He was good. But if the Red Bulls become only Henry as the merchandising in the Stadium last week would suggest, there is a problem in that he eventually will have to retire.

As to Harrison's redevelopment, it really is too bad that they haven't done anything with the land around the stadium. Would have liked to get a drink before last week's game and the existing city of Harrison is sort of too far away.

Also, the PATH upgrades to Harrison can't come soon enough. The single stairwell platform access on game days is dangerous and inefficient.

Henry Is Not Yet in Form, but His Debut Excites Fans



Playing his first game for the Red Bulls, Thierry Henry scored in the 25th minute against Tottenham Hotspur, tapping in a cross past goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini.

New York Times
By THOMAS KAPLAN
July 22, 2010

HARRISON, N.J. ? Don Garber, the commissioner of Major League Soccer, went out for a slice of pizza Thursday and walked by a pub in Midtown that had a blackboard outside.

Earlier this summer, during the World Cup, the blackboard had tried to lure passersby inside to watch the matches live. On Thursday, it once again advertised soccer: namely, the French striker Thierry Henry?s first game for the Red Bulls.

Garber was taken aback. ?That?s the first time in my 10 years as commissioner that I?ve seen a soccer pub get excited about our local team,? he said.

The pub was not the only place with excitement for Henry, the Red Bulls? newest player. The crowd at Red Bull Arena erupted when Henry scored in the 25th minute against Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League for his first M.L.S. goal.

The Red Bulls ultimately fell, 2-1, although the final score was merely the postscript to an evening that was all about Henry.

?The reception was tremendous ? every time I touched the ball, when I came out, when I scored,? Henry said. ?It?s something important to me, to feel at home.?

Henry, who turns 33 next month, is the biggest star to come to M.L.S. since the Los Angeles Galaxy acquired David Beckham in 2007. But Henry is a different kind of star, known for smooth play on the field, not glitz and glamour off it.

The Red Bulls are hosting three European teams ? England?s Tottenham and Manchester City, and Portugal?s Sporting ? in a four-game tournament here that runs through Sunday. The team could not have scripted it any better, for Tottenham is the archrival of Arsenal, Henry?s longtime Premier League club.

Henry rode to the stadium here alongside fans on a PATH train ? ?It was the quickest way to come to the game,? he explained ? and was the last member of the Red Bulls to be introduced before the game. He received sustained, thunderous cheers from the 20,312 in attendance.

And he wasted no time getting into the action. Henry recorded the Red Bulls? first shot on goal, an open look in front of the net in the seventh minute, and he broke a scoreless tie in the 25th minute, sliding in front of the net to tap in a well-placed low cross from Joel Lindpere.

With that goal, Henry sent a message to Red Bulls fans. ?I can say it again: I?m here,? he said after the game.

Henry was removed at halftime, as was expected. He acknowledged after the game that he was not yet in top shape; before Thursday, he had not played since France was eliminated from the World Cup a month ago.

That was Henry?s fourth World Cup. His soccer r?sum? is as decorated as any: when he was 20, he was a member of the French squad that won the 1998 World Cup, and his 51 goals in international competition are more than anyone has ever scored for Les Bleus.

In an eight-year career with Arsenal, he won two Premier League titles and was a goal-scoring machine. He led the Premier League in scoring four times and set a club record with 226 goals, in 370 games.

But Henry has shown his age in recent years. He is coming off a lackluster season for Barcelona in which he struggled to crack the starting lineup and scored only four goals. At the World Cup, which ended in disaster for France, he was a little-used substitute, and he announced his retirement from international competition after France?s elimination.

That puts Henry in an unusual position: he has something to prove on the field, a task he commenced Thursday.

?I?m trying to work to be fit as soon as I can,? he said.

The Red Bulls also have something to prove because the New York market has never been a bright spot for M.L.S. There is no shortage of soccer fans in the tristate area; they just have not had much to get excited about in past years, Garber said.

But the addition of Henry ? who joins the Red Bulls just four months after they opened a gleaming new stadium ? could give fans something to cheer.

?When someone of that stature comes into a young league like ours, it?s a moment that will go down in our history, without doubt,? Garber said.

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Listen to more on NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128778538

And here is the Star Ledger
http://www.nj.com/redbulls/index.ssf/ ... ebut_vs_familiar_foe.html

I assume the BOOM will come after the current BUST passes...

Just some visuals...

Quote:

Money is tight, but Harrison redevelopment is full steam ahead

by The Jersey Journal
Sunday October 05, 2008, 1:44 PM

Construction of the New York Red Bulls' new soccer stadium is moving along smoothly, but the current financial crisis looms over the rest of Harrison's 250-acre Waterfront Redevelopment Plan, Journal staff writer Jacob Kamaras writes in tomorow's paper.

The Red Bull Arena along the Passaic River is on track to be finished about a year from now, but the stadium is only part of a redevelopment plan that covers a third of Harrison, Kamaras writes.

"Money is tight and people are hesitant to get into the market," Roseland Property Vice President Joe Gurkovich, one of the developers in the area, tells Kamaras.

Gurkovich says that recent credit issues have hurt what were already slow sales for his condominium-based project called Millrose Developers.

Pegasus Group CEO Richard Miller, whose development is called Harrison Commons, says that rentals are much more attractive than condos given the borrowing troubles in this housing market.

"We have not gone to market for financing, but we feel there would not be programming for condos that there would be for rentals," says Miller, whose development consists of 477 residential units, a 1,500-space parking garage and approximately 35,000 square feet of retail space.

On the other side of the spectrum, it's full steam ahead for the stadium, which is being self-financed by the developer, according to Kamaras.

Harrison:

Track housing at its most obscene!

Town smells like burning Raspberries.

Maybe if they can do something about that smell which perfuses Frank E. Rodgers Blvd...

Salepeople must be showing all those cookie cutter new constructions to prospects during low odor days and hope they close fast.

I think that Harrison lost Manhattan direct trains only during the summer of 2003, between the re-opening of Exchange and the re-opening of WTC. Such a mistake reminds me of NYT.

ON THE PATH TO A BOOM
Development in Harrison puts the train-line town in position for a renaissance

Monday, February 04, 2008
BY MAURA McDERMOTT
Star-Ledger Staff

The hulking factories and warehouses that once ringed Harrison's PATH station lie in ruins, a testament to a lost economy, but also an indication of the renewal to come.

Long ago nicknamed the "beehive of industry," the blue-collar Hudson County community is buzzing with talk of change.

Now instead of plant workers, Manhattan-bound commuters hustle along the sidewalks each morning. And with up to 7,000 new homes, a soccer stadium, a hotel, restaurants and stores coming in the next 15 years, many residents believe Harrison is the next boom town along the PATH line, like Hoboken and Jersey City.

"I'm hoping it will be something nice, nicer than when I grew up," 21-year-old teacher Mari Mendoza said, looking out from the train platform at the pyramids of rubble, with the Manhattan skyline at her back. "I'm picturing something like Pavonia-Newport, where they have nice buildings and park benches."

The new construction could double the densely packed, 1.3-square-mile town's population of 14,000.

"It would be good to bring some kind of renaissance to the town," said Jo-Ann Capella, who commutes by train to her job at a Manhattan bank. But she also said she was concerned it was going to "price people out."

The new homes, she added, will look "cookie-cutter."

Already, the mostly decaying industrial sector in the southwestern third of Harrison is on its way to becoming an upscale neighborhood clustered around the train station. Workers are knocking down buildings, cleaning up contaminated land and preparing to construct condominiums, rentals and storefronts.

"It's really taking a fallow site with serious environmental contamination and making it into a jewel," said Kevin Tartaglione of Advance Realty Development, which is building 1,200 residences, as well as stores and offices, just south of the PATH station, near the 25,000-seat Red Bulls stadium set to open in mid-2009.

The project, Harrison MetroCentre, is one of five redevelopments now under way. Most of the new buildings will be seven stories or less, although a few could rise 20 to 30 stories.

Developers also are building a walkway and park that stretch for two miles along the Passaic River.

Local families gather at the walkway near the 3-year-old Hampton Inn&Suites to watch fireworks at the Newark minor-league baseball stadium across the river, said Peter Higgins III, chair of the Harrison Redevelopment Agency.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
The construction marks a turnaround from the economic slide that began in the 1970s after the factory whistles went silent. Back in the boom years following World War II, Harrison bustled with more than 100,000 residents and workers, Higgins said.

The town's redevelopment started to move forward in 2001, he said. But the 9/11 attacks destroyed lower Manhattan's PATH station, taking away Harrison's direct connection to the city. A temporary World Trade Center station opened in 2003.

The quick ride from Harrison to lower Manhattan will help bring in young professionals, said James Hughes, dean of the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers.

"Given the pattern of extreme housing costs in Manhattan, it puts the Harrison site in a pretty good location," he said. "Whatever they build is going to be far more affordable than New York City."

Roughly half the new residents are expected to commute by mass transit, said Richard Miller, chief executive of the Pegasus Group of Hoboken. Pegasus and Applied Development Co. are getting ready to build nearly 500 residences north of the station, with more to follow.

The train line is what makes Harrison so attractive, Miller said. The second of five stops from Newark to Manhattan, Harrison is 20 minutes from the World Trade Center and a half-hour from Herald Square.

"Tell me any other place you can do that, that's undeveloped, in the New York area," Miller said.

Harrison also is convenient to Newark's office jobs, as well as the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the new Prudential Center, said Gregory Kowalski, executive director of the redevelopment agency.

Even the troubles in the housing and credit markets don't seem to be affecting Harrison -- at least not yet, Kowalski said.

"It may even help with rentals because people can't buy," he said.

The development plans have raised other concerns.

A husband and wife, Steve and Maria McCormick, won council seats by insisting developers who receive tax breaks should provide more parks, affordable housing and services for senior citizens.

The developers "are going to make money on this, so give us a little bit back," Steve McCormick said.

The development agreements were signed in 2000 and 2001, before the town was in a strong position to negotiate for more amenities, Kowalski said.

Maria McCormick said she worries that if Harrison doesn't spruce up the row houses and shops in the older sections of town, those sections risk becoming the "wrong side of the tracks" compared with the new construction.

That's unlikely, said Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy. Healy's city has undergone massive redevelopment since the 1980s. The new luxury high-rises on the water have helped all 240,000 city residents, including those in the older, inland homes, he said.

"Since property values have gone up all over the city, people realize their houses are worth something so they're investing in them, they're maintaining them," Healy said. "As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats."

Another flashpoint is the use of eminent domain to force out longtime property owners. Manny Amaral, the owner of a car dealership and parking lot near the PATH station, recently moved to Lyndhurst under threat of eviction.

Another landowner, Lester Entin, has challenged the Red Bulls in court, charging the new stadium will block access to his busy warehouse. The lawsuit also cites security experts who say the stadium will attract dangerously large crowds too close to a PSE&G facility. The Red Bulls declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The new homes also evoke fears about traffic tangles and parking woes. Even now, drivers fleeing gridlock on Route 280 cram the town's narrow streets.

The highway "kills the whole town," said Chris Barry, a 25-year-old recruiter who takes the train to work. If the town's population doubles, "it's going to have to become like a commuter town, where nobody has a car. It's ridiculous."

The state and Hudson County aim to add on- and off-ramps to Route 280 and improve local intersections, according to the state Department of Transportation. The proposal does not yet have all the federal funding it needs.

The aging PATH station is due for an upgrade, too. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey expects to open a new, wheelchair-accessible station with a longer platform in about four years, said Susan Bass Levin, the authority's deputy director. The work will cost about $150 million, she said.

The station also will get a 1,500-car garage, built by the Hudson County Improvement Authority.

Even before all those changes, the town is drawing in young professionals like Santosh Aithani, who takes the train to his job at a software firm in Manhattan.

"It's close to Manhattan, and it's comparatively cheaper than Wall Street or any other place," said Aithani, 28, who has lived in Harrison for a year. All the new construction, he added, "will be good. We can shop here rather than going to Manhattan."

Maura McDermott may be reached at mmcdermott@starledger.com or (973) 392-7964.