Surely "Grave Pointe" is the obvious joke.

BTW, a few NYC people pointed out to me that the biggest barrier to JC for them is not the name but the 2x/hour late night PATH service and lack of cabs. Which I kind of agree is a big drawback. If that changes, the mass exodus will begin.

Part of what's funny to me is that so many parts of Manhattan now are so painfully NOT cool - it's like Starbucks, Starbucks, Best Buy, Starbucks, generic panini cafe, Starbucks, J. Crew, Cosi. Why would you pay so much rent to live somewhere indistinguishable from Michigan Ave. in Chicago?

That's a fair point, but I guess it exceeded my expectations so I was happy - I was expecting a condescending piece with preconceived ideas about how Jersey City is cheesy compared to New York, and instead I thought we got a fairly accurate picture of dojo. I mean let's be honest, Jersey City is a good place and it's worthy of comparison to NYC neighborhoods, but at the same time it's not exactly the new nexus of cutting edge art and culture, unless I'm really missing something.

I didn't take it to be particularly snarky, in fact I thought the part about how fast gentrification in NYC moves now was very well thought out and honest. I do wish they could have gotten better photos - there IS something snarky about that shot of Oasis.

It's a good piece. A few inaccuracies (the city did not "seize" 111, the landlord merely prevailed in his long eviction battle, and there is definitely more than one restaurant on Newark Ave.), but I thought it really captured the feel of downtown JC and its "renaissance" or whatever you want to call it.

I liked the part where he talks about being in WALDO one minute and the next feeling like you're in "downtown Toledo." So true, although I have a strange fondness for the awfulness of the name "Hawaii Cup-O"

In fact I took an almost 2-hour walk around downtown this morning, as I like to do on a nice weekend day, and I'm always invigorated by the aesthetic variety of the area, from the breathtaking yet sterile waterfront walkway to the Williamsburg-esque boutiques and restaurants around Grove to the stately brownstones around Van Vorst to the un-gentrified Queens vibe of Newark Ave.

I have to say I'm a bit of a doubter about JC being the site of the next art/music explosion - there's some good stuff here but it always feels more scattered and less like a real scene. Maybe I'm just out of the loop though. I would certainly like to get more involved with whatever local music scene there is.

The article clearly says "non-violent" crimes!

I can understand your concerns as a landlord, but don't you think it's a little unfair if someone's pot conviction from when they were 17 is hurting their job prospects nine years later, especially if they haven't committed any other crimes?

Then again, I'd rather just decriminalize marijuana altogether.

I fully support this. And the headline writer should be fired.

Considering how often I've nearly been hit in crosswalks (and even nearly hit someone once or twice) - I wouldn't be surprised at all if the kid was crossing at the corner. Even if he wasn't there are other ways it's possible that the driver was partly at fault (could have been speeding, not paying attention, etc.) I just wouldn't jump to any conclusions one way or the other.

GET YOUR DAMN KID OFF MY MERCEDES!

Oh #OOPS# off. It's a 10-year-old kid for crying out loud.

Shady = of a certain shade, perhaps?

(OH NO! IT'S THE RACE CARD!)

Quote:

What, exactly, is a shady kid, and why would you expect not to see them around anymore if law enforcement were ramped up?

Quote:

The rich ones maybe - who can afford Hoboken on an entry level salary?

Anyway, it's annecdotal, but I knew only one person who moved to Hoboken from Rutgers and probably over a dozen who came here.

Haha. Nice.

Quote:

If you mean Rutgers alums, it's been like that for a few years at least. When I graduated in '02, JC, Brooklyn and Philly were pretty much the three places to go.

Aw, come on guys, picking on a college journalist?

To be honest, the writing is much better than most of what I remember from the Rutgers-NB paper (The Targum) -- I'd say this kid has potential. If I were the editor I would have removed a few things - projecting onto "the yuppies" what they think about their DnD is a little unfair. Still, it's not a bad snapshot of Downtown - I think it captures something.

Never much cared for Chelsea Piers, South St. Seaport, etc.

I'm not a big fan of putting "entertainment complexes" in cities - as with urban shopping malls, you're creating a fake downtown where there's already a downtown, not to mention sucking more life out of the city when you should be pouring more into it.

I guess maybe if it's family-oriented it will fill a different niche though.

Maybe The Jewish Museum can open an annex in the Maneschevitz building

Quote:

That makes perfect sense. It's a very good point.

The statistic COULD be misleading - if sales are way down, the median sale price could still be up, especially if the higher end homes are selling more easily than the mid-level and lower-end stuff.

Just purely annecdotally, from checking Craigslist ads from time to time, I got the impression that JSQ, Heights, and other neighborhood prices were coming down a lot more than downtown, but I could be wrong.

Despite what you may want to believe, the overwhelming majority of that U.S. population growth is happening in suburbs, and very little of it is in urban areas.

The vast majority of New York City's population growth has been due to immigrants in the outer boroughs - people who do not likely buy luxury condos.

Of course these facts don't preclude the possibility that there is overwhelming pent-up demand for apartments in this specific area (some claim there's a massive shortage in Manhattan).

But I think what's probably going to happen is that you're going to wind up with at least a few years where there's a huge surplus of inventory and condos don't move. Then it'll be a matter of whether the developer has the balls and the funds to wait things out until the market picks up again.

One of the more interesting things about Delivered Vacant is that it ends right around when the Hoboken started to cool for a while (obviously it eventually picked up again). The bigger developer the film follows winds up going bankrupt, and the smaller one ends up losing money on his brownstone-rehab projects. People always assume the developers know what they're doing, but there's no guarantee of that.

But clearly JC is far closer to Manhattan than some parts of Brooklyn that have made themselves destinations. Heck, Chelsea wouldn't have been much of a definition a few decades back either.

I don't understand why anyone would actively oppose the idea of JC making itself a destination when it's in such a prime location to do so, being 15 minutes from Manhattan and in the middle of one of the most densely populated and affluent areas in the country.

As for (the old) 111, well, I have mixed feelings about what went down there, but it's over. Ideally, I'd prefer to see a Koolhaas building AND a warehouse full of artist studios. But I'd rather have a Koolhaas building than a decaying, vacant warehouse, no matter how scummy the owner is.

Either one is better than a Powerhouse wasted on a Barnes and Noble and a sportsbar.

The problem is that "blighted" is a very vague standard, and also a very temporal one (a property can be blighted at one time but then fixed up). And the potential for abuse is just VAST. I mean what's to stop a city from neglecting an area, failing to enforce code, allowing crime to run rampant, and then declaring it "blighted" so certain friendly developers can take it over? Even barring outright corruption, this certainly would provide an easy way for a city to sweep away a poor or working class area, avoid having to deal with its issues, and increase its tax base. I mean I know it'd be extreme for a city to do this with an entire neighborhood, but it could easily happen to a few blocks.

It's a terrible, terrible standard, and I'm glad some State Supreme Courts are realizing that. I hope New Jersey's will too.

Arguing about whether a particular property would be "nice" to redevelop or "beneficial to the community" is entirely missing the point.

The Supreme Court ruling effectively gave power to seize property for what they deem to be economically beneficial reasons. But this is such a vague standard that it leaves the door open for municipalities to take virtually any propery they deem "in need of redevelopment" and do whatever they want with it.

Though there will obviously be cases where this produces good results, the overall precedent is far too dangerous and gives municipalities way too much power to seize people's property. Potential for abuse is too great, especially with developers already doing so much backroom politicking with city governments.

It's sort of analogous to the way I feel about some of Bush's domestic spying programs -- of course I'm in favor of spying on terrorists, and if you could show me a program that didn't have such a high potential for abuse of power, I'd support it.

Let's just hope the architect he hired is better than the arsonist he hired.

I find the taking of land by eminent domain for "redevelopment purposes" quite sickening.

Some state Supreme Courts have already struck it down as against their state constitutions (in spite of the US Supreme Court's ruling that it's perfectly ok).

Quote:

I don't know what gives you the right to speak for "the left," but as a part of "the left," I'm happy to see people like this locked up.

I just don't think we should be clogging the system with kids caught with a little bag of pot.

Whoa - I thought it was pretty obvious that NONE of the facade of 111 was going to be preserved. I thought it wasn't a "rehabilitation" at all, since the historic designation was stripped. Am I wrong? I could be, but it's A LITTLE hard to imagine squeezing all that gallery space and all those condos into that little building.

Sloppy reporting on the Ledger's part, in any case, since the guy was clearly looking at the wrong building (the one next door is yellow. 111 is clearly red).