well I lived at 450 palisade for many many years. I wouldnt live there again or on that block if they paid me. IM me if you are going to see these places tonite.

It's not a horrible place. there is the park right across the street that of course draws the younger generation, however, compared to where you live now I would totally move to this area. there's the washing machine's right on the corner and they close about 10 pm.

also remember that right on palisade and griffith I believe is where that landlord tried to bomb the place...so again be careful and try to read NJ.com for updates on this area.

My then-boyfriend and I used to park in JC (near the current Grove Pointe) when going into NY when we lived in New Brunswick. We'd also go to Uncle Joe's a ton where he played in his band at the time.

When we decided to move in together 5 years ago, we only considered JC. We rented a 2-bedroom on Jersey, near 6th, which we loved. Then last year we got married (at the Loew's) and bought on 5th st, near Monmouth. We avoid the topic of where we'll go next...for now, we're just excited and consider ourselves fortunate to live where we do.

I heard Toll Brothers will have multi color chalk available on the sidewalks for the Artists.......

Team Healy will stay there. They backed the 8MM loan so now they need to support the hotel.

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How is this area?

I am lviewing an apartment tonight on this block. I currently live by LSP and am looking for a neighborhood that actually has places to eat/drink.

I don't live in a bubble and realize there is crime everywhere but I am afraid to walk 2 blocks away from my apartment (aka go across Pacific Ave) in my current neighborhood. Would like to be able to take my dogs for long walks again...

Thank you so much to those who organized this! I really enjoyed riding through JC and with a large group of people (which I had never done before). Yes, it was a little slow at times, but I had a great time!

Appellate court approves three towers in Powerhouse Arts District; appeal to Supreme Court contemplated

Monday, May 24, 2010
By MELISSA HAYES
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A developer will be able to move ahead with a 950-unit, three-tower project in Jersey City's Powerhouse Arts District, based on a ruling by the Superior Court Appellate Division.

But the residents who brought the case against Toll Brothers and Jersey City could still appeal to the Supreme Court to hear their case.

City attorney Bill Matsikoudis sees the decision as a big win for the city.

"The Appellate Division's decision completely vindicated the city's planning process and also held that a modification to a redevelopment plan does not require a re-blighting, which would be a significant impediment to urban redevelopment," he said.

But Michael Kates, an attorney for the Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association, said his clients are still weighing their options.

"I think that's an interesting case that the Supreme Court might take," he said.

At issue is an amendment to the 2004 Powerhouse Arts District Redevelopment Plan to allow Toll Brothers to build three towers in excess of 30 stories - two at the former Manischewitz factory site at Morgan Street and Marin Boulevard and one across the street at Morgan and Warren streets.

The association filed its lawsuit in 2008 challenging the city's ability to allow the development in an area that was originally envisioned as a mid-rise haven for artists.

The original plan incorporated existing warehouses, calling for buildings of no taller than 10 stories filled with "live/work" units for artists.

Superior Court Judge Barbara A. Curran backed the city's plan and the Powerhouse Arts District Neighborhood Association appealed. The Appellate Division issued a written decision last Monday affirming Curran's decision saying that changing the plan, "was neither arbitrary nor capricious, but rather adequately reasoned and grounded in the record."

The amendment will allow Toll Brothers to demolish all but two historic facades and build 950 residential units, of which 12 would be live/work artist units and 32 would be affordable housing.

The plan also calls for a 550-seat nonprofit performing arts theater and a $1.1 million donation from the developer to run it; plus a gallery space and a 24,000-square-foot outdoor public plaza.

quote from NYT article above:

A building on 118th Street is one reason that the parents who are Perkins?s constituents know that charters can work. On one side there?s the Harlem Success Academy, a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade charter with 508 students. On the other side, there?s a regular public school, P.S. 149, with 438 pre-K to 8th-grade students. They are separated only by a fire door in the middle; they share a gym and cafeteria. School reformers would argue that the difference between the two demonstrates what happens when you remove three ingredients from public education ? the union, big-system bureaucracy and low expectations for disadvantaged children.

On the charter side, the children are quiet, dressed in uniforms, hard at work ? and typically performing at or above grade level. Their progress in a variety of areas is tracked every six weeks, and teachers are held accountable for it. They are paid about 5 to 10 percent more than union teachers with their levels of experience. The teachers work longer than those represented by the union: school starts at 7:45 a.m., ends at 4:30 to 5:30 and begins in August. The teachers have three periods for lesson preparation, and they must be available by cellphone (supplied by the school) for parent consultations, as must the principal. They are reimbursed for taking a car service home if they stay late into the evening to work with students. There are special instruction sessions on Saturday mornings. The assumption that every child will succeed is so ingrained that (in a flourish borrowed from the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, a national charter network) each classroom is labeled with the college name of its teacher and the year these children are expected to graduate (as in ?Yale 2026? for one kindergarten class I recently visited). The charter side of the building spends $18,378 per student per year. This includes actual cash outlays for everything from salaries to the car service, plus what the city says (and the charter disputes) are the value of services that the city contributes to the charter for utilities, building maintenance and even ?debt service? for its share of the building.

On the other side of the fire door, I encounter about a hundred children at 9:00 a.m. watching a video in an auditorium, having begun their school day at about 8:30. Others wander the halls. Instead of the matching pension contributions paid to the charter teachers that cost the school $193 per student on the public-school side, the union contract provides a pension plan that is now costing the city $2,605 per year per pupil. All fringe benefits, including pensions and health insurance, cost $1,341 per student on the charter side, but $5,316 on this side. For the public-school teachers to attend a group meeting after hours with the principal (as happens at least once a week on the charter side) would cost $41.98 extra per hour for each attendee, and attendance would still be voluntary. Teachers are not obligated to receive phone calls from students or parents at home. Although the city?s records on spending per student generally and in any particular school are difficult to pin down because of all of the accounting intricacies, the best estimate is that it costs at least $19,358 per year to educate each student on the public side of the building, or $980 more than on the charter side.

Hi does anyone know the average salary of a condo super of a 50 unit building?

also is it required to have a full time super in a 50 unit building in NJ?

Thanks in advance

Wes Moore on ?The Other Wes Moore?

JC resident?s bestseller explores two men with same name, different paths

by Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter Staff Writer

Right now, a Jersey City resident named Wes Moore has a successful job working at Citigroup in their global markets division. He has been a Rhodes Scholar, a captain in the U.S. Army, a White House Fellow, and has spoken at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. He is also the author of a new book, ?The Other Wes Moore? (Spiegel and Grau, April, 2010) that debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List last month at number 5 for nonfiction.

The ?other? Wes Moore, as referred to in the title, is serving a life sentence without parole at the Jessup Correctional Institution in central Maryland in connection with the 2000 murder of an off-duty Baltimore police officer.

_____________

?After he finished reading, he told me how impressed he was by how I got the facts right.? ? Wes Moore
________


So how did two men ? both of whom were born in Baltimore (albeit three years apart) and raised in single-parent households ? have such different paths?

Moore, 31, explores this in his first book, as well as the convergence of their paths and the realization of how both men could have had the other?s life.

?The chilling truth is that Wes?s story could have been mine; the tragedy is that my story could have been his,? Moore writes in the epilogue of the book.

Moore in an interview last week said he was ?thankful? that the book has resonated not just with African-Americans or even with people who had upbringings similar to his and the other Wes.

?I am thankful that people who are reading the book understand the point to the book,? said Moore, ?that this book is about much more than two kids, that it is much more than one neighborhood; it is about all of us.?

Moore continued, ?It is the choices we make in our lives, and the people who help us make those choices.?

Moore is on a book tour that takes him this week to Atlanta, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. When he is not traveling, he lives with his wife Dawn at their home in the Port Liberte community on the Jersey City waterfront.

Seeing himself in the other

Moore first encountered the other Wes in 2000. It was in an edition of his hometown Baltimore Sun newspaper where there was a short article about himself ? then a graduate of the local institution, Johns Hopkins University ? being named a Rhodes Scholar, a prestigious, international award given to those who pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford in England.

The newspaper was also running an article about the death of Bruce Prothero, an off-duty Baltimore police officer who was killed while trying to stop some robbers of the jewelry store where he worked, and about the four men who responsible for his death.

One of them was also named Wes Moore.

After earning a Rhodes Scholarship, the author Wes Moore went on to Oxford, where he earned a degree in international relations. Yet the story of his ?doppelganger? never left him.

?Two years after I returned from Oxford, I was still thinking about the story. I couldn?t let it go,? Moore writes in the book. ?If you?d asked me why, I couldn?t have told you exactly.?

Whatever the reason, Moore started a correspondence with the other Moore, and learned a lot about him that suggested some eerie parallels.

Eerie parallels

Both lost their fathers at early ages. Wes the writer saw his father collapse in front of him, while Wes the prisoner hardly saw his father at all. Both also moved around with their families, whether in different areas of one town or to different cities. And both began to get into trouble at an early age.

But the author Moore found salvation after his mother enrolled him in a Pennsylvania military school, which began him on the path that he continues to take. The other Moore never had that fortune, and drifted into a life of crime.

So what did the prisoner Moore think of the book about their similar, yet radically different existences?

?After he finished reading, he told me how impressed he was by how I got the facts right,?

Moore said. ?The other reaction he had, after reading the book, was he was amazed at how little he has done with his life ? which was tough to hear.?

To learn more about the book, http: the otherwesmoore.com.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.

Good article in NYT about Race to the Top program:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23Race-t.html

I think Obama is ready to back up this Governor and any Mayors who will stand up to the NJEA . . .

The participants of Teach for America have got new ideas, experience, and are ready for new challenges, like superintendent. There is somebody waiting to come in and do a better job than Epps for half the pay. Let's find him/her and give them a chance.

I rode down Newark Avenue Yesterday during the Bike tour and Still Have not noticed any changes. This Street is a mess, the city should really do something about getting ride of all the crappy stores on the street. This area has no chance.

That statue is compelling and unapologetically unique. My favorite statue in JC.

For those of you keeping track...it has been confirmed that I am the missing boy in blue!

Hello,
I was a long time Hoboken resident, 1989 - 2008, where I rented then owned a condo. When my boyfriend and I were looking to move in together, we decided to choose JC over Hoboken on the grounds of more space for the money. We moved to the Hamilton Park neighborhood in 10/08. I thought I'd never leave Hoboken and was amazed how quickly I fell in love with JC. I wish I'd moved here sooner.
Now we are about to get married and about to close on a condo by St Peters College, where we hope to remain for some time.

Hello,

Any updates on the bidding and when work might start? Thank you.

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So if the Powerhouse isn't restored and used as a shopping/performance center, what should it be used for? Do you want it knocked down or something? I bet half the people on this forum want the government to spend millions of dollars restoring it, and then build a bunch of high-end apartments and studios in it to rent to struggling artists for $200 a month... It's absurd to me to see so many people on this forum who are against any sort of project that will bring economic benefits to the area. Not to mention it brings new things for the people living around it to experience. These kinds of projects should be encouraged, not fought against.

As for the "misplaced dilettantes" - I'm sure you don't know 1/1000th of the steps and processes that are required to make a project such as this happen. You're calling these developer amateurs, which is very far from the truth. All of these people complaining about how slow it's going are just ignorant. I wish it could move faster as well, but there are many complicated problems that are very challenging and time consuming to solve. It doesn't happen overnight, but when it does, it's going to be a great thing for Jersey City.

After six months of hard work, the Ward Tour was a total success. We originally were hoping for a 100-150 riders which ballooned into about 600 registered participants. Will have exact numbers later this week. Best part was the horde of bikers coming back via Montgomery Street (video coming soon) to Exchange Place. Look forward to actually riding the Tour next time as some of us had to stay behind for set up. Hope everyone had a blast!

If interested in participating in future events, join and follow us via Twitter, Facebook and Google Groups available via Bike JC.org

Again, thanks to the JCPD, Dancing Tony for scheduling One and Nines and the Subway Surfers, Grove Street Bicycles, all the participants, sponsors and of course, all the Bike JC volunteers!

More pics:
Rob
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rob3_nj/sets/72157623998189545/
JCI
http://www.jerseycityindependent.com/ ... al-jersey-city-ward-tour/
Marc
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcfrydman/sets/72157624121651200/

Got photos or videos? Send a link over to Damian@BikeJC.org

Who would stay at a hotel at that location? I can understand the Westin at its location. But why would a person stay at this particular location? There are more convenient options for both business in Newport and NYC.

It was an awesome experience! Huge kudos to all the organizers and JC PD! I am so impressed how smoothly everything went.
Sure, could have ridden with faster speed, but that is kind of a mute point for such a wonderful experience.

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I hear you man!! It's been a trying experience finding something appropriate. Plus you have to navigate a minefield of sleazeballs everywhere.

Grassroots community space, though I'm not sure they're available till 12.

Nice ride. But slooooooooooooow was an understatement.

You don't have to have a race at 20mph...
But you could at least make it to 10 !
5 is just ridiculous.

Hopefully the next iteration they will work out the kinks and have an adequate pace.

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So?
Where did you go, and did the French Toast measure up?

I think you owe us the follow-up post.

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bring your own cheese? no reason any BBQ spot should have any on hand

Live in NJ and work in NYC, so need to pay NY state tax.
Wondering whether tuition fee can be used to deduct NY tax.
Thanks a lot for help!

Lincoln Park is not anywhere near JSQ.

JSQ has no park. We have little kids playing in the street and at the JSQ PATH station on that little patch of grass by the Jackie Robinson statue. And yet, none of the plans I have seen ever refer to a park.

For that matter, why don't they open up the EMPTY LOT as a park for the summer? We couldn't get stimulus money to make a temporary park until construction starts? The existing fence could be locked at night.

I would love to get rid of Nidia Lopez, but why are we recalling these people? What is the legal basis?

marco and pepe gets my vote.

I Just wanted to commend who ever put together the JC Bike tour my friends and I had a great time. Hopefully next year we can make it into a fundraiser for the community. Job well done.