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brewster

Re: Time to buy?

#4381

Home away from home

Quote:

MDM wrote:
Keep an eye on the rental income value vs. the sale price. When I bought my first house back in 1997, property was cheap, mortgage rates were rather high (8%+), and rents were higher than today (especially after adjusting for inflation). It was a great time to buy.

It was a great time to buy in JC then, but I don't think we'll ever see rent ratios (price/yearly gross income) like that again. The question is what will we see. Rents haven't gone up 400% like property did, but the demographics HAVE changes significantly.

I wonder if there's any MLS archive to look up what the rent ratio's were in Hoboken in the early 90's, about where we are now in the last cycle. I just looked at a property with a rent ratio of 13,(+-1 depending on what rents you could actually get). In 97 you could buy under 5. We did.

Just to emphasize how different the times are now, a commercial mortgage back then was 9.75%!

Posted on: 2010/9/23 1:29

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brewster

Re: Gross Behavior by JC Police Officer Menendez

#4382

Home away from home

Quote:

robotjustin wrote:
Quote:

jerseymom wrote:
Quote:
Cops are no longer the civil servants of the 1950s. They are a state-sanctioned gang of mostly low-intelligence thugs.

...until someone is sticking a gun to your head and a cop risks his/her life to save you, that is.

What a crock. The odds of being HARASSED by a cop are 1000 -1 against being helped by one.

Probably not quite 1000-1, but there's truth there. The whole police thing (and the gun lobby's) of trading on civilian fear of violent crime is a sham. The odds of someone not involved in crime themselves being involved in criminal violence by a stranger is minute, and most minute in the suburbs and red states where the fear is greatest.

It happens, witness the poor woman slugged by some scumbag on 7th this week, but inside the small odds of a noncriminal experiencing violence, it's overwhelmingly likely to come from someone you know. So in that remote possibility of "someone is sticking a gun to your head", it's likely to be your relative. But "protecting you from your family" doesn't make a very good police slogan, nor do the cops have a very good track record at it, in fact they're notorious for their own domestic violence.

We read occasionally about timely police action, but for the most part they show up well after the robbery or mugging, take a report, and that's the last you hear about it. I'd love to know the JCPD clearance rates on those kinds of common crimes. Not that I think they could be solved by any city's PD, but it would give a more realistic metric of what most of us experience in dealing with the PD, and not the hyperbolic "someone is sticking a gun to your head" scenario. When was the last time JC had a real hostage taking anyway? A search of NJ.com shows only 3 news articles for JC+hostage in the last 4 years, and in one of those the perp with a gun was a JC cop. You just can't make this stuff up!

Posted on: 2010/9/21 2:01

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brewster

Re: Gross Behavior by JC Police Officer Menendez

#4383

Home away from home

Quote:

hamiltonparkjc wrote:
Brewster, NJ is a single party consent state. That wouldn't stand here.

Perhaps not, but that wasn't stopping the officer from making the very real threat of arresting the OP and causing him at the very least inconvenience and legal expense; likely damage to an expensive camera (or "what camera?"); and possible physical harm due to him "resisting arrest".

Had he gotten an audio recording of her tirade and verbal refusal to identify herself, can you doubt they'd figure out something to charge him with?

Posted on: 2010/9/20 18:25

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brewster

Re: Gross Behavior by JC Police Officer Menendez

#4384

Home away from home

Quote:

snowflake20 wrote:
While I really think this officer treated you really badly, I'm not sure if I'd appreciate it if I got into an accident and some random stranger started taking pictures of the accident and me and my family. Maybe you weren't taking picture of the people in the accident, but who is to say you weren't going to until the police officer screamed at you to put away your camera.

You may not appreciate it, but it's not illegal or unconstitutional, unlike the officers behavior. You should study the photographs by Weegee, the renowned crime photographer of the 30's and 40's.

There's some amazing recordings out there of officer misbehavior, which is what they're worried about. My favorite is the plainclothed officer in an unmarked, no flashers car who cuts off a motorcyclist on a ramp, leaps out with gun drawn and demands he get of the cycle without identifying himself as police. Had the rider been armed he might have given resistance to this "assault" and someone could have died. The rider who recorded it is now charged with felony wiretapping.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/watch?v=RK5bMSyJCsg

Posted on: 2010/9/20 16:19

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brewster

Re: Gross Behavior by JC Police Officer Menendez

#4385

Home away from home

Too bad you didn't innocuously flip the cam to video and capture the audio track of her tirade. That would have been fun to post.

I agree with your decision to comply eventually. Had you not, you could be facing not just all sorts of trumped up charges but perhaps a significant dental and orthopedic bill.

This is not just the cops running wild. From the buildings inspectors to the parking drones, there are city officials out there making it up on the go and violating our rights as a matter of course. We either have to comply with their nonsense, or be willing to spend thousands on lawyers to protect our constitutional rights, something I had to do recently. I found it money well spent.

Posted on: 2010/9/19 18:23

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brewster

Re: Police Salaries_Star Ledger

#4386

Home away from home

Quote:

Yvonne wrote:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010 ... salaries_rank_highes.html

I'M SHOCKED!!!..................that there are actually real journalists working anywhere in NJ. Kudos to them for a fine article.

Posted on: 2010/9/19 16:26

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brewster

Re: McNair Student is National Merit Semi-Finalist

#4387

Home away from home

Quote:

K-Lo wrote:
I guess I should be used to threads being diverted elsewhere.

I do wonder though whether this list is exhaustive. I know that there were several finalists in my son's class at McNair. I can think of at least three off the top of my head. On top of that, using the PSAT as a metric for how well both McNair and Hudson are educating their students is a bit bogus.

I was wondering that too, but was unable to find the master list for our area like I found for central Jersey. More failures of our journalists. But I concluded that if there were more they would have reported them. That's 2 winners for a county of over 600k.

As for the test, there's no way to reach an uplifting conclusion. Either it's a measurement of how a community and it's school system succeeds or fails to prepare & develop it's students, or it's a measurement of innate gifts, which means JC is innately less intelligent than most other places.

I prefer the first choice. But that means there's plenty of blame to spread around. What I won't accept is the "culturally and economically biased test" crap. All those kids in Edison are either immigrants or children of them. Imagine the work it takes for them to score highly in the verbal section. I'll bet the message in their homes is "education 1st!", not videogames, sports or other diversions. Lincoln freaking NEBRASKA is the same size as JC and has 21 qualifiers! You can't tell me this is about economic privilege in wealthy suburbs.

We can contemplate this, or shrug - think happy thoughts- and trundle along the path of mediocrity, led by Mr. Epps, the mediocrat in chief.

Posted on: 2010/9/16 19:39

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brewster

Re: McNair Student is National Merit Semi-Finalist

#4388

Home away from home

Quote:

K-Lo wrote:
Can we just be happy for Georgia and Anschel without bashing anyone or anything else?

Sorry K-Lo, I know you are personally involved in improving the schools, but we can't pass up an opportunity to have a meaningful dialog about what our schools are realistically accomplishing and to shake people out of their complacency. I'm certain there are plenty of people in JC who don't realize that one semifinalist for a city of 1/4 million is a pitiful performance, not an achievement to be proud of. Apparently our local journalists are among them.

Posted on: 2010/9/16 17:57

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brewster

Re: McNair Student is National Merit Semi-Finalist

#4389

Home away from home

Congratulations to them, but I'm sorry, one for all of JC is not that impressive. I don't remember the numbers for my ordinary HS on LI, but it was pushing a dozen, and my wife's HS in northern Wisconsin had 8.

It's not easy to find local HS details, but look at this page of central NJ schools with several to more than a dozen semifinalists, and these are not elite "test in" schools, just ordinary high schools in ordinary towns.

Edison's John P. Steven High School has 26!!!

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/CN ... Merit-Scholarship-Program

The low test scores relative to other elite schools or even some regular schools are why McNair is even included in the magazine national HS rankings unlike similar schools like Bronx Science or Stuyvesant. They're given a bye because the SAT scores show them simply to not be in the same class as those schools. And despite the high ranking from the number of AP classes that are offered, this test result shows them not to be in the same class as many ordinary NJ high schools.

I want my kids to get into McNair because it's the best we have, but lets keep their achievements in perspective and not lower our expectations of what our kids are capable of. As it stands the cream of JC can't compete with an ordinary suburban school, and that's plenty of food for thought.

Posted on: 2010/9/16 3:16

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brewster

Re: Muni Code for Range Hoods

#4390

Home away from home

Quote:

bodhipooh wrote:
Nothing in the municipal code seems to explicitly require a hood as part of dwelling unit. The relevant municipal code would be the following:

Article VI (Minimum Standards for Basic Equipment and Facilities)

I seem to recall hearing that if the kitchen didn't have a window it needed at least an unvented filter hood, but I can't verify that.

Posted on: 2010/9/13 22:25

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brewster

Re: Mariano Vega resigns

#4391

Home away from home

Quote:

milkbone wrote:
We must use this opportunity to appoint a real leader of honor, and bring the winds of change to the cancel chamber.

Nice Freudian slip!

Given that the replacement will be appointed by the same bunch that barely managed to avoid indictment, don't hold your breath for "honor". We'll be lucky to get someone who can tie their shoes without a HCDO handler.

Posted on: 2010/9/13 20:44

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brewster

Re: Mariano Vega resigns

#4392

Home away from home

Quote:

Charon wrote:
I wonder if this indicates that Vega has cut a deal with the Feds to give up someone else ? Or is it simply another cynical move to allow Healy and the Council to pick a successor.

In any event, Vega is a complete scoundrel.

I'm sure it was the latter, just another move in the HCDO game of never throwing away a card that could be played well to gain them power and influence. Now they have something to be traded and owe Vega for sitting tight giving it to them. Sounds a bit like Blagojevich: ?I?ve got this thing and it?s f?-ing golden, I?m not giving it up for f?-ing nothing. I?m not gonna do it.?

Posted on: 2010/9/13 18:51

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brewster

Re: Can landlord 'force' me to renew my lease?

#4393

Home away from home

It's a good question if a landlord can force a lease renewal on a tenant in a 3 unit and over building. I don't know. The "grounds for removal" section of the state code doesn't address refusing to sign but paying a reasonable rent increase.

I DO know it's an ridiculous thing to force on the landlords part IMO. We let all tenants who want to go month to month after the first year. With 8 rentals it really does nothing for us to know that a particular tenant MIGHT be giving us notice next month. 30 days is 30 days whether at the end of a lease or month to month. But I guess we're not control freaks.

We've found being flexible comes back at us. We've often managed to rent a vacancy in good condition with no lost month with the outgoing tenant's good will & cooperation.

Posted on: 2010/9/12 23:32

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brewster

Re: HUGE GAS LINE COMING? Companies look to run natural gas pipeline through Jersey City

#4394

Home away from home

When I heard about the San Bruno explosion my first thought was that it may finally put a stake through the heart of this pipeline plan. An explosion in a residential area isn't paranoia.

So they'll have to suck it up and buy a couple miles more underwater pipe than they planned. I'm sure they'll find a way to recoup the cost at the customers expense.

Posted on: 2010/9/12 23:08

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brewster

Re: Please stop the huge 9/11 memorial at LSP - it will ruin the park's views of the Manhattan skyline!

#4395

Home away from home

Quote:

I_heart_JC wrote:
does anyone remember the Richard Serra wall o' steel in downtown NYC? it was only 12' x 120', yet big enough to drive the neighbors nuts and demand its removal. it eventually came down. maybe it'll just take a decade of looking at this LSP atrocity for people to come to their senses.

Richard Serra's ill-fated Federal Plaza wall.

I lived a couple of blocks from that plaza, and boy was that thing oppressive. It made a large public space uncomfortable and ugly, just like this LSP monster will.

If anyone has photos of the LSP space from before the hill and fence were put up, I'd be happy to photoshop a rendering of what this will look like from OTHER angles, like maybe from the park on the other side of the canal or from the ferry docks.

Posted on: 2010/9/8 15:17

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brewster

Re: Please stop the huge 9/11 memorial at LSP - it will ruin the park's views of the Manhattan skyline!

#4396

Home away from home

Quote:

hero69 wrote:
I stopped going to LSP becasue the last time I went there were no trees for shade. I'd rather go to a park with shade trees but now I will explore LSP again

I'm no expert, but I've guessed all the tree they planted on the "lawns" near the water and playground are stunted because they didn't put down much topsoil when they converted it from brownfield, and the rubble landfill underneath retains no water. Just look at that parched excuse for a lawn.

The tree contractors the city uses are also notorious for poorly prepared plantings. The trees around McNair are continuously wilted and have barely grown in 13 years, clearly they have no access to groundwater.

Posted on: 2010/9/7 20:20

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brewster

Re: Please stop the huge 9/11 memorial at LSP - it will ruin the park's views of the Manhattan skyline!

#4397

Home away from home

Quote:

hero69 wrote:
Why don't they plant some trees in on a man-made hill or something to honor the 9-11 victims

Are you being ironic? Or do you not know there already IS a NJ 9/11 memorial in the park, called the Grove of Remembrance, with trees planted for every NJ victim. But apparently it's in too good taste for the promoters of this monster.

Posted on: 2010/9/7 18:40

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brewster

Re: Please stop the huge 9/11 memorial at LSP - it will ruin the park's views of the Manhattan skyline!

#4398

Home away from home

Quote:

icechute wrote:
What I still cannot believe is the fact that this design was chosen at all.

And not because anyone may think it's unattractive or in the wrong location, but for the simple fact that the "empty sky" it supposedly frames will soon be anything but empty.

Forget "view corridors" and aesthetics; this design fails on a basic conceptual level which is what the base-line of good memorial design should aspire to.

Great point, but this whole juggernaut is beyond logic, or aesthetics, it simply is a political Frankenstein's monster, apparently unstoppable because people who will never visit this park want it there.

Posted on: 2010/9/7 15:17

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4399

Home away from home

Quote:

Tash wrote:
heights Quote:

What do you want next to be powered and dipered ? These are the kind of clerks you will get in the Nyc area. We're rough & gruff overb here in these here parts.

Point well taken ( I still remember change being thrown at me at McDonalds in Times Sq), yes it is JC, and it is no Manhattan or Hoboken and attracts an unpleasant working crowd. However(,as in Times Sq experience,) SR accommodates such a large volume that customer service is its lowest priority. SR have picked up on speed in the past years, but I bet only because it lost customers to balking the queues. SR doesn't pay attention to human resources like many other big companies, but good service is not impossible to have in ANY area, it depends on the company, people it hires, fires, and keeps.

I just wish SR didn't always put the slowest checkout girls in the express lanes. I swear some of them move in slow motion. When I worked in a supermarket as a teen, if anybody moved that slow, their ass would be out the door.

Posted on: 2010/9/7 15:13

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brewster

Re: 3 Boys Pizza and Falafel - New Ownership and New Menu

#4400

Home away from home

It's funny, a few weeks ago my wife and I were discussing closed store and the "dueling pizza" situation there, and I said "why don't they open a felafel shop there?, there's only one in town and then there would be plenty of business for both shops." I guess some ideas ARE inevitable! I'll bet they're making pizza just to play it safe and because the place came with pizza ovens.

If it's good and reasonably priced it'll be on my lunch rotation.

Posted on: 2010/9/7 15:09

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brewster

Re: Please stop the huge 9/11 memorial at LSP - it will ruin the park's views of the Manhattan skyline!

#4401

Home away from home

That illustration in the Reporter is criminally deceptive. The depth perspective is completely out of scale, the people in the background of a 300 foot long alley would be minute.

Hasn't anyone done renderings showing what the views from anywhere BUT the ends look like?

Posted on: 2010/9/7 0:51

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4402

Home away from home

Quote:

Amy wrote:
You know all that warehouse-y stuff/empty lots right between JC and Hoboken and just next to the Holland Tunnel approach? You know, Coles St going toward Hoboken? That's where you put your Trader Joe's. You get parking; you get customers from JC and Hoboken, as well as commuters; you get plenty of space.You also get huge traffic jams, but ...

Anyway, I don't know if that area is supposed to be developed or not, but it might be a good location.

Home depot tried to get some blocks closed up there to create a superblock for a store before they settled on the current location. I recall a lot of that area is brownfields hung up in detox limbo.

Posted on: 2010/9/3 0:47

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4403

Home away from home

I think they need an upscale name change. How about:

"HESPERIAN BOEUF"

(Hesperian is a french word that sorta means western, never heard it before but it's classy, no? Better than "ouest")

Posted on: 2010/9/2 0:58

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4404

Home away from home

Quote:

alanwright wrote:
We don't need no stinkin' markets!

An artsy-fartsy movie theatre would be much better there!

The JC Museum has a fabulous theater that sits empty, their performance and movie schedule is empty. That's pathetic. We pay for this place, where's their service to the community? Presenting theater and film should be part of their mission.

Posted on: 2010/9/1 21:45

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4405

Home away from home

Quote:

matchjames wrote:

All VERY valid and true. And one important thing you bring up (COST) is what would keep them OUT of that A&P Center.. Simon isn't giving anything away, and TJ's is NOTORIOUSLY cheap (as is their parent company Aldi). (subdividing the A&P for a smaller tenant isn't a big deal the landlords do that all the time)

you DID know Aldi owns TJ's didn't you all?

It'll be fascinating if either Pathmark or A&P closes, though I seriously doubt they'd close the Pathmark, the Project business is too steady. If the A&P closes I'll bet against another market, like I said, it's pretty saturated here Downtown.

I'll never understand retailers that can't do the calculation that a better location with more customers who have more money is worth more rent. There's a import tool store called Harbor Freight that prioritizes cheap rent too, located mostly in small remote western cities of less than 75,000, but there's one in Saddle Brook. I emailed them suggesting a store on 440 as potentially a goldmine tapping a concentrated local market of at least 1/2 million people just counting Newark & JC. "Nope, rent's too high". It's like the siting and marketing dept's don't talk to each other.

Posted on: 2010/9/1 21:03

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4406

Home away from home

Quote:

matchjames wrote:
You don't think Downtown JC has a limited amount of potential TJ's customers? Run a demo study. It's not going to happen .

I wouldn't go so far as to say never, but it would at least need to be able to accommodate customers driving from Bayonne and Hoboken, etc. Clearly part of the TJ's business plan is to draw people from a wider radius that a typical market. The problem is that most of the existing Downtown shopping centers already have a supermarket (shoprite, Pathmark, A&P) and the managers wouldn't want to lease to TJ's and hurt their current tenant. It would take a new development to create a space with parking for them.

But frankly looking at the list above, and adding the newly expanded Target grocery section and the Morton-Williams, we're already pretty overserved with markets, though sadly they're pretty uniform without the unique qualities of TJ's or Whole Foods.

Posted on: 2010/9/1 19:41

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4407

Home away from home

Quote:

tommyc_37 wrote:
Really not sure how Trader Joe's didn't actively seek out that spot. It seems to fit the demographics.

Really can't figure that one? No parking and little foot traffic= low volume=poor return on investment.

Posted on: 2010/9/1 17:14

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brewster

Re: Jersey City Keeps Busy Re-Inventing Itself

#4408

Home away from home

It's telling that there's no mention of the "brownstone" neighborhoods with their single and multifamily properties. No big corporate budget behind them.

Posted on: 2010/8/31 15:53

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4409

Home away from home

Quote:

Xerxes wrote:
How about a 20 story condo tower squeezed in. They could give it a stoop of steps and and old streetlight to make it look like it fits into the neighborhood...to the blind anyway. Of course a tax abatement goes without saying because how else could one induce developement into such a "blighted area" desperately in neeed of an ugly high rise. Besides, the City Council and Planning Boards need new cars.

Isn't Jersey Cith a hoot?

Sadly, you're not far off I suspect. What the price indicates is the confidence of the real estate industry that zoning is for chumps without connections and cash, with them you can do whatever you want.

Note, this property is actually in the Harsimus Cove Historic District. Anyone know how to look up the zoning?

Posted on: 2010/8/30 15:53

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brewster

Re: C-Town Being Sold

#4410

Home away from home

Quote:

greenville wrote:
That's amazing no one has said anything about the price. For 4.5 million dollars that place is going to remain a C town for a very long time.

Wow. I hadn't even looked. That seems to be a 75 x 100 lot, and regular 25 x 100 lots go for $500k more or less a couple hundred last I looked. That's quite a stretch.

As I said earlier, I knew it would be priced such that a teardown for condos would be the only bidder. How many units would you have to put there to make it worth it? 40? I'm sure the developer would put a nice donation to our Mayor's slush fund in exchange for zoning it for something BIG!

Posted on: 2010/8/30 4:05

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