Benedict R. Nicosia, a former Red Bank mayor and Superior Court Judge, died on July 7. He was 101.
Born on December 30, 1920, Nicosia could be among the last elected officials to have lived during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. He ran for mayor on tickets headed by John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
Nicosia was serving as planning board chairman in 1960 when made his first bid for mayor. He came within 49 votes of ousting George Gray, the Republican incumbent.
Gray declined to seek re-election in 1962 so that he could become a county court judge and Nicosia ran again. This time he won by 212 votes against Republican Clarence Gale, a school board member.
Running with Nicosia in 1962 was 32-year-old Daniel J. O’Hern, who was making his second bid for a seat on the Red Bank Borough Council. O’Hern later served a mayor, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and from 1981 to 2000 as an associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
He became the second Democrat to win the mayoralty in Red Bank. Katherine Elkus White won the post in 1950 and served three terms before Gray unseated her in 1956. She won 47% in her 1960 congressional run against Rep. James Auchincloss and was nominated U.S. Ambassador to Demark in 1964. (Her father, Abram Elkus, served as U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire under Wilson and she lived in Constantinople as a teenager.)
Nicosia won a rematch with Gale in 1964, winning re-election by about 875 votes.
Demcorats won two of three council seats – John Arnone was the lone Republican winner — giving them control of the borough council. Johnson carried Red Bank by roughly 1,650 votes, 65%-35%. Red Bank gave U.S. Senator Harrison Williams a 20-point win, but Republican Marcus Daly eked out a 40-vote plurality over Democrat James Howard, who was elected to Congress that year.
In 1965, Nicosia became one of three Democratic candidates for the State Assembly.
Alfred Beadleston (R-Shrewsbury), a former Assembly Speaker (he later served as Senate President), headed the Republican ticket, running with James M. Coleman, Jr. (R-Asbury Park) and Joseph Azzolina (R-Middletown).
Incumbent Patrick McCann, Jr. (D-Middletown), who had won a 1964 special election after Assemblyman Clarkson Fisher (R-West Long Branch resigned to become a Superior Court Judge – he later served on the U.S. District Court – ran with Nicosia and Freehold attorney Samuel Sagotsky. (Sagotsky’s cousin, Harry, was the Freehold borough attorney and Republican municipal chairman.)
Beadleston (67,003), Coleman (66,120) and Azzolina (62,641) captured the three seats, defeating McCann (61.035), Nicosia (57,642) and Sagotsky (54,958).
Nicosia did not see re-election to a third term in 1966 and backed O’Hern as his successor. Arnone defeated O’Hern that year but lost a rematch in 1968.
He made a second bid for a State Assembly seat in 1969, after redistricting created a new district in part of Monmouth County. He ran with former Freehold Democratic Municipal Chairman Richard O’Connor against Republicans John Dawes (R-Freehold) and Joseph Robertson (R-Spring Lake Heights). Dawes (41,016) and Robertson (39,695) easily won the two seats against O’Connor (29,807) and Nicosia (27,513).
Gov. Brendan Byrne nominated Nicosia to serve as a Superior Court Judge in 1978. He served on the bench for ten years and was the presiding judge of the criminal division for the from 1995 to 1988.
After his retirement, he was of counsel at the firm of McKenna, Dupont, Higgins, Stone and Washburne. The name partner in the law firm, Edward McKenna, also served as Red Bank mayor. Nicosia retired in 2011 at age 90.
Born in Brooklyn, Nicosia had lived in Red Bank since 1923. He was a lightweight boxer before joining the U.S. Army Signal Corp during World War II. He graduated from Rutgers University and Rutgers Law School.
His wife of 71 years, Dorothy, predeceased him. He is survived by his two daughters.