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Re: Please stop the huge 9/11 memorial at LSP - it will ruin the park's views of the Manhattan skyli
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Quote:
As I said before, for some reason they need a memorial as large, ugly and out of place as the towers were themselves. Another thing that I picked up from one of the speakers was that it being able to be seen from lower Manhattan was one of the architect's main goals. That architect is Manhattan based, and said one spot in LSP is as good as another, so why should we care. So why should he? The speech by the father of a victim who was on the design committee was heatfelt, but someone should have led him to the plaque in the Grove and shown him that he's ignored the place to grieve for several years now, so he can stop trying to guilt us into giving up so he can have his memorial. Alternatively, a win-win would be the state putting the memorial in one of the still toxic areas of the park, after putting in the money to abate it and landscape. They don't have the right to take the best part of the park and leave us with part of it still a toxic dump.
Posted on: 2006/8/17 15:30
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Re: COMING SOON: A Sea of Concrete
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Might I point out that a driveway takes 10 feet of curb while a car takes 20 feet. A 2 car driveway, while ugly, would actually add 1 new parking spot to the street total. Of course 2 of those might be empty but unavailable some percentage of the time, but that would coincide with the times it's easy to find a spot anyway.
Much of San Francisco's lowrise areas (and much infill in Hoboken and Downtown) have garages at streetfront with no setback, and the neighborhoods are quite beautiful. I would far favor that plan over setbacks with driveways in front. Is the complete text of the R1 revision available anywhere? I'm sure there's blocks where R1 is perfect to preserve their character, but there's lots of blocks currently zoned R1 that are being vandalized by that zoning, like rows of 4 floor brick apartment houses with 20 foot shorter setback unattached 2 families jammed in.
Posted on: 2006/8/4 21:10
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Re: Mayor Healy and many Jersey City residents speak out against the design for the new 9/11 memoria
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Make no mistake, billions are being made from Katrina. The current wave of vultures have a cloak of legitimacy. The "I SURVIVED KATRINA" T-shirts will come in time. Think of it as an ecosystem where if a niche is unfilled, something will evolve to fill it..
Posted on: 2006/7/31 14:43
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Re: Mayor Healy and many Jersey City residents speak out against the design for the new 9/11 memoria
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Quote:
The freedom to be tacky is as old as the republic. The brits thought we were in jolly bad taste to ask them to leave. But we sure as hell didn't invent it. People have been selling pieces of wood as bits of the true cross for 2000 years, not to mention the purported bones of saints and chunks of the hanging noose of celebrity executionees in 18th century London. Morbid bad taste goes back to the ancient egyptians, so get off your high horse.
Posted on: 2006/7/31 4:07
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Re: Mayor Healy and many Jersey City residents speak out against the design for the new 9/11 memoria
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Quote:
Woops, I guess I should have Wikipedia'd! Particularly bad since the Soviets were to blame for the Nazi slaughter in Warsaw. And sorry, but Coulter is a crackwhore who'd sell her mother for a headline.
Posted on: 2006/7/30 19:32
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Re: Mayor Healy and many Jersey City residents speak out against the design for the new 9/11 memoria
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Notice how no one who actually will be seeing this thing regularly supports it? "The Families" will visit it once a year for a while, then move on. But we'll be saddled with it forever. The howling about removing "tilted Arc" would be nothing compared to getting rid of this once it was in place. At least Tilted Arc was at ground level, not on a pedestal.
injcsince81: thanks for answering the question hanging from the "projects" thread about where you emigrated from. Yes, Americans aren't equiped to deal with the realities of the Siege of Stalingrad, or the tens of millions of civilians the USSR lost in that war. Our idea of civilian sacrifice then was rationing of meat and sugar, now it's to keep shopping.
Posted on: 2006/7/29 16:19
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Re: gas grill illegal on raised back deck?
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Quote:
So, ya got section 2? the rest seems irrelevant to this situation. The "cylinder exchange cabinet" refers to places that sell the Blue Rhino tanks.
Posted on: 2006/7/26 1:51
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Re: gas grill illegal on raised back deck?
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Quote:
This was certainly further than that.
Posted on: 2006/7/25 20:41
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gas grill illegal on raised back deck?
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A neighbor who moved in over the winter was told by his landlord that the city inspected the premesis and said the gas grill on the 2nd floor deck was illegal and must be removed. Apparently a charcoal grill would be okay.
Anyone have some knowledge about this? In my experience the city safety inspectors are bumblers who can't agree what their own codes actually mean. I do recall it's illegal to have a propane tank indoors, and many apartments have no outdoor path to the grill without passing through the house. But I don't think that's what this is based on.
Posted on: 2006/7/25 15:45
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Re: Condo Shopping Observations
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Well, if it sounds too good to be true.... Just have a plan B in case it's not worth more than you paid, and a plan C in case it's worth less. In Florida the prebuild condo market was resembling the tech stocks of the late 90's, there was even an exchange for flipping still prebuit, then it went fizz recently.
Posted on: 2006/7/13 21:57
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Re: Corzine and property tax reform
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Fair nuff Eddie. The details weren't well distributed. Shocking.
Part of the problem is that the term "property tax reform" begs the question, which is actually "county & municipal spending reform". For all the bitching at Corzine there was no "plan B" that I heard, other than do nothing.
Posted on: 2006/7/13 15:28
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Re: Corzine and property tax reform
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I love him for taking on the same problems that Florio fell on his sword for, but I hate the regressive tax outcome of the opening battle of this war. Shifting the burden from property owners to all consumers isn't the way, taxing the poor is a cowards path.
Watch the machines chew him alive for threatening their patronage cash cows. I hear the "dump Corzine" stuff already.
Posted on: 2006/7/12 23:06
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Re: Condo Shopping Observations
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Quote:
You're STILL in Queens right? Dude, get on your meds, your perception of our reality is pretty wild. Craigslist isn't all there is to JC realty. whatever you're looking at is a small segment of the overall market. I'm not disagreeing about the timing of the market, just your claims about sales and rentals.
Posted on: 2006/7/9 4:55
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Re: Condo Shopping Observations
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Quote:
Actually, it's unlikely its the brokers rather than reality impaired sellers holding the price high. As described in Freakonomics, a broker has a huge incentive to make a deal fast for a lower price rather than show a property a zillion times. Their time is money. A 5% difference on a $500K place will only change their take by $750, assuming they're splitting it with a buyers broker. If they have to show it many more times to get that extra 5%, they're losing other sales. Basically, brokers will always underprice if they can, to get a quick buck.
Posted on: 2006/7/9 2:14
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Re: Newport Mall renovations
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Yup. I go there only under desperation for something, usually at Sears tools or Radio Shack (before they got rid of their parts section), and then only if I can get it back by bike rather than paying those a**holes for parking. When I gave him my ritual parking complaint (which I distribute to every vendor), the doc at Sears Optical says the parking isn't run by Simon, I find this difficult to believe. When Home Depot opens, I'll probably see the inside of that mall once a year if that.
Posted on: 2006/7/8 16:18
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Re: Optometrist on Central Avenue sucks- any good JC opto recs?
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Had a pretty good experience recently with the one at Sears. Nice guy, reasonable price for exam and low waiting.
I've been getting my specs made at BJ's for years now, real cheap. Best thing is they can order new lenses and just swap them out when they come in. Maybe lots of places do that, but not in my experience.
Posted on: 2006/7/6 20:00
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Re: Assault/wilding incident on 9th and Erie
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I'd like to bring up again the fact that during the summer, the highest street crime period, 20% of the JCPD is on vacation at any one time. That's like giving the snowplowers the winter off. What a sweet contract.
Posted on: 2006/6/30 20:33
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Re: JERSEY CITY POLICE CHIEF TROY CALLING IT QUITS
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I suspect it would take a team of forensic accountants and some hundreds of thousands of dollars to unravel the web that is JC finances. Just the try to parse the complexity of the equation that city gets paid a chunk upfront and nets more via PILOTS versus being paid less by standard taxes but the schools get more and the properties can be reassessed. The former seems to benefit the current administration to the detriment of future budgets. But no one has proven it that I've heard. Compared to that, dissecting a parking authority that can't generate enough revenue to cover it's salaries should be a slam dunk. My guess is no-show jobs and padded overtime. Someone recently told me the Journal is republican owned. Why aren't they all over this stuff like flies on sh*t? Are they afraid of the HCDO telling people to boycott them? The thread about plant theft had a reporter from the Star Ledger inquiring there. For heaven's sake a Pulitzer lurks in this story!! Hello......?
Posted on: 2006/6/28 21:29
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Re: JERSEY CITY POLICE CHIEF TROY CALLING IT QUITS
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He got elected because lots of us saw him as the least of the evils running. The quality of political candidates in JC is abysmal. Every time I've heard a councilmember or council candidate speak I've been appalled, with the exception of Fulop and possibly Vega. I'm not talking about their positions, just their lack of coherence. BTW, that me you're quoting. Maybe we should do bumper stickers and sell them at the farmers markets!
Posted on: 2006/6/28 17:29
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Re: New Bills increase the Real Estate Transfer Fee, the Hotel Tax and Payroll Tax.
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Seems to me that anyone who has opposed the tax abatements for waterfront construction should support the hotel & large employer payroll tax bills as alternative ways to tax businesses that didn't need a break to begin with. Both taxes are still a fraction of NYC's versions. Alternatively you must consistently believe that businesses still need to be lured here by tax breaks.
This city needs to find ways to tap it's new prosperity since the abatements have forestalled market rate real estate taxes for decades. That is, other than on the backs of homeowners like the proposed transfer tax and rising RE taxes. Steve Fulop: I don't believe your constituents would be against payroll tax on employers of more than 100. I would guess that few of them are employees or owners of such. These businesses need to pull their weight in JC.
Posted on: 2006/6/15 16:29
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Re: FBI: Violent crime up in majority of NJ's biggest cities
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I'd like to know how the Journal figures JC has the most violent crime when Newark, with a very slightly larger population had nearly 3 times the murders? How'd they get a job writing when they can't read? From what I read in the AP piece, JC had a larger "increase" in the crime rate than Newark.
If Newark was the size of NYC, they would have had over 3000 murders. Think about that before investing in Newark real estate.
Posted on: 2006/6/13 15:01
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Re: solutions to basement flooding
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That's exactly what I predicted for my place in my earlier post. You don't have a suburban type "groundwater" problem, you've got an incontinent sewer problem. Did you get your money back? No offense to Johnnytit, but my experience with "waterproofers" is they got a hammer and every kind of flooding except check valve problems looks like a nail, regardless of factors.
Posted on: 2006/6/13 2:08
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Re: solutions to basement flooding
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The developers argue that since the system floods only due to rain, their added domestic load is insignificant. The developer of the 9th & Brunswick project claimed they would build a holding tank to contain the runoff from the roof. In the in the political ecosystem here, developers are the apex predators. We're still giving tax abatements for building downtown. Next to that, undercharging for utilities hookup is minor. Changing it would be a start, but won't come up with the billions to modernize the sewers. The only way to do that is to clean up the finances of the city to the point where a bond issue for the task is possible. In a city where the people giving the parking tickets lose money at it, I'm not holding my breath.
Posted on: 2006/6/10 20:23
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Re: solutions to basement flooding
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Fasteddie, The fact that it is a huge incredibly expensive undertaking doesn't mean it should be pushed under the rug forever. That's called denial. Beckmeyer won't even admit there's a problem. To my face he called flooding an "act of God".
As for workers, I call em like I see em personally. Recently walking past the PSE&G work on Grove I saw more standees than workees. Maybe I just don't understand construction work. Johnnytit, did you read my earlier post? you need to add a third type of flooding to your list. My check valve works fine, but sewer water comes through the foundation wall from the street fill flooded by the overcharged sewer. The other day I was in the basement and before my pump kicked on I knew it was flooding by my nose. There's a cute delay from when the sewer floods, which I've monitored through my high cleanout, to when it starts to seep in. that's the time to flood the fill. I prefer heavy rains that start light so it clears the shit out of the sewer before flooding my basement, then it doesn't smell much. Cutting french drains around my slab would simply be like ripping a board out of a rowboat's hull. Before I cemented up a 2x2 open sump, I figured I took on over 5,000 gallons an hour. What else you got? I'm not a pro like you, but I have yet to meet anyone in JC with genuine groundwater problems, rather than sewer or runoff problems.
Posted on: 2006/6/9 4:16
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Re: solutions to basement flooding
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Ben, your answer is right there. The overwelming cost of this kind of work isn't the cement sewer lines, it's labor. We would pay north of $70 per hr including all benefits, and then have 6 guys standing around watching one guy dig. And that's not even counting the no-shows, the padded out beaurocracy, the no bid sweetheart deals. Now I'm sure Brazil is a world class contender in the corruption game too, but when you start with paying a worker for month less we pay for a day......... you get the idea. Village: you're repeating the excuses of MUA engineer Beckmeyer. Don't believe it. most flooding here is due to a completely antiquated system that they don't even have a PLAN to upgrade, even if they did have the money. I know New Orleans isn't the best civil engineering model at the moment, but before the levees broke, the city below sea level had a system that could pump out hurricane strength rain as fast as it could fall. We're not below sea level, just without leadership or money.
Posted on: 2006/6/9 1:28
Edited by brewster on 2006/6/9 1:52:45
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Re: solutions to basement flooding
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More that's been said before: in my neighborhood the flooding is due to the sewers overcharging nearly to street level and leaking into the street fill and then under our foundations.
My check valve works perfectly but in a really heavy rain the entire basement slab will be so pressurized every crack is squirting like a fountain. The city has videoed the sewer, seen that is has all sorts of cracks, and walked away. The don't do anything until it actually collapses.
Posted on: 2006/6/8 14:34
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Re: Residential Zoning - can I have a home office?
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Quote:
That's easy, because they can't fight back. You, the IRS warrior, can rack up great victory numbers, even though the money is minor compared to big shot who owes millions but lawyers up and makes you work. Only in America do we solve revenue problems by cutting the budget of the tax collectors. That's almost as good as the JC parking authority raising revenue by selling it's parking lots!
Posted on: 2006/6/3 1:09
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Re: Residential Zoning - can I have a home office?
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Quote:
I think what you mean is that you would have to pay capital gains on the portion that is not owner occupied residential. This is the same as owning a multifamily house, which the OP does.
Posted on: 2006/6/2 19:16
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Re: Residential Zoning - can I have a home office?
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Butch, any tax website or book will tell you that the only single thing more likely to get you an audit than a home office deduction is taking the Earned Income Tax Credit.
For non industrial, non retail use, I don't think zoning is an issue. There's lots of doctors and therapists offices in residential apartments and houses. I've been in tax hell, be afraid, be very afraid.
Posted on: 2006/6/2 17:16
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Re: Residential Zoning - can I have a home office?
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Given that you have a separate space and nothing brings down an audit like a large home office deduction, perhaps the best thing is to "rent" it to yourself, and deduct the rent from your form C. You'll also file a form E to show the rental income, and so you can deduct a percentage of the mortgage, utilities, depreciation and maintainance. Maybe RE taxes too, I forget.
Posted on: 2006/6/2 15:04
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