Where exactly in this article does it compare JC to Chelsea? Her reason to move, according to her quotes, was based solely on the apartment. She wanted a nicer place with more windows and amenities. You're the one who raised the area comparison.

People need to actually read these stories a little more closely before launching into pre-determined rubuttals. And for those who think the papers are filled with developer-paid positive stories, you should actually read the paper once in a while instead of waiting to get your news on these sites. If you did, you'd realize the real estate coverage, particularly in the Times, has been much more negative than not.

Xerxes, you're my hero.

It might have been around for 24 years, primarily for shopping. The restaurants and bars in that area tend to come and go a lot more than other establishments of downtown.

And for all those highrise that are rental buildings, they are pretty transiant to say the least just look at Manhattan which is around 75% rentals. Used to be more, but today they are called co-ops, rarely do they become condos. Rarely do you hear of a new building being a co-op over there usually always a condo.

Going from rental to condo is rare, since most of the time the owner/sponsor wants more money they they will get from the sale of the units. In some cases it is the mortgage on the building, which they don't want to pay off with the proceeds and that is why part of the maintenance is a tax write off for them and not with a condo. Once the mortgage on the building, not the units gets paid off then it can go condo.

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Correction: The Newport Mall which was the HUB of downtown development opened 24 years ago.

It is STILL the current highlight of downtown JC, despite all the spluttering from those who found this cutesy bar or that curtesy restaurant before it went out of business in 2 years. And it has the same stores as any of the thousands of Malls accross the country...good, bad or indifferent.

Yes, I know that Prospect Park or the Brooklyn Museum or the New York beaches or Botannical Gardens cannot possible rival this magnificent mall and soon we will have to beat off New Yorkers with sticks to keep them out. And opening more unzoned sleepy high rises in Jersey City will NOT make things better but quite the opposite. But of course every ugly tower on too small a lot will be extolled in the fake real estate articles...at $5 a word!

Jersey City remains a place to take a short PATH train ride from...to get to work or actually to do ANYTHING worth doing.

Oh gosh, did I forget about the POWERHOUSE and the EMBANKMENT...bite my tongue.

There is nothing wrong with a place to sleep close to work at a reasonable price...that's an HONEST pitch.
But they will NEVER make a silk purse out of the pig's ear that is Jersey City, not with ONE ad or one MILLION ads.

Next ad?
"I lived on Fifth Avenue with 4 bedrooms overlooking Central Park...but oh, the crowds were so awful and the Metropoliitan Museum blocked the view from one of the bedrooms, and it was SO hard to get a cab. So I moved to a studio apartment in Jersey City under the turnpike extension and I am SOOO happy."

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Some of us were saying that 20 years ago.

I would much rather live in Downtown Jersey City than Park Slope -- which has 65,000 people -- it is way too long of a subway ride to get into Manhattan (45min) and it is rather dull!

...could be great if we had their food co-op though!



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/fas ... l?_r=1&pagewanted=all.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Slope

http://www.fuckedinparkslope.com/

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Well let's look at the Bronx. The nicest part of the Bronx is arguably Riverdale, population 47,850 according to the 2000 census. I can tell you downtown JC has a lot more going on than Riverdale (although Wave Hill is quite nice). As for the rest of the Bronx, it's not a stretch to say its comparable to greater Hudson Cty. I'm sure downtown JC is much more attractive a place to live for a young professional than most of the Bronx.

I think the problem with the NYT Real Estate section is that every couple weeks they write up a puff piece on some new development in JC. This one is no different: cheap, close to city, amenities, blah blah. All geared to get nyc yuppies to bargain hunt here in JC.

The NYT would have a lot more credibility in regards to JC if they actually wrote about interesting people/places in JC instead of hack pieces ghost written by the property developers...

Let's admit it. Downtown JC is a convenient place to sleep and maybe grab a bite here and there on the weekend. Other than that, it has nothing going for it, the way many neighborhoods have in either Queens or Brooklyn.

Once again you are long on sentences and short on Facts. There will be no second Trump Tower, that dream died with Dean Geibel's (Metro Homes) abrupt departure from the project. The current owner, iStar is trying desperately to sell the 200 or so unsold units in the first tower. After seeing there annual report (losses of almost 1 billion in 2009) I wonder how long they can afford to wait. Did someone say auction?

Give downtown 10 years and it will be 75,000-100,000 or more with around 20 more buildings more Liberty Harbor which will get up to 20 stories tall as there is around 8-10 different streets for it, 3 or 4 new ones on other conversions around Trump, another building at Columbus and Marin with the 2 there now with my the connecting building was torn down, plus another 5-10 or so scattered around downtown besides the 10 over with Lefrak for Newport. There big buildings being built and yet to occupy at Grand and Marin, Next to the double tree and maybe even another one not mentioning whether it condos or rentals yet. And of course Trump and Gulls Cove have 2nd buildings as well. Besides all the parking lots right by Trump could be a number of more buildings right there.

The size of downtown is at most 1 1/2 the size of Hoboken, since Hoboken is only 1 square mile with all most all of it business only located on 1 street or branching off of it not in several different locations with 4 or so like in downtown Jersey City. They might have less for each one but probably equal if not more with all of them combined.

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Well, that's my point. If you take any neighborhood of 50,000 people, aside from a few spots in the outer boroughs, Downtown JC has much more going on. NYC, as well as JC, is a city of neighborhoods.

If you include Hoboken, and Downtown JC's quick access to it, either by foot or numerous public transportation methods - that's about 100,000 people, in a dense area....with A LOT of things to do. Not to mention a hop skip and a jump into Manhattan. You'd be hard pressed to find a 100,000 person zone with more to do in any of the boroughs other than Manhattan, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, and a few other Brooklyn neighborhoods.

It might not right now be the same population in number of residents when putting the number of square miles those have, but Jersey City is more dense than any of those are since it is only like around 14 square miles in size, not sparling like the places you mentioned. The eastern 3/4 or 7/8's of Jersey City is the part with people the remaining besides the shopping centers strip malls has a large tracks of vacant land still available for more growth. The development plans so far are like for 30 to 40 more years of growth. And even the shopping centers there can be torn down for more space and consolidated if need with the size of them. Just take a drive from truck route 1 & 9 and head south onto 440 for all the land available still for growth and it is still closer to get into Manhattan than most of Brooklyn or Queens and definately the Bronx and Staten Island to the jobs. After that drive take Grand Street to Pacific Ave over to Bergen Layfayette section and you will find Garfield right off of Communipaw and there is plenty of land there besides another 2 or 3 developments with plans along sections of the light rail. There are so many different development zone with probably at least 30-40 more buildings approved yet to be seen even breaking ground, some as long ago as 15 or 20 years ago. Besides the number of lots in the Bergen Layfayette section just waiting for downtown to build up a bit more. If you ever do you history on the way things developed it was Manhattan first followed by Jersey City and the Newark after that came those four boroughs. Just look at Long Island City and the buildings there, not really going any where compare to Jersey City. The Bergen Layfayette section is like around 50 years younger than Manhattan is. Of course the public library right on Montgomery and Jersey Ave has a lot of information not just Jersey City but Manhattan and the entire area, besides the old maps lay out thing like a harbor that used to exist and now totally filled in today. Giving individual ideas of size of buildings from 150 years ago in Manhattan and many other things. Jersey City in time will be able to learn off of all those different communities you named. Check out the stores which used to be in Journal Square.

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While I love the many things JC has to offer, to compare even the whole city (let alone just downtown) to the boroughs is a bit delusional, no?

Queens 2,229,000 people
Bronx 1,333,000
Staten Island 487,000
Brooklyn 2,556,000
Jersey City 241,000
Downtown JC < 50,000

I know you'd like to dismiss the up and coming pockets of Queens and the Bronx to make your case, but Long Island City has 183,000 people - three quarters the size of all of JC and probably four times the size of downtown. Downtown JC has a looooooong way to go to rival much of Brooklyn - even if you throw out Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights. A dozen or so blocks of eclectic retail and restaurants (downtown JC) really isn't comparable to many of these other places, is it?

Oh c'mon Xerxes. You're saying there is more to do in Queens outside of LIC or Astoria? More to do in Staten Island, culturally? Bronx? Where? In Brooklyn, outside of the trendy brownstone neighborhoods....where? Show me some neighborhoods.

I have more than a handful of friends in the outer stretches of the boroughs that WISH they could afford to live in Downtown JC.

Have a little pride in where you live. You can always move out, too.

Maybe she is a manager at XYZ Realty, maybe she's Boffing Mr. XYZ, maybe she doesn't even EXIST, maybe the other 400 people have opinions but the weren't asked...or were asked and the results were unprintable?
Who knows?


But you said the one thing that made sense:
"they're actually happy about paying less" and that is the SINGLE reason for extolling Jersey City...it's CHEAPER than Manhattan and it is the identical reason that people move ANYWHERE in Hudson or Bergen County. To have a placew to sleep without too long a commute to work.

No, Jersey City does NOT have more than what the outer boroughs have; it has either less or the same...and higher commuting costs, about $100 more (PATH +Subwway) or double that if you are not near the PATH.

The article is a total crock and those who praise it are obviously in the real estate business or have just overpaid for their home and trying to justify it by tossing common sense to the wind.

I don't own the website so all I can do is bemoan the existence of the REAL ESTATE ADS or copies of same posing as genuine forum posts. They aren't any more than a full page ad listing all the prices of 6th Avenue Electronics, or duplicating the weekly ShopRite flyer.

These promoters PAY newspapers to run this bullsh%t...and we repeat it for free. Every time one is posted, I think Danny should get a check.

So XYZ Realty, Inc. went out, found a girl living in Chelsea, paid for her to move to JC and then paid her to say how much she liked it. Maybe all of the renters in that 400-unit building are also paid to live there. Can't be that people actually like it, or that maybe, in light of today's economic climate, they're actually happy about paying less for more in JC than they could get in Manhattan.

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Xerxes, you have an immensely negative outlook, on seemingly everything. Was your childhood that miserable?

First of all, nobody in that article was saying that Jersey City, or any part of it, is nicer than Manhattan, or any part of it. It's declaring that the apartment itself, is nicer than the old apartment, in Manhattan. Which is very believable. Many people are moving to Jersey City, Brooklyn, and Hoboken, and parts of Queens, to get much NICER apartments for a similar price to the shoeboxes they are living in, in Manhattan.

Secondly, Downtown Jersey City has a lot more to offer culturally and socially than probably 75% of the 4 outer boroughs.

AND, the commute TO Manhattan is much easier from Downtown JC than from 75% of the outer boroughs.

No city, or borough of NYC even, can be compared rightfully to Manhattan in terms of street ambiance, restaurants, etc. Jersey City is compared, and very favorably in my opinion and many others' opinions, to the other 4 boroughs.

You need to look at Jersey City as what it is - a very borough-y type of experience. It's not Manhattan, and I don't think anybody that moves here FROM Manhattan (like the gal in the article) expects it to be.

thrifty,

My sentiments exactly.
Jersey City is an old mobbed-up town and for almost a century all of the wherewithal that could have gone into making it a good place to live has instead gone into the pockets of the mob via crooked politicians.

Like Newark and Camden, that kind of structure takes a huge toll on any city, and it's as true today as it was in 1930, 1940 or 1950.

The only place you will find the wonderful city on a hill with it's crystal palaces is in phony real estate ads posing as "articles" like the one that started this post...and many, many, many others.

I'm with you, Xerxes.
Downtown Jersey City will forever remain a fine place to rent. The proximity to Manhattan is something that the government can't screw up (assuming the Holland Tunnel and PATH remain open).

But the ineptitude, indifference, and (alleged) corruption of the local government appears to be, regretfully, an unsolvable problem in my eyes.

The problem is a structural one: downtown Jersey city, for all of it's assets (great ocation, great tax base, etc) is attached to a large city with horrendous schools, horrendous infrastructure and an electorate that, for whatever reason, is unable to vote the bums who are in power out of office.

Until downtown Jersey City can detach itself from the rest of Jerey City, asinine decisions and the asinine people that make those decisions will remain in office and continue to levy ridiculous taxeswhile providing minimal services to the people of Jersey City..

This is the sad truth.

One does not "need to be in CHelsea" but a full page article extolling the advantages of Columbus Avenue OVER Chelsea comes to a conclusion stupider than Iraq's WMD's.

One can appreciate the advantages of Jersey City and STILL think Columbus Avenue is a shithole which benefits only by comparisons to Greenville.

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Anyone who could use the word PERFECT like that has obviously never been anywhere else...even then it is a stretch beyond comprehension.

Jersey City is cheaper than Manhattan and much cheaper than Chelsea...anything else is bullshit.

Perhaps the article was a bit much, but why put Jersey City down so much. If you don't like JC, why not leave. For many, JC is perfect - close enuff to Manhattan but not in Manhattan. Unless you are partying every night, perhaps one does not need to be in Chelsea.

Yes, And I'm sure that her midnight strolls along Columbus Avenue are just as much fun as night walks in Chelsea,
Of course the art studios of Columbus Avenue are world renouned, just like Chelsea. And the chic boutiques near Columbus Avenue where so many fine designer items are only $.99 will help her wile away the hours.

What with all these price comparisons one MIGHT think an honest article would mention what Shelby was paying for the last 7 years for her Chelsea apartment.

I hope the difference is large enough to cover the sheer joy of twice a day in a PATH train.

Twaddle like this makes one think of the advantages of press censorship...or at least an addendum like "this AD was payed for by XYZ Realty LLC."

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Revive this next time a downtown abatement is requested.

A Warm Winter for Rentals


NEW NEIGHBOR Shelby Wood says her one-bedroom rental apartment at 50 Columbus in Jersey City is nicer than her old place in Chelsea, because it has more windows and amenities. She was also able to negotiate two months' free rent on a 14-month lease.

The New York Times
By ANTOINETTE MARTIN
Published: March 10, 2010

IN the depths of winter, there were big flurries of rental activity at several of New Jersey?s more luxurious apartment buildings ? which came as a bit of a surprise even to the brokers and developers.

At 50 Columbus, a tower in Jersey City that opened in 2007, ?the numbers are really pretty amazing,? said Jacqueline Urgo, the president of the Marketing Directors, a Manhattan company that oversees leasing there. She said 35 apartments had been leased in January and 48 in February, even though it was the snowiest month in state history, according to those who keep such figures.

Up the street at Grove Pointe, another tower near the Grove Street PATH station, the rental pace was also strong, Ms. Urgo said, with 14 apartments leased in January and 24 in February.

?People came out,? she said. ?They came with their snow boots on.?

But why?

Ms. Urgo and other rental market specialists offered ideas, but none suggested that they knew a definitive reason for any uptick, or that they believed a full recovery was under way ? particularly since concessions like a month?s free rent, or maybe two, are still necessary to attract tenants.

?We have definitely noticed the market started to loosen up right after the holidays,? said Jonathan Moore, a vice president at the Value Companies, which owns and manages hundreds of garden apartments around the state and last year opened 140 Mayhill, a 158-unit complex in Saddle Brook.

?We are happy about it,? Mr. Moore said, ?but we?re not 100 percent sure where it is coming from.? One factor, he said, may have been that his company was spending more on online marketing and advertising at sites like ApartmentGuide.com and ForRent.com, both former print-only magazines.

Ms. Urgo?s theory was that it had sunk in for ?almost everyone? that the moment was opportune for bargains in both condominiums and rentals. (Her company handles both in Hudson County.)

But for a condo purchase, she added, ?many people just don?t have enough saved up for the larger down payments that are required now. Many of the new rental buildings also offer more amenities than people could get with the purchase of a condo in their price range. Everyone is focused on getting value for their money, whether they are buying or renting.?

Furthermore, said Rich Murphy, a managing director for Trammell Crow Residential, the uncertain state of the housing market remains a factor. ?Some people feel renting is more sensible and less risky than signing a 30-year mortgage commitment right now,? he said.

Mr. Murphy?s company started marketing the first 320 units at the Alexan CityView, the first development of any kind on a former military base in Bayonne, last May. ?We were a little unlucky with our timing, and the economy,? he added. Still, he said 70 percent of units had been leased, including more than a dozen in February.

As a factor in the increase he cited a new promotional campaign offering two months? free rent, as well as free shuttle service and a year?s pass to the nearby Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and the Grove Street PATH train, worth $1,344. He expects these inducements to continue drawing people during the spring.

Rents start at $1,543 for a one-bedroom at the complex, which has two- and three-bedrooms as well, and also a small group of town houses.

By contrast, Shelby Wood, a new renter at 50 Columbus, says she pays $1,950 a month for a one-bedroom. Ms. Wood fell in love with a particular unit, which is on the seventh floor, home to the building?s amenities and thus endowed with higher ceilings than many others. The price includes two months? free rent with a 14-month lease.

?This is a good thing,? said Ms. Wood, a 32-year-old radio station sales manager who works in Manhattan, ?because I left my apartment in Manhattan that I had lived in for seven years two months before the lease was up, and they haven?t been able to re-rent it yet.?

Ms. Wood said she decided to make the move at this time because she wanted a nicer place, with more windows and amenities, than she had in her Chelsea apartment ? and knew that ?the deals are out there right now.?

In Morristown, at the new Highlands at Morristown Station rental building beside the train station, five or six apartments per week were rented during January and February, said Debra Tantleff, the marketing director for the Roseland Property Company.

A one-bedroom at the Highlands costs $1,744 a month, and rent concession packages are available, Ms. Tantleff said.

The pace of rentals was also up over the last two months at Pier Village, the large mixed-use development beside the beach in Long Branch, Ms. Urgo said. A total of 56 leases were signed in January and February.

?That is more understandable, though,? she said, ?since people are looking past the snowy winter when they go to Pier Village. The leases are for a year, but winter is when people start thinking about where they want to be when it gets warm.?