Vroom between Summit and Balwin? I wouldn't. But it's been a while since I walked the area.

Walk around the area and then walk to Journal Square PATH and form your own opinion.

In Jersey City, a lot of your comfort revolves around proximity to the PATH train...it is the lifeline to civilization. If you need a bus to get to PATH life quality of life is downgraded.

I hope you don't get some asshole of a cop who tells them that the woman next door compained about "all you people crashing in this house."
They could make your life miserable afterwards becasue they will remain after the cops have gone.

It is not illegal for many people to live in a house or to visit a house, it is illegal to RENT to them.
The home is owned by your friend...call HER, she is responsible for those she rents to.

If she continues to do nothing, report the building to the apppropriate authorities and keep your fingers crossed that your action doesn't escalate the unpleasantness. Battling with neighbors is truly a debilitating experience. Do it ONLY as a last resort.

(What neighborhood is this?)

That will be a godsend.

Wiggling though that underbrush and gravel and over the small hill was always a pain in the ass. Especially when you met a biker coming the other way.

tamm,

That Baldwin location across from that old paper company, Scott????, (pretty far from the courthouse BTW) is an okay walk during the day but not at night.
Between Baldwin and Summit down there is unsavory.

Baldwin on the OTHER side of the tracks is a bit better and anything near the courthouse is probably safe and well patrolled...and you can FALL into the PATH station in a few minutes.
Have you checked smaller apartment buildings a bit up Kennedy or Summit to the North of the Square. Walking on Kennedy is safe...Summit prettty much so.
Rentals shouldn't be too bad with some diligent searching.

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No I don't think it would be possilbe to teach Gaughan to use a computer.
A quote illustrates Gaughan's grasp of City Economics:
"I worked hard to convince the mayor to do the revaluation," Gaughan said.
"We are only collecting 26 percent of the tax revenues that we should be collecting."

That quote from a man who is partially in charge of taxation in Jersey City. Can ANY official actually be that dim?


On Fulop:
Fulop may have gotten his bags of cash from Golsdman and Morgan (though how much these people were actually PAID before the Bush free-for-all years is up for grabs.) FINE, no problem with his earning money.

What that indicates is that he has no need to take bribes like other council members and mayors. He is politically and economically independent, and not dependent on black bags from mobbed up developers to buy his new car.
This is a good thing.

Oh, anyone concerned about poor black people benefiting from development on the West Side, rest assured that any development there will provide housing for as many poor blacks as does Crystal Point, Society Hill, Trump Plaza, the Portofino or the Monaco.
The poor very rarely benefit when they are bulldozered out of a neighborhood to provide "luxury" housing.
They get neither the housing NOR the jobs.

God knows what is going to happen July 1 (or August 1 depending on what flyer they sent out...I got both) They are purposely talking gobbledygook with pricing and channel availablility presumably to confuse people so they can overcharge.
They do this dance at least once a year sometimes twice a year, changing what the call all service levels to other names at other prices. The net effect is that you are billed some preposteous amount and then must HAGGLE for a lower price. It's like buying a carpet in a Cairo market.
Nobody can POSSIBLY expect that anyone at Comcast can understanding the pricing structure.

For example the pricing page, with about 200 differntly priced items) dated July 1, 2010 prices something called DIGITAL STARTER (include "Standard" service, digital converter and remote) but NOWHERE on the new Channe Lineup page is there anything called STANDARD SERVICE...just Limited Basic, Expanded Service, Digital Classic, Premium, Selectom International Premiums...and about 4 others.)

So they will not even describe what they mean for STANDARD SERVICE other than say it costs $59.35 plus tax. After all, the definition of the word STANDARD implies that lots of people will have this level.
This kind of shit is repeated over and over with this rotten company that granted unregulated monopoly power in Jersey City.

I have dealt with many large companies in my years, but I have honestly NEVER seen anything so woefully dreadful as Comcast. And my landlord will allow NO alternative.

Don't worry, the REST of the council have never met a real estate deal they could resist as long as tax-money could be diverted to developers (with the council getting their customary "finder's fee.")

Borrowing to move the incinerator so the land could be GIVEN to a developer...that's what Jersey City is all alout. And then ANOTHER developer could be given another contract to RE-build the Incinerator...paging Tony Soprano.

Most of the Council are undoubtedly considerably richer than they were last month. Fulop voted his conscience and thus did not receive his bagful of cash.

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Yes indeed.

Hmmm, Tuesay night in Jersey City...Watch TV.

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I walk at a reasonable pace, the same pace that the other thousand of my neighbors walk to and from the train and since I LIVE at Newport I have often walked to the Newport station...which takes me 10 minutes to get from my apartment 2 buildings away to the PATH platform.

I have often walked to the Crystal Point site. If I had to take an elevator up to an apartment in the building the walk between the apartment and the PATH PLATFORM (that's where the train is) would be a half hour within 5 minutes.

Now, Have YOU ever timed the walk or are you content to play with google as your expert source? I am telling you how long it takes and you are GUESSING how long you think it MIGHT take. If you want to see how long it takes, try walking it and you will find out that I am right. There's no teacher like experience.

New Federal Law:

Renters just scored a big win against foreclosure.

You might think renters don't have to worry about losing their homes to the bank. But many have been turned out onto the street--although they were current on their rent--because the landlord wasn't current with his mortgage payments. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that 40 percent of the households that lose their homes to foreclosure are renters evicted after the bank takes the home from their landlord.

Renters now have more protection against losing their homes under the new foreclosure prevention bill President Obama signed into law yesterday.

Starting immediately, the law requires that tenants who pay their rent on time can remain in their home until the end of their lease, unless the bank sells the property to someone who intends to make it his own residence. Even without a lease, renters must be allowed to stay in their home for 90 days after the foreclosure. The provision is scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.

Jurisdictions that already have more stringent renter-protection laws in place won't see the rules loosened by the new federal law. The District, for example, already protects renters from being evicted during the term of their lease unless they fail to pay rent or provide another just cause for eviction. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty has a state-by-state description of eviction and foreclosure laws on its Web site.

..........this became law May, 2009.

Years ago, I lived near Jewett and Bergen, it got worse as you approcached Monticello. The area was NOT safe. If it has improved by 100% it is STILL not safe.

Problem is the walk back and forth to Journal Square.

Don't do it.

"Puffery" is EXACTLY the right word.

Here's my fave:
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Presumably those "places" are BJ's, ShopRite or NEWARK because otherwise she is going to haveto walk either to Exchange Place or Newport to catch the PATH that "whizzes" by SOME parts of Jersey City but certainly NOT Crystal Point.

Any trip into Manhattan will take her AT LEAST an extra half hour each way IF she is a fast walker...an hour's additional commute.

Of course, she can go innto her garage, get her car out and DRIVE to Neport and re- park if for $20 while she "whizzes" into Manhattan. (Or she can sell her commercial property and huy a hovercraft.)

Oh, I also LOVED the "and I rented out my Murray Hill co-op"...yeah right, try that with a decent NYC co-op board.

My preference to pay for all social functions is a progressive ASSET tax, which is a tax on WEALTH. Second choice would be a constant asset tax. And thus, a property tax comes far closer than an income tax.

To illustrate: a person inheriting $10 million and investing in 3% tax-free municipals gets $300,000 a year. He could easily buy a 3 million dollar property and send 5 kids to school without paying a penny under an income tax scheme.

At least paying a real estate tax to finance schools, charter or otherwise, will have him paying something like a tax on wealth.

Since ownership of real estate is in some degree proportional to wealth it is a good way to finance a city...and that's what most cities have done.

But better is to do what some states have done: tax one's net worth every year.

As for practical consequences of a city income tax, one need only look to NYC (and Yonkers.) The adoption of the income tax only added ANOTHER tax...the real estate tax still exists. The same would happen in Jersey City, and the politicians, the department managers, and the Mob would just take home larger satchels full of unmarked bills.

And of course, allowing a City Council to abate the COUNTY and SCHOOL portion of taxes is illegal, plain and simple, whether the bribed judges in NJ think so or not. In fact charging people different taxes on equal real estate is unconstitutional on its face.

I think the rose bushes took one look around and realized where they were, pulled themselves up by the roots and ran away.

It is not historic but merely old regardless of the fact that a couple misguided preservationsists petitioned to save it along with the even stupider old wall called THE EMBANKMENT.

There are people who would consider old trolley tracks HISTORIC long after the trolleys are gone.

To some people it seems that it is INCONCEIVABLE that they live in an area where there is NOTHING to save so save something they MUST. The Embankment and the Powerhouse were part of an abandoned railyard. An abandoned railyard, like a City Dump, has only one function...to be cleaned up of every bit of garbage and rebuilt.

To be HISTORIC it needs to be a little more than old and long past it's only purpose, a purely utilitarian one, keeping rain off electrical equipment. Saving this heap is akin to saving the old fuse box when your house is rewired with modern circuit breakers.

Watch and wait, as soon as restoration is begun, if EVER that is to happen, it will collapse...which will be fine as long as nobody is killed. That's exactly what they did with the STATE THEATER, a lovely old building worth saving. "Oops" said the developer...but then quietly "but now at least I have the LOT."

As for its uses, does anyone think we need more RETAIL space in preference to parkland? Another strip mall perhaps? Another Home Depot, Kohl's, Macy's, Sears, Penney's, Armani Emporium, Another Food Court, an 18 screen cinema showing the same garbage as the Loew's Cineplex Odious, a cutesy food outlet selling tomatoes for $3 apiece?

Or are we going to continue to make believe there is an artist district in place? The artists are LONG gone, priced out of the market by dilettants whose pleasure comes from trying to memorialize detritus. Jackie Kennedy wanna-be's.

The Powerhouse is old, and delapidated, nothing more. Get rid of it and give people and their kids someplace they can enjoy like a park.
Or will we be forced to go on for ANOTHER ten years yammering about preserving it while it sits there and gets 10 years MORE decrepit.

Take a look back at the other "preservations" that have been done. ONE: LOEW'S JERSEY CITY. And it was done/is being done by volunteers. So anyone interested in saving this mess should come down with a bucket of mortar and start slathering it on. Get your friends and be ready to work for 20 years.
If you are waiting for the bankrupt city or state to do the job you will wait a long time. If you wait for a developer to do it, you will wait FOREVER.

Same goes for the fabulous Embankment and the glorious bike trail jokingly called THE ARCHES. Imagine, a lousy bike trail that reuires only some macadam and even THAT gets nothing but talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

You are living in Jersey City...get used to it.

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It is NOT historic but purely functional in it's time with no function today. It was built to keep rain off huge generators to power the electric railroad under the Hudson.
It is not historic, merely OLD, the only relic of the devastated wasteland the railroads left when they went bell up. Clearing out detritus allowed for waterfront housing.

There is only one piece of detritus East of Washington Boulevard left, the falling down generator cover, wasting space that the community could use if it were torn down and made into a park.

They got rid of the generators long ago, so it's sole function is gone.

It is no more historic than an ugly old tarpaulin somebody would keep after he tore out his pool.

Probably the only reason the building is still standing is that the city cannot find the money to tear it down. It is cheaper to leave the ugly blight in place.

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In a word: YES!

And make it a park.

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ROFL ROFL ROFL.

I was amused by one last week that said "Hoboken Vicinity"...it was in the center of Union City!

I guess it could be worse: they could start calling the whole area THE WEST SIDE.

It is a horrible block and for the Heights that's SAYING something. And the blocks only get WORSE as you head South. As they approach Christ Hospital the area iimproves a little. HEad West a block or two and the place deteriorates.

Many time I waited for a 99S to NYC bus either on Griffith or Bowers and occasionally did my wash at the Laundromat in the middle of the block.


cheese,
that ugly apartment saved you from making a BIG mistake.

The BIGGEST joke is that a long while ago some real estate numbnuts named the area THE ARTIST DISTRICT, I think there's still a sign. Never was the language so badly mangled. ONE artist moved in and moved back out.

I hope all went well.

So then the purpose of the Powerhouse is to "revitalize" the area????
Perhaps to bring in some real estate developers and maybe even a Mall??????????

WOW woudn't a couple high rise housing projects be exciting and novel for the now desolate Jersey City Waterfront.


At least the Baltimore renovation made some SENSE.
The Jersey City job is just a masturbatory exercise to move money to developers aided and abetted by a couple of misplaced dilettantes.

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I guarantee you that it will move at LEAST as fast as the Embankment...with probably the same result as the Betz Brewery preservation.

Gee, for $375 G's do you get that LOT? It would certainly be a good commute for somebody working at the WTC?

"Dear, shall we have cocktails in the Winter Garden?"

My fave is to find a listing for "Hoboken vicinity" only to find out later they are talking about UNION CITY.

I might try it. Haven't been on the bike since last year, so it's dust and pump for me too... but 10 miles with a BIG hill climb will be daunting.
But nobody says I can't go forth and back on Grand Street...without climbing that first L O N G hill to Lincoln Park. And then it's up up and up all the way to Griffith Street.

Perhaps clipping off the Heights completely and going from the intersection of Kennedy and Newark straight downtown on Newark picking up the crowd again at Palisade Avbe. might be a 7 or 8 mile ride...
more tenable.

The candy and soda stands are provided free of charge by a consortium of local dentists.

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But when we hear about PROJECTS housing the poor, just the opposite pertains "We CANNOT keep housing the poor in these densely packed towers...we must tear them down and build low-rise apartments and town houses."
I guess the rich tend to STACK better.
(350 apartments per tower at Newport is defined as luxury, but 125 apartments per tower at Curries Woods was defined as crowded squalor.)

Moral is that developers make money BUILDING and TEARING DOWN and REBUILDING, the order is immaterial, the height is immaterial...as long as they get to gorge themselves at the public tax troughs.

Oh, how NASTY of Channel 9 to film the goings on in Council Chambers. The light of public scrutiny must feel like the first rays of dawn to a vampire.
"Quick, table this meeting...look Gaughin ran out ALREADY but he has a casket waiting for him at home. "

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Washington Park is HALF in Union City, the most densely populated city in the United States with a population that is more than 82% Hispanic.

Living too near the Crips, and Bloods, and Latin Kings fighting for the same turf would make me very nervous...and parks are often that turf.

What is the going rate per apartment for the cost of management? I know there are economies of scale but let's say on am 8- 12 unit building.

Just a ballpark figure will be fine.

But for the liquor store which bailed out last year the place has been empty since it's construction.

I see no sign that anything is changing.

Laminated Flooring: