Quote:

Or

IN THE DARK EVEN NATURE THINKS GREEN IS IT

i have got to stop thinking about this.....

My first thought was that this was a pretty odd letter coming from a defunct '80s Gansta Rap group best known for "F_uck tha Police". After using the Google, I still thought it a bit odd that the President of a 501(c)3 would use her organization as a soapbox to engage in politics.

Sadly, the letter speaks for itself.
Quote:

Quote:

Those are great pictures!

You can see it here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ensel/322079219/

I think it's meant to be understood as

EVEN IN THE DARK NATURE THINKS GREEN IS IT

PS 28 is a fine school: you won't be disappointed. If you want to meet parents and talk about their experiences there, just go over at dismissal time and introduce yourself. I have never been brushed off- other parents love to talk about their kids and schools. Just like you. You will be surprised at the similarities. The vast majority have the same concerns as you.

I wonder if this store will also close at night/weekends like Au Bon Pain. It would be nice if it stayed open but I guess the foot traffic at that time is low over there.

Sweet, I wonder if Sonia will claim Vivien stiffed this one, too.

Thank you for the feedback - I never know where to go for this stuff. I just joined this group on Yahoo groups, so I feel a little better, too... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jcschools/

What about some of the 'listers' or neighborhood groups install webcams themselves, so anyone can access them from the internet?

You could watch a loved one walk past points from the PATH to home!

They should use the quality of life fines to help supplement costs for new CCTV cameras.

People should not expect full privacy in a public place. However I do believe the public should have the right to review any data captured by these cameras. Perhaps this could fall under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act).

Cosi Will Open Second City Eatery

By Eric Peterson

JERSEY CITY, NJ-Fast-casual eatery chain Cosi has taken a 4,000-sf space in the ground floor of One Exchange Place, a 10-story office building in the heart of this city?s downtown financial district. The signing marks the Deerfield, IL-based chain?s second store in Jersey City, joining an existing outlet at 535 Washington Blvd. in the city?s Newport section on the waterfront.

The signing was the third in Northern New Jersey orchestrated by brokers from Metro Commercial Real Estate as part of Cosi?s bid to expand in the New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware markets. Jeff Lagowitz and Tom Butera of Metro Commercial?s Fort Lee, NJ office represented both Cosi and the owner of the building, One Exchange Place Associates, an affiliate of the locally based Mercury Properties. Terms were not released.

?This location for Cosi is situated in a high-traffic area,? Lagowitz says. ?The location draw from the nearby PATH light rail station and NJ Transit stop, as well as the downtown workforce.?

Overall, the signing marks the sixth Cosi location in New Jersey, which operates nearly 120 company-owned and franchised restaurants in 16 states. The One Exchange Place building, located at Montgomery and Hudson streets, meanwhile, is a landmark building in this city, dating to 1920.

http://www.globest.com/news/860_860/gsrnortheast/158780-1.html

Even more TV news on the trash dumping- This time ABC

=======================

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=5115262


Cameras help reduce crime in Jersey City

WABC Eyewitness News

(Jersey City - WABC, March 12, 2007) - Seven years ago, Jersey City police installed 68 closed circuit cameras to help fight violent crime.

But lately those cameras are catching something else, a crime that affects all of us.

New Jersey reporter Toni Yates has details.

The cameras are not only recording video, but watchful eyes are making a difference 24 hours a day.

If you're not looking for them, you barely notice them: Closed-circuit video cameras. They are part of Jersey City's neighborhood watch against crime.

"Monitoring, especially after stores close, and the avenue after-hours or early morning, I think it could do nothing but help," store owner Mark Ull said. "I have no problem with it."

The camera caught a worker illegally dumping a restaurant's garbage into a city receptacle, not once, but twice. The business was fined.

The images are monitored 24-hours a day in an operations room in an undisclosed facility. Police say the cameras have helped make Jersey City safer and more livable.

"We have made arrests on prostitution, drug dealing, there's been robberies, there's been homicides and aggravated assaults," Jersey City Deputy Police Director Juan Perez said. "It's a tremendous tool that law enforcement is using."

Nearly 70 cameras are already in place. Several dozen more are on order. And while many say the cameras are a good idea, no one is taking safety for granted.

"You still have to be alert," Jersey City resident Cheryl Mayrie said. "You still have to make sure you're looking behind your back."

The cameras have made such a huge impact in the last seven years that police say they're getting requests from residents asking that the camera be installed in their neighborhood.

They say the technology is too expensive to fulfill all the requests.

(Copyright 2007 WABC-TV)

300-Unit Condo Project Gets Under Way

By Eric Peterson - globest.com - March 12

Hamilton Square

JERSEY CITY-Construction is under way on Hamilton Square, a mixed-use project that at build-out will combine 300 residential condos with 24,000 sf of ground-floor retail space. A first phase of 126 loft-style condos and the retail space is slated for delivery later this year, with an initial offering of the residential units scheduled to start in April.

Hamilton Square, which fronts this city?s two-acre Hamilton Park, is rising on the site of the former St. Francis Hospital in Downtown. The project, the cost of which hasn?t been released, is a combination of adaptive reuse of the old hospital and new construction.

?We?re restoring the seven-story, 1920s building on the corner of Erie and Ninth streets,? says Eric Silverman, a principal of the locally based Exeter Property Co., developer of Hamilton Square. ?And an 11-story building on McWilliams Place and Pavonia Avenue will be converted to condominiums and retail space in our initial phase. This is a new chapter in the history of this address. We plan on continuing the prominence of this property by creating this mixed-use building. This is a neighborhood rooted in history, family and architecture.?

Designed by Charles Jordan or the New York City-based H. Thomas O?Hara Architect, Hamilton Square will incorporate a number of elements of the property?s prior use. The site plan also calls for underground parking, and some of the residences will have private balconies or terraces with views of the Jersey City and Manhattan skylines, according to Silverman. The building is also being redeveloped to ?green? standards.

Part of the plan for the initial phase calls for Pavonia Avenue, which has been closed off since 1970, to be reopened as a cobblestone street for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The reopened street will lead to one of the project?s main residential lobby entrances.

As far as the retail space, ?negotiations are currently under way? with several potential tenants, Silverman says. While declining to name possible tenants, he notes that potential uses include a private gym, a restaurant and bar, a noodle shop, bakery, pharmacy and a bank branch.

http://www.globest.com/news/860_860/newjersey/158779-1.html

Feds say fugitive shot man in '77

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JERSEY JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

HOBOKEN - The old gang isn't seen much around Hoboken any more, thanks to the recent efforts of the FBI to nab the city's most notorious mobsters.

The latest arrest: Michael Coppola, 60, a reputed captain in the Genovese crime family, who was arrested Friday in New York City and charged in the 1977 killing of a mobster in Bridgewater.

Coppola was one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives, and he'd been featured on "America's Most Wanted" several times. Investigators had searched for him in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida, Canada, Italy and Costa Rica.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Coppola could be seen in Hoboken social clubs meeting with the likes of Michael "Tona" Borelli, 69, of Fort Lee, a reputed made member of the Genovese crime family, Peter Grecco, 70, of Woodcliff Lake, and infamous mob rat Peter Caporino, 69, of Hasbrouck Heights, Hoboken police sources said yesterday.

Borelli and Grecco are facing prison time after a federal probe into gambling and other rackets in Hoboken and Jersey City. Caporino, who cooperated with the feds in that case to avoid jail time on a gambling charge in Hudson County, faces jail time himself, as authorities said he continued his criminal activities even after the feds told him to stop.

Caporino wore a wire for the FBI for years and made one recording of Borelli in the "Company K" social club on Jefferson Street, where Coppola used to hold court. When Genovese boss Tino R. Fiumara was in prison and Coppola was on the run, Borelli and Lawrence A. Ricci ran the Coppola/Fiumara crew, says a report 2004 by the New Jersey Investigation Commission. Ricci was found dead in a car trunk behind a Union County diner in December 2005.

With the help of Caporino, Borelli and Grecco pleaded guilty in April 2006 to operating an illegal gambling business. "The Fiumara/Coppola crew is one of the largest and most resourceful Genovese crews operating in New Jersey," the state report says.

Coppola is accused of gunning down Johnny "Coca Cola" Lardiere outside the Red Bull Inn on Route 22 in Bridgewater in 1977.

Investigators believe Coppola drew a silenced .22-caliber pistol and pointed it at Lardiere - but the gun jammed. Lardiere then sneered at the hitman, "What're you gonna do now, tough guy?"

Coppola then drew a second gun from an ankle holster and shot Lardiere five times, authorities said.

Nine years later, DNA evidence and an informant led the FBI to Coppola, but he disappeared.

Coppola has been listed at or near the top of the state Division of Criminal Justice's 13 most wanted fugitives since the list was drawn up five years ago.

Newhouse News Service contributed to this report.

===================================

Alleged mobster hit man arrested

Man accused of killing Johnny 'Coca Cola' at Red Bull Inn caught in N.Y.

CELANIE POLANICK - Courier News Staff Writer - March 13

After more than a decade of searching, investigators have found and arrested the man wanted in the killing of Johnny "Coca Cola" Lardiere, who was gunned down at 2:34 a.m. on Easter Sunday in 1977 in the Red Bull Inn parking lot on Route 22 in Bridgewater.

Michael Coppola was arrested Friday in New York City and is being charged with first-degree murder. He will be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. today in state Superior Court in Somerville, in the chambers of judge Paul W. Armstrong.

Peter Aseltine, a press officer for the state attorney general's office, said through his secretary that the department will not comment on the investigation, other than to release the time and date of the arraignment.

Coppola, who is reputed to be the onetime captain of the Genovese crime family, disappeared from his Spring Lake home in 1996 after he was asked to submit a DNA sample in connection with the case.

His alleged victim was born Giovanni Larducci, but took the name John Lardiere. In Mafia circles, he was known as "Johnny Cokes" or "Johnny Coca Cola" -- some say it was because he wore Coke bottle-thick glasses when he was young or because he grew up near a Coca-Cola bottling plant.

Lardiere, 68, was believed to be a lieutenant of Gerardo "Jerry" Catena, once known as New Jersey's top mobster, and reputedly was involved in loansharking and labor activities. He also was linked to the 1971 disappearance of Teamsters Local 945 president Michael A. Ardis.

At the time of his murder, Lardiere, whose last known address was in Maplewood, was being held at the Clinton Reformatory for Women -- now called the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Union Township, Hunterdon County -- for refusing to testify before the State Commission of Investigation, a body begun in 1969 to investigate organized crime and corruption.

According to Anthony Bruno, a regular contributor to Court TV's "Crime Library" and author of several crime-related books, Lardiere wasn't known for keeping his mouth shut. The man "got under people's skin," Bruno said in 2005. A year after Lardiere was incarcerated, his wife died of arsenic poisoning.

During his more than five-year stay at the Clinton reformatory, one of the people Lardiere irritated with "his big mouth and in-your-face personality" was Ralph "Blackie" Napoli, a captain in the Philadelphia-based Bruno family, who was also sentenced for refusing to testify before the State Commission of Investigation, Bruno said.

On Sunday, April 10, 1977, Lardiere was granted a 26-hour furlough to observe the Easter holiday, along with Napoli, of Fairfield, and fellow accused mobster Louis Manna of Jersey City. Lardiere borrowed a car from a friend and arranged to meet a prostitute at the Red Bull Inn, Bruno said.

When he arrived outside his motel room, a man came out of the shadows and called out Lardiere's name. According to Lucchese crime family member-turned-informant Tommy Ricciardi, Michael Coppola was standing there, holding a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol fitted with a silencer.

Bruno, who interviewed several investigators and Mafia informants about the murder, said what followed has been talked about in New Jersey Mafia circles since then:

Coppola aimed the gun at Lardiere and squeezed the trigger, but the gun jammed.

Lardiere laughed and then, according to Bruno, said "the mocking words that would make him famous":

"What're you gonna do now, tough guy?"

The hitman answered by discarding the .22, rolling up his pants leg and pulling out a .38-caliber revolver from an ankle holster. Lardiere was shot five times -- twice in the head.

Police launched an extensive search for Napoli and Manna to warn them of the shooting, but neither man could be found until the end of the weekend, when both showed up at 9 p.m. and returned promptly to prison.

When Ricciardi entered the federal Witness Protection Program and testified for the state in 1996, the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office reopened the case. In the evidence vault, investigators found two items that had been discovered at a nearby U-turn on Route 22: an ankle holster and a baseball cap with several hairs in it.

With new DNA technology available, authorities believed they could now link Coppola to the 17-year-old murder. But instead of arresting him, investigators served him notice to appear in court in Somerville to give blood and saliva samples.

That was a big mistake, said Paul Smith, a retired supervising state investigator for the New Jersey Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau, in 2005.

Smith served Coppola the papers at his Spring Lake home. Coppola never showed for his scheduled appearance on Aug. 13, 1996 before a judge in state Superior Court, Somerville, and went on to be listed as the state Division of Criminal Justice's "Number One Most Wanted Fugitive."

In 2003, investigators in Florida received tips that Coppola was hiding out in the southwest region of the state and released a computer-generated photograph in hopes that local residents might recognize him, but investigators were unable to find him.

Coppola is believed to have communicated with his organized-crime contacts in New Jersey while he was a fugitive. In 2003, two reputed mob members pleaded guilty to conspiracy for communicating with Coppola between August 1996 and April 1999.

Investigators began recording phone conversations between him and former mob contacts, including his former prisonmates, and the investigation continued. No details were available about how investigators found Coppola.

Bridgewater police investigated the Lardiere murder at first, but gradually handed pieces of the investigation off to the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, then to the U.S. District Attorney's Office, then to state and federal agents, Bridgewater police Chief Richard Borden said.

"We were not aware that this investigation was going to occur -- we essentially handed off the case years ago," he said. "Obviously, this became part of a much bigger investigation on organized crime. I think every police officer and investigator who worked that investigation is retired now."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Celanie Polanick can be reached at (908)707-3137, or at cpolanick@c-n.com.

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... =/20070313/NEWS/703130301

====================================

3 years later, enmity has turned into ticket that spells black unity

Earl Morgan - Jersey Journal - March 13

Politics, like death, never takes a holiday, especially in Hudson County.

Which accounts for the dozen or so times former Jersey City City Council President and acting Mayor L. Harvey Smith was spotted Friday, cell phone in hand and deep in conversation, going to and from his seat at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation concert at New Jersey City University's Margaret Williams Auditorium.

The upshot of all that telephonic activity was yesterday's announcement that Smith has apparently kissed and made up with former adversary Sandra Bolden Cunningham, and will be a candidate for a 31st District state Assembly seat on a slate that includes Bolden Cunningham vying for the state Senate and Bayonne Councilman Anthony Chiappone, who is looking to recapture the Assembly seat he held from 2004-2005.

So, while the Duprees and the Manhattans belted out song after song during the concert, Smith was fielding calls about his political future from both current and wannabe political power brokers.

A press conference scheduled today at Bayonne's Chandelier Restaurant could yield some answers as to just how the conjoining of Bolden Cunningham and Smith was brokered.

When Jersey City Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham died in 2004, relations between his widow and Smith, who as City Council president became the acting mayor, were so acrimonious that Smith reportedly was barred from attending the funeral.

When Smith ran for mayor, against a crowded field that included eventual winner Jerramiah Healy, he certainly got no support from his predecessor's widow. Far from it; Bolden Cunningham allies Bobby Jackson and Joe Cardwell used the pages of their newspaper, the Urban Times News, to repeatedly savage Smith in support of their candidate, Willie Flood.

Smith supporters often point to Flood's candidacy as a key factor in Smith's loss in the mayoral race, since she supposedly siphoned off a substantial number of black votes from him in that election.

And here we are just three years later, with a press release announcing the Cunningham/Smith ticket - and the phone number on it ringing at the "executive office of the Urban Times News."

Smith and Bolden Cunningham could spin their candidacies as a "unity ticket," poised to bring the black community in Jersey City together by providing cohesive political leadership - something that certainly would be welcomed in the fractious political atmosphere of the city's black community.

On the other hand, we still have to hear from the Hudson County Democratic Organization - which in fact may be responsible for the Bolden Cunningham/Smith alliance because of Healy's supposed opposition to Smith.

So, in its own way, maybe it's the HCDO that brought political unity to Jersey City's black community.

Thought some of you might like to see their press release.

Althea
JC Family Initiative

CONTACT: Shelley Skinner FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JC Families for Better Schools
sleepygirlproductions@comcast.net
201-876-8470

CONCERNED RESIDENTS OF JERSEY CITY START NEW ONLINE GROUP TO FIGHT FOR BETTER EDUCATION OPTIONS
-- Calling On Individuals and Groups in Jersey City to Participate --

JERSEY CITY, March 12, 2007 -- JC Families for Better Schools (JCFBS) announced today that it is starting its own online group related to educational issues concerning Jersey City residents. This group will serve to gather and research information, as it pertains to education in Jersey City.

JCFBS is calling on all individuals, families, and organizations to participate in the organizing and networking of all those concerned about better education in our existing and future educational system. Through networking and organizing they believe they can create viable options and solutions to the current system. Included in this endeavor, is reaching out to school administrators, teachers, elected city officials, and other groups and individuals. JCFBS will support and foster a stronger relationship between community and educators in order to ensure change for the better does take place.

You may join the group by signing up on site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jcschools/ or sending an email to jcschools-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

?The dearth of good schools in Jersey City really has reached a crisis level for many, many families who love their community but see no opportunity for a high caliber education for their children. The choices are few. The exodus of families out of Jersey City is in full swing. I am tired of watching my neighbors and friends leave the city in search of better educational opportunities for their children in the suburbs,? says Shelley Skinner, JCFBS organizer. "As parents and citizens this is an opportunity to come together and make a meaningful change.?

About Jersey City Families for Better Schools
Jersey City Families for Better Schools (JCFBS) has been founded by community parents, who are deeply concerned about the shortage of quality schools in Jersey City. We have come together with a love for our community and a desire to raise our children with the highest quality of education possible. JCFBS is an organization representing a diverse group of parents, individuals, administrators and educators in Jersey City. For further information about JCFBS please log on to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jcschools/ or email us at jcschools-owner@yahoogroups.com.

Hey all, I got a tip that the Jersey Journal is going to cover the SOUP SWAP. It would be really great if we could have an excellent turnout.

So, if you've been on the fence about whether to make soup or whether to come, come on out!

Here's your chance at Soup Stardom!

Those are some good questions Dan. Also, how will the inevitable property revaluation effect all this. I believe the state requires revaluations every 10 years, though rarely do municipalities follow through until they are hit with a taxpayer lawsuit. It seems that the city will soon be forced into a revaluation:
http://www.nj.com/columns/jjournal/re ... 17143620571130.xml&coll=3

And if its anything like the 1989 revaluation, there is going to be a huge increase in property values:

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage ... 439F930A35756C0A96F948260

IMHO, the only mayor healy's master development plan is making the developer's happy. don't hold your breath, expecting much from healy and his cronies.

now, i understand that 111 1st street was a safety hazard and in bad condition. plus, i didn't think that building was very attractive or even worth saving. it wasn't very pretty to look at. i think the butler building on the other hand is very handsome and in need of preserving, just my opinion.

however, i do think that the architects could create a very aethetically pleasing building by preserving the core and building a tower atop the building. my main concern would be that they're not allowed to destroy a beautiful building by putting in a parking garage.

Like the project or not, we have a muncipal government that whether intentional or through inaction appears to be rejecting upwards of $10m to acquire and develop a park. A park that has the support of US Senator Menendez, our state elected officials and Hudson County Government.

What other city anywhere would turn this type of gift down.....

Is this not the real problem at hand. Is this not zoning by varience or spot zoning?

Zoning is/should be done via a Master Plan process and then detailed in the city's Land Use Ordinance or an overlaying Redevelopment Plan.

"Case-by-Case", is that really a term for by-passing law and making decisions on campaign funding and back room deals....

We are back to pre-redevelopment plan, re-zoning the area by variance and project, which leads to a break down and no zoning.....


Quote:

Couple of questions....

If the revenue realized is greater than the projections included in the tax abatement application, will the PILOT payment increase?

As rents and revenues increase over time or due to market changes, will the PILOT payments increase?

or is the 10% PILOT payment based only on projected revenues?

The last matzo
Manischewitz moves out of its Jersey City factory

Tuesday, March 13, 2007
BY VICKI HYMAN
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

Matzo, despite more than three millennia of mediocre marketing (what advertising guru came up with "the bread of affliction!," anyway?), remains the go-to baked good for Jews during Passover.

It's scriptural heed to partake only of unleavened bread during the eight-day celebration, which commemorates the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, so hasty that the Israelites did not have time to let their bread rise. Though the recipe is ancient, the familiar crispy squares that we eat today date back only to 1932, when the founder of the Manischewitz kosher food empire opened a plant in Jersey City that would revolutionize matzo manufacturing. (One big change: Matzo traditionally was round.)

Indeed, the worse-for-wear 6-story building that rises above the cobblestones of Provost Street was once the very model of a modern matzo factory. But today, 75 years later, the last matzo will roll out of the 120-foot-long, hand-fired oven, parts of which date back to the factory's founding. R.A.B. Food Group, once The B. Manischewitz Group, is relocating its matzo-baking to a more efficient facility in Newark.

"Everybody agrees it's bittersweet," says CEO Jeremy Fingerman. "It was a glorious history there. It was a factory that lived well beyond the age of many factories in America."

The factory is also one of the last industrial buildings still in use in this historic warehouse district, now an artists' enclave beneath the glinting towers of Jersey City's new waterfront. It's been an unobtrusive neighbor, the only outward indication of its mandate the smell of toast that wafted through the streets.

"I walked over the there one day with my mother to see if you could actually buy matzo there," says sculptor Nancy Cohen, who lives nearby. "You couldn't. The loss is only the loss of whatever manufacturing is left in that part of Jersey City."

Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz founded his company in 1888 in Cincinnati, but realizing that his Jewish base remained in the Northeast, he opened the Jersey City plant in 1932 and eventually moved all operations there.

On the top story, workers combine flour (100,000 pounds a day) and water in huge industrial mixers. Then the dough is shunted through the floor into a machine that rolls the dough into progressively thinner sheets, scores them, and cuts them into perfect squares.

The dough is fed on metal conveyor belts through the oven. Broken pieces or matzo that isn't entirely flat are plucked from the conveyor and discarded as the crispy sheets cool on their way to the fourth floor, where they are boxed.

For half the year, the factory produces "kosher for Passover" matzo, which requires even stricter rabbinic supervision to ensure that the flatbread goes from mixer to box in less than 18 minutes, as per tradition. At the start of the Passover matzo-making season, each of the thousands of bricks in the oven are scrubbed clean.

The new plant, in an old Rokeach facility in Newark, is all on one level, and the oven itself is larger and made of stainless steel, which makes cleaning easier.

As for the taste -- well, it's going to taste like matzo. (That's the good news and the bad.) Workers even tested the water to make sure there wouldn't be a discernible difference between Newark matzo and Jersey City matzo.

Some of the equipment from the old factory will be auctioned, but the bricks, perhaps 10,000 of them, may be sold to collectors. Some historical artifacts from the plant will make its way to the new facility, including a plaque dedicated to the sons of Rabbi Manischewitz on the plant's 50th anniversary.

As for the Manischewitz property itself, which lies in the Powerhouse Arts District, the company sold it to developer Toll Brothers, which hasn't formally filed plans for the site and wouldn't comment on its future.

But neighbors say the company has been shopping plans for more high-rise towers to city officials, who okayed a similar plan on the site of a nearby tobacco warehouse. (That's where the 52-story tower by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas will rise.)

Members of the Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association protested those plans, and worry that the Manischewitz property will go the same route, which they say is contrary to a redevelopment plan that envisions a low-rise art and entertainment district there, with lofts and live-work condos in the old warehouses.

Neighbors wouldn't be so sad to see the 1960s-era addition off Marin Boulevard bite the dust, but they're concerned about the original factory building.

"It doesn't take much imagination to see it's a beautiful building," says Richard Tomko, the president of the neighborhood association. "Yeah, somebody painted it yellow and boarded up a bunch of the windows, and the cornice fell apart. It doesn't look that great now, but the bones and skeleton are there."

? 2007 The Star-Ledger

Quote:

I think the real test will come this spring.

Last spring, we started freaking out here because the streets downtown were getting to be pretty chaotic, but I think the police calmed things down by early in the summer. (Or else the tough-looking guys converging on Hamilton Park
realized they were getting too much attention and voluntarily went elsewhere.)

ACTION ALERT: Call City Council NOW Tuesday, March 13, Tuesday!!

March 12, 2007

Dear Embankment Coalition Supporter,

Tonight (Monday March 12) at their Caucus meeting, the Jersey City Municipal Council considered a resolution in support of an application for a New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust (NJEIT) loan that would provide funds for the City to acquire the open space portion of the Harsimus Stem Embankment. There were many comments indicating it may not pass at Wednesday's Council meeting, unless there is a public outcry.

The NJEIT loan would provide almost $5 million to the City, 75 percent at NO INTEREST and 25 percent at lowest market-rate interest (about 1 percent), for twenty years. The loan would provide instant money that can be repaid by reimbursable grants already raised ($3.2 million), a pledge ($500K), and additional highly likely grant monies.

What you can do

Please call the following Council people between NOW and Wednesday, March 14, 5 p.m., and ask them to support the loan application. If you are pressed for time, skip Council President Vega and Ward E Councilman Fulop, who are expected to support the application.


Council President Mariano Vega, Jr., 547-5268
Councilwoman at Large Willie Flood, 547-5134
Councilman at Large Peter Brennan, 547-5319
Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano, 547-5098
Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello, 547-5092
Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski, 547-5159
Ward D Councilman William Gaughan, 547-5485
Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop, 547-5315
Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson, 547-5338

Suggested remarks to make to the Council people:

*Please support Resolution 10.j. supporting an NJEIT loan application for the Embankment.

*The City must be ready to acquire the Embankment when the Surface Transportation Board rules. This loan provides instantly available funds that can be reimbursed by awards and pledges already made and highly probable.

*The Council does not have to accept the money. This application keeps options open.

*Any increase in the City's debt ceiling is insignificant, considering the short period the City would use the loan before repaying it with grants.

*When the STB rules (any day now), the City must act with the money it has (open space), not the money it wants but does not have now and may never have (light rail).

*The Council directed the Administration to pursue acquisition. It should support loan and grant applications for acquisition, not weaken the City's ability to acquire the Embankment.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Meyer
Embankment Preservation Coalition

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

email: jmeyer@embankment.org
web: http://www.embankment.org

will make the calls, and will be there...

It is very important that we show the City Council that we support open space in our congested downtown area. If you cannot attend the Council Meeting, please call your Council Person and ask them to vote in favor of applying for the loan application.

The STB ruling is still pending and this loan would enable the city to act quickly in the event there is a favorable ruling. This loan would provide the immediate funding needed to purchase the Embankment and could be paid back with grant monies already secured. As I understand, 75% of the loan is 0% interest and remaining is approximately 1% interest for 20 years.

Also to clarify, the issue in front of the Council on Wednesday is to submit an application to apply for the loan. The next step would be to actually apply for the loan and then to use it when needed.

Here are the telephone numbers for the Council. Please call and have your friends do so too.

Council President Mariano Vega, Jr. 547-5268
Councilwoman at Large Willie Flood 547-5134
Councilman at Large Peter Brennan 547-5363
Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano 547-5060
Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello 547-5092
Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski 547-5159
Ward D Councilman William Gaughan 547-5485
Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop 547-5135
Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson 547-5338

A general call has gone out for all supporters of the Sixth St. Embankment to show up this Wed (March 14) at 6:30pm for the City Council Meeting.

What's at stake: The council is voting on whether they should submit loan applications for purchasing the Embankment. These loans would be readily re-paid for by promised grants from multiple state and local agencies who support the idea of an Embankment park. There is no risk to the city or taxpayers since this is a no interest loan and the city doesn't have to accept the money if granted.

Why you should show up: Because the City Council has shown very little will to extend themselves on this issue and your presence would let them know that a lot of people want to be represented by their elected officials.

Remember, this is a citywide issue, if they fail to act on the Embankment with all the support and money raised already, then many other public park projects and issues of fixing sloppy planning throughout the city would be in jeapordy as well. Let them know that you want to be represented as a resident and a voter.
Thanks for your continued support

Source: artnet.com

The Butler Brothers Warehouse was erected in 1905. Covering almost an entire city block, the E-shaped, nine-story warehouse features corbelled cornices, parapets, decorative brick banding and entirely brick bearing walls. It was designed by Jarvis Hunt, one of the country's greatest architects at the turn of the 20th century.

Hunt designed three Medieval-style warehouses for the Butler Brothers Company (suppliers of Five and Ten Cent stores nationwide and the company that sold Sam Walton his first store), the other two standing in Chicago and Minneapolis. Renowned for his work at 1893's Columbian Exposition (an architectural event that ushered in the American Renaissance), Hunt also designed the Kansas City Union Terminal, one of the world's largest train terminals; the Newark Museum in Newark, NJ; the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, now on the National Register; Chicago Golf Club Clubhouse; and the Lake Shore Athletic Club.

Sources
JC Landmarks Conservancy
Warehouse Historic District by Rick James
Civic JC