I live south of Montgomery and think its odd that would be any kind of a line. I would think of Communipaw as a line. Mr Morgan should start taking some walks around his neighborhood and see all the changes coming.

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There's no one street that's going to make a clean division, but Montgomery is a reasonable hack

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I don't find it "odd" at all, on one side of Montgomery you have the heights, journal square, historic downtown, the village, and Newport... the other side you have Mcginley square, Lincoln park, Bergen Lafayette west side, and Greenville.

Do you think this was a misspeak? Montgomery doesn't separate high from low-income areas...Van Vorst Park and Paulus Hook are super high dollar real estate areas, most certainly comparable to, and to some, even better than their northern counterparts. And even outside of downtown, some of the highest dollar homes are over on Bentley and Gifford near Lincoln Park and Astor Pl, both of which are south of Montgomery. I could see Communipaw being an invisible line, separating the haves and the have-nots, but not Montgomery. Think that was a mis-speak? Or is he unaware of how much has changed in his neighborhood, particularly on his own street? So very odd.



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By Earl Morgan | For The Jersey Journal

Three weeks ago the New York Times published "Jersey City: Growing, With Many Personalities," a real estate piece about a family that recently moved to the Jersey City Heights from Williamsburg in Brooklyn.

The story, which like many of the real estate variety, reads like a travelogue, extolling both amenities that Jersey City offers and the various neighborhoods experiencing a renaissance. There was of course an emphasis on developments along the waterfront and its countless restaurants, along with a mention of the possible opening of a Whole Foods near the Grove Street PATH station.

"Everywhere you look around, there's something new happening," says one Downtown transplant quoted in the article. That transplant is paying $2,320 a month for a one-bedroom apartment on Christopher Columbus Drive.

The piece quotes a statement from Mayor Steve Fulop about Jersey City -- "We've kind of hit our stride" -- and mentions the Victorian townhouse he and his fianc? are renovating in the Heights. During his mayoral campaign Fulop pledged to move to the city's predominantly African-American Bergen-Lafayette community, which has been largely left out of this much ballyhooed rebirth.

The writer of this piece, has previously written about Jersey City in a Feb. 12 article, "Moving to Jersey City? Join the Club." That story was also in the real estate vein (though it was also more of a feature), but managed to touch on the less than real-estate friendly veneer of a city being gentrified:

More

"Jersey City: Growing, With Many Personalities"

Let see how many game of throne personalities emerge when they learn about the reval after they got in.

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Seriously - like they're cleaning up cave paintings and installing indoor plumbing when they move in to the neighborhood. Obnoxious. JC - make it yours, but only if you're one of "us."

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That was easily the most egregious part of the article.

You and I both know exactly what they meant, but Jesus, phrasing.

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Untapped=ungentrified=cheap

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It means they are white ppl from Ohio[sic] who moved to and got priced out of Bkyln and were trying to be on the cutting edge by moving to the untapped areas of JC.

The area's around the reservoir are indeed tree lined with some classic houses, exactly the same types as built and found in and around Williamsburg.

Wilma and Barney can be YOUR neighbors too.

Archie Bunker lived in Queens.

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God how I hate this drivel. What does that even mean?

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Haha! +1

Fulop working to improve the schools, really?! maybe in 2012...

Now all the city needs is an effective way to keep the citizens who don't live in the yuppie enclave downtown safe from stray gunfire.

Holla @ Yo Boyz......

Slideshow - click link
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2016 ... RSEY-CITY-slide-2TVY.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/rea ... h-many-personalities.html

====================

Jersey City: Growing, With Many Personalities

By RONDA KAYSEN
JUNE 8, 2016
The New York Times

Elizabeth and Nick Flint were apartment hunting in Brooklyn two years ago when a friend suggested they consider Jersey City instead. The couple, who were renting in Williamsburg, wanted to buy a place.

?By the time we found something in Brooklyn, it was like 13 stops on the L, so we started to look at other places,? Ms. Flint said. They soon realized that Jersey City had a vibrant downtown with an accessible waterfront. It was also a short commute to Manhattan.

The Flints focused on Jersey City Heights, at the city?s northern end. ?We found this area of the Heights that was untapped,? said Ms. Flint, 36, a yoga instructor. The sleepy enclave had a mix of one-, two- and three-family homes and large apartment buildings. While some blocks were handsome, others seemed rundown.

The couple, who now have a 3?-year-old son and a newborn daughter, paid around $385,000 about a year and a half ago for a house with three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a small yard on Jefferson Avenue. Ms. Flint misses the energy of Williamsburg; where she lives now ?kind of reminds me of Greenpoint five years ago,? she said, referring to the Brooklyn neighborhood.

The Heights is one of many neighborhoods in Jersey City drawing people priced out of Manhattan and Brooklyn.

160 FIRST STREET, #PH5 A three-bedroom three-bath penthouse in a new condo downtown, listed at $1,998,990.

?As Manhattan becomes increasingly more densely populated, people are migrating to the next stop,? said Michael J. DeMarco, the president of Mack-Cali Realty, which is building 6,000 residential units near the Jersey City waterfront, including M2 at Marbella, a 311-unit rental opening this month. ?Now they?re looking across the water and saying, ?Isn?t that a lot closer than Bushwick or Williamsburg?? ?

Countless restaurants are now downtown. Whole Foods Market plans to open near the Grove Street PATH station in 2020. ?Everywhere you look around, there is something new happening,? said Nicole Sorgentoni, 33, a jewelry buyer for Loft who pays $2,320 a month for a one-bedroom in 70 Columbus, a luxury rental downtown.

Steven M. Fulop, the 39-year-old mayor, said of the city, ?We?ve kind of hit our stride.? He and his fianc?e, Jaclyn Thompson, are renovating a Victorian rowhouse that they bought last summer in the Heights.

Schools remain a wild card. The city has some excellent schools, like Dr. Ronald E. McNair Academic High School, which is ranked third in the state, according to U.S. News and World Report. But others struggle.

?The school system is one that we?re still focused on improving,? Mr. Fulop said.

Popular charter schools have long wait lists. Mr. Flint, 40, an actor, waited in line for two days (hiring someone to camp overnight) to get his son a coveted spot in a prekindergarten charter program at Concordia Learning Center at St. Joseph?s School for the Blind.

But many parents say schools are improving, especially downtown. ?The schools down here are getting better, and they?re getting better because more parents are getting involved,? said Jesse Teeters, 37, an actor whose daughter, almost 6, goes to kindergarten at Public School 5 downtown.

Mr. Teeters and his wife, Megan, 37, a clothing designer, bought a three-bedroom rowhouse in 2011 on First Street in the Village, a downtown neighborhood. They paid $515,000; similar properties in the area are selling for around $1 million today, he said.

What You?ll Find

Jersey City, with some 264,000 residents over 15 square miles, is a collection of neighborhoods with distinct personalities. In 2010, the population was 28 percent Hispanic or Latino, 26 percent black, 24 percent Asian and 22 percent non-Hispanic white, according to United States Census data.

The Hudson River is to the east; Union City, North Bergen and Hoboken are to the north; the Hackensack River, Newark Bay and Secaucus to the west; and Bayonne to the south.

The varied housing stock is dispersed along wide, congested avenues and quieter side streets. While high-rises abound in waterfront neighborhoods like Exchange Place and Newport, other waterfront enclaves like Paulus Hook retain a quaint sensibility. Row homes and brownstones can be found in downtown neighborhoods like Hamilton Park and Van Vorst Park. Bergen-Lafayette, to the southwest, has 19th-century Victorian houses and brownstones, along with neglected properties.

105 FERRY STREET A four-family home in the Heights, currently used as a three-family, listed at $549,000.

Some 9,700 residential units, mostly rentals, are under construction around the city and 16,000 more are approved, according to the mayor?s office.

Journal Square, in the north-center of the city, has a bustling transit hub surrounded by courthouses and shopping. Quieter swathes of Journal Square, like Hilltop, offer a mix of homes, along with larger multifamily buildings. It?s the ?up-and-coming? area, said Kim Beier, a sales woman for Halstead Property.

What You?ll Pay

On June 1, there were 529 residential properties on the market, according to JCity Realty, with a median asking price of $399,000. Listings ranged from a two-bedroom one-bath condominium in Journal Square for $55,000 up to a three-bedroom three-bath condo downtown for $2.5 million.

Bidding wars are commonplace, said Natalie Miniard, the owner of JCity Realty.

Prices are highest downtown, which includes the waterfront. Of the condos (the largest category of sales there) that sold downtown between January and May, the median price was $670,000, up from $583,500 during the same period in 2015, according to JCity Realty, an increase of almost 15 percent. By comparison, the median price for a condo in Journal Square was $243,500 through May of 2016, up about 26 percent from $194,000 a year earlier.

Rents also skew to the river. The median monthly rent in May for waterfront rentals was $3,000; the rest of downtown was $2,695; Journal Square was $1,825; and the Heights was $1,650, according to Urban Luxe Realty.

23 CRESCENT AVENUE A four-bedroom one-and-a-half-bath rowhouse in Bergen-Lafayette, listed at $499,000.

Liberty State Park, a 1,212-acre park abutting the Hudson River, houses the Liberty Science Center and a 9/11 memorial. Visitors can take a kayak tour of the Hudson River estuary or catch a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Mana Contemporary, an arts center in Journal Square, is open to the public during select hours.

The Newport Center Mall has four department stores, more than 130 shops, an 11-screen cinema and a 1,000-seat dining pavilion. A pedestrian promenade along Newark Avenue between Grove and Erie Streets is lined with bars and restaurants.

The Schools

The Jersey City school district serves about 28,000 children. Universal prekindergarten is available to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the city. There are 26 elementary schools and four middle schools, including a magnet school for gifted students. Four of the city?s eight high schools are magnet schools. The district?s average SAT score for 2014-2105 was 406 in reading, 407 in writing and 432 in math, compared with statewide averages of 500, 499 and 521. The New Jersey Department of Education website lists 12 charter schools.

Private School Review lists more than 30 private schools in Jersey City on its website, many of which are parochial.

The Commute

The PATH has stops in Jersey City at Exchange Place, Newport, Grove Street and Journal Square. The trip to 33rd Street in Manhattan is around 15 minutes from Newport and around 20 minutes from Journal Square. The ride to the World Trade Center is around five minutes from Exchange Place and about 10 minutes from Journal Square.

New Jersey Transit operates buses to the Port Authority from various points in Jersey City.

NY Waterway ferries go to Manhattan from Paulus Hook, Liberty Harbor and Port Liberte. Light rail connects residents to various points in Jersey City and nearby towns. An entrance to the Holland Tunnel is in Jersey City.

The History

When Dutch colonists arrived on the waterfront of what is now Jersey City in 1623, the Lenape Indians were living there, according to Jersey City Past and Present, a website run by New Jersey City University.