Much of what Ian says is interesting, but I will raise one counterpoint.

Although counterintuative to the idea of walkable, pedestrian friendly, cities, the presence of streets with auto traffic separating the waterfront can work and does work.

Whatever one says about Jersey City's waterfront, most of it is not separated by auto traffic. By contrast, NYC's waterfront IS cut off by West Street. But it works, because it is clearly separated public space. Other waterfronts/beachfronts are similar. Copacabana beach in Rio is separated from the hotels by a wide Avenue Atlantica, but it also works very well.

Jersey City's waterfront, in too many places, feels like your walking along a small path in someone's backyard.

Ideally, the waterfront does have a degree of separation. And further, the buildings, whatever they are, should have their front entrance facing the water.

I do agree that the proliferation of office space along the south of the waterfront makes it less lively at night. Having said that, it's a pleasant place to walk, and you have decent amount of people at J. Owen Grundy pier.

Amen. JC really dropped the ball on developing its waterfront! I look at what is going on with the Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens waterfront and I say city planners here must be quite slow.

Granted Lefrak did take a risk in starting newport when no one really cared about the waterfront, but look at some of the new developments and you still see this short-sighted approach

"Newport Park", currently under construction and scheduled for completion in September, is being built and will be maintained with private funds but is open to the public. The same for the Skating Rink and the other amenities in the Newport Community.

This is ONE of the reasons I always look sideways at politicians who point to the development of the Hudson riverfront as some huge success story. I think they left a lot of money on the table. Poor planning, no vision.

Also, so much of Newport is private, they just sold this amazing resource off. There are no libraries or public parks, there are private parks, private schools and private public spaces.

Ian, thanks for that well thought out answer. I was aware of much of the history of Newport, but I did learn a few things from your post.

While I admittedly do find the Newport Mall convenient on occasion, I view it as more of an evil than a positive. And frankly, to me, having great retail and dining options where the mall currently stands would far outweigh the occasional convenience that I experience with having the mall nearby.

What is the realistic likelihood of the mall ever going away?

A great deal of your criticism should be directed at the Lefrak organization and their design for the Newport development. However, in fairness, at the time they began their investment in Jersey City, they were looking at an apocalyptic landscape filled with the detritus of an industrial era long since over.

Jersey City is quite fortunate in that unlike many American cities, we do not have a Moses style parkway between the city and the water. For instance, these freeways had created a major obstacle to the waterfront areas in New York City and while they have been reclaiming this territory by eliminating portions of freeway, expanding parkland, and making investments in access, there is a long way to go.

In general, American cities do not respect their waterfronts; very often highways bisect the city from the water with freeways. Examples in our region include 95 in Philadelphia, New Haven and Providence, 21 in Newark, 18 in New Brunswick, 29 in Trenton... and the list goes on and on. The only time people in most cities are flocking to the waterfront is at rush hour.

In the northern portion of Jersey City?s waterfront, the blame lands squarely on the Lefrak organization that controls everything between Sixth Street and the NJ Transit property.

Early planning in Jersey City was at the height of urban decay. Contemporary master planning techniques such as New Urbanism were still in their infancy, and the idea of revitalizing cities through better architecture and traditional urban design was too new to be incorporated. Newport's self segregation from the rest of the city was intentional. The Newport mall became a stockade protecting the development from the dangers of the crime ridden city to the west. Gated gardens would create safe greenspace for its residents. And everyone would get in their cars and drive to their suburban office parks.

Newport's developer had the most experience building the large scale Lefrak City. Lefrak City is based on the Modernist style of urban planning popularized by Le Corbusier. His Vision of Paris is an early predecessor to the model used for much of the mid-century urban development projects like Lefrak City. Le Corbusier once said:

"I shall live 30 miles from my office in one direction, under a pine tree; my secretary will live 30 miles away from it too, in the other direction, under another pine tree. We shall both have our own car"

The early vision of Newport was very much modeled in this same way. While the buildings are somewhat more varied, slightly denser, and designed to appear somewhat fancier than Lefrak City, the concept behind the developments share a common lineage. These traits can be summed up as highrise apartment towers separated by private greenspaces with an emphasis on the automobile. Remember, Newport's first residential towers were not even adjacent to the PATH, but did include parking garages.

Initially it may have made some sense to isolate Newport?s development from the rest of the city, but now the errors made two decades ago are evident. The Mall?s presence has now blocked Newport from the potential customers living west of Marin, just as twenty years ago the mall kept the riffraff at bay. The parking garages jutting out from Newport?s towers too have created zones of dead space along what should have been pedestrian friendly living street fronts-- instead of garage doors and parking bays, all these spaces should have been retail and offices and homes facing out into the world. The gated greenspaces also detract from a pedestrian friendly neighborhood. Everyone is alone in their castles.

To some extent Newport has begun addressing these issues with The Shore and Aqua towers. They have begun to construct a main street and future in fill buildings will extend this retail corridor. However, as long as the mall is standing, these retail areas will find it hard pressed to find a large enough customer base, at least beyond the service retail like groceries, liquor, daycare and dry cleaning that already exists. Newport?s future development hopefully will begin to address these issues, but ultimately as long as the mall is standing, it will continue to be isolated as well as a black hole for retail.

But Newport is literally, only half the story; south of Sixth Street is another beast entirely. Twice as many office towers were originally planned as part of Harborside and the areas around Goldman Sachs tower also originally were proposed office towers. Since so much of what has been built in this area of the waterfront is office space, the people there largely leave by six at night. Businesses close when the sun sets, and remain closed on weekends. This is cyclical; businesses are closed, so people don?t shop, eat and drink. Because people don?t shop, eat and drink, businesses are closed.

With the decline in office market demand, more residences could be built in these places instead. 70 Greene and 77 Hudson Street, for instance, originally was to be an office tower. As those residences fill, there will be more people, thus more customers, thus more businesses. But at the moment, the biggest crisis facing this area are the large surface parking lots segregating the waterfront from the rest of the downtown. These are unattractive, intimidating and a major deterrent to encouraging people in the inner downtown from heading east to the river.

Poor architectural choices have not helped. The tumor like parking garages growing from the base of buildings do not contribute to a vibrant streetscape, like those attached to Trump or Harborside 4A. Chain restaurants like Pizzeria Uno, Chilis, Van Houtte Coffee, and Pretzel Factory are not the types of businesses that attract customers.

There is no good pedestrian corridor to the waterfront. Streets appealing to pedestrians have vibrant, living building facades, safe pedestrian crossings, and low traffic volume. Between Marin and the waterfront, pedestrians get none of these. In the north, its the mall. Sixth Street is busy and crossing Marin is dangerous. Metroplaza is a massive parking lot. Second Street is the utility loading docks of Metroplaza. First Street is a series of empty lots and abandoned buildings. Morgan Street faces the 50 Columbus Parking garage and surface parking lots. Columbus Drive has been turned into a highway of speeding commuters. Montgomery is surrounded by surface parking and parking garages as well as broad pedestrian crossings. Even York Street, one of the more favorable pedestrian friendly east-west route still looks onto parking lots and parking garages. Grand Street might be the best bet, but still has heavy traffic and is the southern most road; that?s not helpful for residents living to the north.

For the city to truly bring vibrancy to the waterfront, the primary changes that are needed are as follows: eliminating the surface parking lots between Marin and Hudson Street with either new development or public greenspace; improved pedestrian crossings through shorter vehicle right of ways; traffic mitigation through assorted methods including road diets and sidewalk bulb outs; removal of the Newport Mall to facilitate better access and encourage street retail.

The JC waterfront is incredibly underutilized. In Newport they even put a huge parking deck on the waterfront. It's a view people pay millions to have and there sits a large parking deck.

As for your question, you don't need to go too far to see another underutilized waterfront. Manhattan has pretty poor utilization of its waterfront as well, though it at least has a few bright spots.

I would definitely not call the waterfront hopping. The closest it gets to even remotely vibrant is during the work week, M-F, at lunchtime on a nice weather day. But after 6 pm or so, it's a ghost town.

In most cities, people flock TO the waterfront, for work, for play, and to live. In JC, they get out of there as fast as they possibly can.

Yes, the waterfront is where all the gentrification and development started. But why are these high-rise condos so separated from streetlife? Why is there no street level retail spaces on these buildings, to generate foot traffic?

What a missed opportunity.

Where have you been that area is hopping. There are events happening all year long. Maybe the local residents want it quiet and tranquil. I guess the local community supports what businesses exist already. As far as the waterfront is concerned most that live there are temporary and from far off lands for job related issues. Also libability insurance and city services play a factor as well especially with costs.

You're absolutely correct. The City should make every effort to bring pulse and energy to the river, rather than it being dead after 6 pm. One city that seems to have done a great job is Providence. The waterfire program (monthly or quaterly) brings tourists and residents and there are restaurants all along the river as well as shops and other entertainment, etc.

http://www.waterfire.org/

Quote:

our esteemed city government had a clear vision of developers' cash going directly into their pockets.

Does anybody else think that Jersey City could have done a lot more with it's waterfront access?

Jersey City has a very rich shipping history, in fact, it's existance and initial development was directly linked to it's location as an important port city. At what point in Jersey City's recent (past 20 year) development did the developers think it was a good idea to completely shun the waterfront? It doesn't make any sense.

The views from Exchange Place all the way up to Newport are some of the best views you'll get from anywhere. I know that the walkway is there, and it's decent enough, but does anybody else feel that Jersey City is completely under-utilizing it's location?

We hear about the Newark Ave "restaurant row" concept (which we have yet to see materialize)...wouldn't such a concept make a lot of sense on or near the waterfront? It would give Jersey City a showcase strip in the heart of it's high rise downtown. Instead, those areas are completely soul-less and void of any vibrancy after 6:00 pm.

Nobody had any sort of vision in the 80s and 90s when development concepts were being drawn up??

There are just very few things that DRAW people to Jersey City from the outside. And I know that's fine for many people, especially the lifelong JCers who prefer it that way, but I feel that Jersey City has a lot to offer, and the waterfront is something that can be embraced...instead, I feel like it's shunned.

The revitalization of the Sand Bar is a start, and seems to be moving forward. Michael Anthony's had the right idea. Some sort of pedestrian tunnel or very high footbridge over the Morris Canal, so that bikers/joggers/walkers can get from the Hudson River walkway directly into the park would be huge, but likely a pipe dream due to costs.

We have access to this beautiful waterfront, yet it's the LEAST vibrant area in the entire city!! Serious question - can you think of ANY city where the waterfront is the LEAST vibrant area in the city??

Thoughts?