Quote:

I believe they meant, "bike lane."

"this has become a place of bike lanes..."

Really?

Thank god about those cars, get rid of these people who feel entitled to something extra because they work for a municipality. Will Healy visit Leona is the question?

Making amends for the ridiculous failure to cover the election in the first place.

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?It is a sign of the new Jersey City, and the excitement surrounding its new mayor, that his inauguration will be filmed for an episode of Cake Boss.?

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Thank God the Cake Boss is giving his blessing to the "new" Jersey City. We have arrived!

I thought the NY times article was fair.

It felt like a pat on head that a big brother would give to his little brother for doing something halfway decent. It was a little patronizing.

The times people should step out of NYC metro area and explore other parts of NY state. Then they should comment which state is more unfashionable.

Good article. So glad the Healy machine is history.

By KATE ZERNIKE

JERSEY CITY ? Once an unfashionable town named after an unfashionable state, this has become a place of bike lanes and brunch spots, organic farmers? markets and free yoga in the parks. Brought on by the swell of affluent young residents who followed financial firms across the river, strollers now crowd the sidewalks and shimmering towers filled with luxury rentals line the waterfront. Kumon, the supplementary after-school program of the anxious elite, occupies a shiny storefront downtown.

Through all of this, however, Jersey City politics have stayed stubbornly within the mold of Frank Hague, the early-20th-century mayor and political boss who set the standard for corruption, even by New Jersey standards. Newly vigorous community groups have complained of projects stumbling because of bureaucracy. Developers have accused the city of playing favorites with tax abatements. A bribery scandal has swirled around City Hall.

But on Monday, Jersey City will swear in a new mayor, one whose campaign slogan ? ?enough? ? and impressive r?sum? seem to match the city?s new ambition.

The new mayor is Steven Fulop, a 36-year-old former trader at Goldman Sachs. After 9/11, he took a leave to serve in the Marine Corps, and upon his return from Iraq worked his way up as a city councilman, helping to organize community groups and crusading for better schools and stronger ethics laws.

?It?s a breath of fresh air,? said Tony Frier, who moved here two decades ago and opened the 9th and Coles Tavern with his husband three years ago. ?There was so much bureaucracy and red tape, it was bogging everything down. There was no progress being made. He?s got a vision. It?s going to give everybody new life.?

Mr. Fulop, a Democrat, has built a reputation as a reformer, impressing even his former adversaries with his plans to standardize tax abatement procedures, restructure the Police Department to reduce crime in neighborhoods that have been left out of the city?s rebirth, and produce greater civic involvement from the financial firms that have made this area Wall Street West, including the creation of a program to offer summer jobs to local students.

?People are finding us across the river, and I want to expand that,? Mr. Fulop said. ?Historically, people outgrow the West Village, come here and then move to the suburbs. Our goal is to stop that last move.?

Already, more families with children are staying. Tribeca Pediatrics has an outpost across from Hamilton Park, which was rebuilt by neighborhood groups after years of occupation by the Latin Kings.

Still, the city?s public schools remain under state control, with all but a handful classified as failing. Residents pay premium taxes, even as garbage cans overflow and potholes go unrepaired. Though downtown neighborhoods have gotten safer, neighborhoods farther out still struggle with high crime rates. Many have long suspected that the city?s recent success was due to its proximity to New York, and not because of, but in spite of, the city?s political establishment. Hudson County residents have reason to temper their optimism: the fresh-faced new mayor of Hoboken, Peter Cammarano, was one of 44 officials swept up in the bribery scandal that brought down Jersey City?s deputy mayor four years ago.

The second of three sons born to immigrants from Israel and Romania who own a deli in Newark, Mr. Fulop grew up in Edison, N.J., and like so many of his new constituents, moved here to work for Goldman. He bought an apartment near the waterfront in 2000, figuring the influx of financial firms would make the city a good investment.

After his tour in Iraq, he ran unsuccessfully for Congress before narrowly winning a seat on the City Council in 2005. Four years ago, Mr. Fulop expanded his political influence by sponsoring a winning slate of school board members. More recently, he helped bring in a longtime veteran of the New York City schools, Marcia Lyles, as superintendent.

And he has hammered city officials about ethics violations since 2009, when the sweeping corruption investigation known as Operation Bid Rig ensnared several dozen Hudson County politicians, including several associates of Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, on charges of accepting bribes from a developer.

?I don?t think people realize how much that left an impression on the city,? said Shelley Skinner, who met Mr. Fulop after he responded to an e-mail complaining about the quality of the schools, encouraging her and a group of parents to organize. ?O.K., Hudson County is corrupt, but this is what our tax dollars are going toward? People with kids think, ?I?m not getting a quality school because of this?? ?

?After his election, so many of my friends said, ?We can stay,? ? she said.

The election was nonpartisan, expensive and rollicking. Mr. Healy and Mr. Fulop together spent about $2 million.

Mr. Healy was endorsed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark, and, remarkably in a city with little national profile, President Obama. But Mr. Fulop ran ads with footage of Mr. Healy, who was not accused in the bribery scandal, meeting with the developer who had been at the heart of it. A week before the election, Mr. Healy found himself explaining a long ago incident in which he had been photographed naked on his front porch.

Mr. Fulop won with 52 percent of the vote, winning over new residents but also what he calls ?the born and raiseds.?

?They saw in Steve a young guy with new ideas who was going to turn the city around,? said Junior Maldonado, the incumbent councilman Mr. Fulop defeated in 2005, and who later turned into a supporter. ?I have been watching him developing a vision and a mission for Jersey City, and I liked what I saw,? he said. ?I think the people in Jersey City radiated to his message.?

Since his election, Mr. Fulop has held meetings with residents and sent out surveys to ask them what they want from City Hall. He has hired Howard Safir, the former commissioner of the Police and Fire Departments in New York, to reorganize the Police Department. He has done away with a fleet of city cars.

It is a sign of the new Jersey City, and the excitement surrounding its new mayor, that his inauguration will be filmed for an episode of Cake Boss.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/nyr ... .html?pagewanted=all&_r=0