It just seems ANY attempt at progress to improve jersey city are met with those "activists" screaming bloody murder. They really need to get their head out of.... I drove by that area, it was a run down half vacant dump with garbages everywhere. Should razed the place a long time ago, glad city is building something over it..ANYTHING for that matter is better than what's there right now.

Quote:

Cliches are your friends. Know them. Use them.

Interesting bit of history there however I would be thankful if someone helped me move away from that area. That does not look like a pleasant place to live.

40 buildings making way for traffic improvement
Monday, October 09, 2006
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

A tiny Jersey City community is being razed to make way for a major traffic improvement project, and one of the last holdouts is regretfully saying good-bye.

"It was nice here at one time, but everyone is gone," said Olga Nichols, 87, a resident of Covert Street off St. Paul's Avenue for 75 years.

The state Department of Transportation used eminent domain to buy about 40 residences and commercial buildings, many of them empty, on Covert and Dey streets and Larch Avenue to make way for the $225 million St. Paul's Avenue Bridge project.

The goal is to ease congestion on the Tonnelle Circle by providing a new connection between the Wittpenn Bridge and Routes 1&9, officials said. The DOT eventually plans to replace the Wittpenn Bridge with a new structure.

Nichols moved in to live with her aunt and uncle on Covert Street in 1931. A year before, she had been sent to a Bronx orphanage because her father was killed in a Pennsylvania mine accident.

She's reluctantly begun the search for her new home, possibly in Bayonne.

"I'm the only one left (on my block)," Nichols said, surrounded by houses slated to be demolished in a few weeks. "I have no choice. I have to leave."

Her uncle's home was the first in the neighborhood to trade in its outhouse for an indoor toilet, Nichols recalled. She remembered her aunt throwing loaves of bread to soldiers on trains during World War II. After marrying in 1952, Nichols moved out of her aunt's and uncle's home - and into the house next door.

David Donnelly, an aide to Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, said the much-needed project will unfortunately mean the end for the tiny, isolated neighborhood.

"It is certainly a quaint area, but there's only a few people left so it's a small price to pay for progress," he said.

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Activists oppose 'Dogpatch' demo
Monday, October 09, 2006

The St. Paul's Avenue Bridge is taking us in the wrong direction, according to Jersey City historian John Gomez.

The area being razed to make room for the project, sometimes referred to as "Dogpatch," is "a cute 19th century neighborhood with some eclectic architecture and cobblestone streets," Gomez said.

"It's a neighborhood waiting to be discovered for its architectural treasures but that's not going to happen with the DOT plans," Gomez said. "Of course preservationists won't take it lying down. We are going to oppose it."

--MICHAELANGELO CONTE

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Unsecured buildings boarded up
Monday, October 09, 2006
By MICHAELANGELO CONTE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Last week, a Jersey City police officer reported to higher-ups that the buildings bought by the state Department of Transportation to make way for St. Paul's Avenue Bridge project were unsecured, overrun by squatters and fire hazards to the handful of remaining residents, officials said.

He got a reaction. Representatives of the mayor's office, city inspectors and DOT officials converged on the site and crews boarded up the houses and took away 19 truckloads of debris illegally dumped in the area, officials said.

Because of the fire hazard, the DOT installed fire and carbon monoxide sensors in the buildings. City officials kicked 20 squatters out of the vacant buildings.

While the officials were at the site, someone climbed through a window of Olga Nichols' home and stole her television set. In order to make Nichols' home more visible and secure, they chopped down the trees around her residence.

"Clearly our goal is to move forward as soon a possible because the sooner I can demolish the properties on the site, the sooner I can eliminate the type of problems the city and we would like to avoid," said Joe Fiordaliso, DOT's chief of staff, adding that the agency boarded up the buildings as they took them over but the plywood had been removed.