “I look forward to the future. I got friends. I got money. I have no strings attached. I’m free as a bird.”

Bellamy’s only concern he said was for his four cats.

“They’re so independent,” Bellamy said. “Cats are like some people, too. They struggle to be independent. I’m pretty much like that as a person. People try to make a celebrity out of me. All I’d really like is to be left alone and get out of here.”