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Re: Street Flooding Beacon Ave/ Christ Hospital Area
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Home away from home
 
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I've lived further up, Franklin Street and Sherman Avenue, for 6 years - and was here for Hurricane Sandy. The other posters are right - we are high enough up not to worry about street flooding or, as far as I'm aware, water backing up into basements. During Sandy there was some very localized flooding around clogged drains, it was more an issue for pedestrians, nothing one couldn't drive through. Your bigger worries will be trees coming down should we get another bad storm - a number of big, old trees along Ogden and Sherman Avenues toppled, landing on cars, taking down power lines etc.
Posted on: 2015/9/30 17:34
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Re: Safe to live in the Heights (Concord & St. Paul's)?
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Home away from home
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Quote:
I moved to the Heights in 2008. If you are expecting a real urban environment, and are not into the car mono-culture the Heights is not for you.
Posted on: 2015/9/26 3:12
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Re: Bike Share System
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Home away from home
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I live in the Heights, and am happy to see people have been using the bikes docked on Central Avenue at Pershing Field. I would love to see this a success city-wide, and in the Heights in particular, and am tempted to join in the hopes it let's me enjoy more of JC (I don't have a car, and see little of it outside of the Heights/JSQ).
What's holding me back is that the Heights is a terrible place to bike - few, if any bike friendly N/S routes, the hills back from DTJC and Hoboken, and the streets around JSQ - where I would like to bike too/from - are a scene out of Deathrace 2016. If you take Citibike from the Heights to JSQ or DTJC, I would love to hear from you! Are there less stressful ways to get to the PATH station? How do the bikes handle steep upgrades like Newark Avenue (if you are in your mid-50's, like me, your perspective is even more appreciated!)?
Posted on: 2015/9/25 18:20
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Re: Man found dead draped over fence
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Home away from home
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While sad - imagine being alone by the highway - this seems only too plausible. How many times have we passed by someone leaning on something, drunk or sick, just trying to collect themselves quietly?
Posted on: 2015/9/11 1:09
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Re: How will YOU help end homelessness in Hudson County?
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Home away from home
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I'm going to contribute, since you are doing important - perhaps, yes, God's work. What bothers me about the premise is that we/I can end homelessness; at best you - with our help - can ameliorate it's effects. Can I really end the causes - mental illness, substance abuse, uneducated life decisions?
Posted on: 2015/9/11 1:02
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Re: Worst place to live in Hudson County?
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Home away from home
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I can't vote - I've only lived in Jersey City (the Heights) and have only been to Newark 2 or 3 times and nowhere else in Hudson County. I wonder how many people are not being fair and simply dumping on JC?
Posted on: 2015/9/11 0:52
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Re: Renovated house in the Heights asking for $20k/month rent!
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Home away from home
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Quote:
On the one hand, Dixon Leasing does a nice job with their renovations, which in turn bring in a more upscale tenant which can only be beneficial for the Heights, and anywhere else this would be a "trophy" property and a benchmark for future investors, so I hope this is a success for them. That said, $20K/month rent would seem to also demand $20K/month neighborhood amenities. I live about a 10 minute walk from this place, and a few blocks away from Riverview Park and Ogden Avenue you are in a different world. You would have to confine yourself to such a tiny orbit - home/farmers market/ModCup/elevator to Hoboken (if you want to hang with the frat boys) - to feel like your surroundings "fit" and vice-versa. My prediction - they drop the price to under $17,500/month and rent it to a group of young guys in finance.
Posted on: 2015/9/10 18:28
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Re: Is Jersey City Real Estate in a bubble?
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Home away from home
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This report, which appeared in an article on Curbed NY, may shed some light. Even neighborhoods further away from midtown and downtown Manhattan (where most of the jobs, cultural and night life venues are located) are costly. I agree with those who say that proximity to Manhattan is the key, if not the sole, driver of DTJC real estate costs; and I think expanding this map to include JC would illustrate that:
http://streeteasy.com/blog/the-high-b ... possible-on-minimum-wage/
Posted on: 2015/9/9 17:43
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Re: Is Jersey City Real Estate in a bubble?
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Manhattan has become a safety-deposit box for foreign money, and a source of bragging rights for hedgefunders. It's sensible to keep it out of the metrics. I think the author's point about certain sections of a given housing market rising while another falls is critical to understand in depth. I'm seeing you the market for places like mine - 1 be condos in the Heights continue to stagnate. Outside of DTJC, what are the other bright spots?
Posted on: 2015/9/3 22:59
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Re: New Private School DTJC $16,500 tuition
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Home away from home
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I wish them the best. My sister, who is an educator, also believes students are being short-changed and their opportunities for a truly enriching education curtailed by the focus on testing. They sound like they have a good approach.
Whats sad to me is that you have these great schools for a handful of affluent, white young families, while the vast majority of poor, emigrant and families of color get substandard educations. To Yvonne's point - do we really believe it's just about the money "lost" due to abatements? While $16,500/year is out of most family's reach, it probably represents, relatively speaking, a "shoe-string" budget for a school, compared to neighboring public schools with Abbott Law funding. IMO, a less rigid approach, driven less by politics and the unions, would help much more than whatever money curtailing the abatements would send to the schools.
Posted on: 2015/9/3 17:32
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Gentrifiers' guide - distribute in JC or no?
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Home away from home
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http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the- ... -being-an-asshole-7529761
This is either a serious question or not, up to you - answer as you see fit! Personally, one of the of the things that aggravates me, as a moderate income homeowner, is the emphasis on my privilege and sense of entitlement. I think I would feel more sympathetic to those who are being "gentrified out" if there were some discussion about their sense of entitlement - not to have to improve their lots, not to show more ambition for themselves or their loved ones by moving up and out, etc. I bet the author would be happy to pen a version for us tho'
Posted on: 2015/8/27 21:07
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Cool NYC and NJ subway (and rail) map
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Home away from home
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This map is pretty cool, superimposing NYC (and, to a lesser extent), Jersey City and environs) subway and lightrail systems on aerial photos. It gives you a better sense of how neighborhoods relate to transit networks, and pretty clearly illustrates how proximity to rail connections facilitates growth.
The Heights, where I live, is a transit desert - compare it to Red Hook/Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Similar scale of the neighborhood, from what I can see. It would be interesting to see how housing prices and amenities in NYC neighborhoods that are transit deprived compare to places like the Heights. http://www.6sqft.com/see-nycs-subway- ... aerial-photo-of-the-city/
Posted on: 2015/8/27 18:27
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Re: Keeping it real in Greenville-what a read!
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Home away from home
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OMG. There has to be a reality series in there somewhere...
I must say I hope they show some leniency to the 14 year old, though - it's hard to imagine not defending your mom, right or wrong.
Posted on: 2015/8/19 18:00
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Re: Daughter of Bill Gaughan Killed in Wall Township Accident
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Home away from home
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Very sad, my heart goes out to the Gaughans and their friends.
Posted on: 2015/8/19 17:55
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Re: Our Two Cities
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Home away from home
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Quote:
I lived in NYC (Upper West Side/Manhattan Valley area) during Guiliani's administration, and his - and the city's - success was because he started with a radical premise - which was to start by making the city safer and more attractive to the middle class, business, and those with something (usually, money to invest) to contribute. Part of that was his policing strategy, a/k/a "broken windows" approach. Once that took, the benefits would spread more widely, like ripples in a pond, to other areas and residents. Guiliani was widely criticized for alienating poor minority neighborhoods, although these neighborhoods benefited tremendously from a disproportionate drop in crime, and many of the older established black homeowners saw the value of their homes soar, and their hard-earned retirements given new life. What Fulop can do is reach out and partner with everyone he can to make other neighborhoods in JC more attractive to investment, to draw more of the creativity, residential and business development from DTJC to these neighborhoods. IMO this means first and foremost a commitment to 24/7 mass transit, to get a diverse "creative class" interested; the reval; as well as a zero tolerance for the urban pathologies that destroy these neighborhoods. In short, Guiliani did what he did because he wasn't afraid to break some eggs in making his version of the urban omelette. Fulop, alas shows no sign of that.
Posted on: 2015/8/19 17:36
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Re: A sign of the times for 'two cities' | Morgan
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Home away from home
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Quote:
I don't think that is the case. The Heights, for instance, lacks for large scale development, and investment in public amenities (such as the Pershing Field playground and the Riverview Park bandshell, but it's safe, has a reasonable selection of basic shopping, and wide mix of Latino, Indian, and now white creative types and other assorted transplants seem to consider it a fine place to invest in a home and/or raise children. Now, would spreading some of the wealth from DTJC be welcome, buoy our boats more? Sure it would. But IMO this article hit on the much more dire situation of areas where there is much more entrenched poverty.
Posted on: 2015/8/19 17:22
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Re: No need to fret, JC - NYC could build a new 6th Boro!
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Home away from home
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Personally, I agree with all of the opinions expressed - this will not provide affordable housing, except for a few set-aside apartments; and is probably politically and technically impossible.
What astounds me is the level of disconnect regionally - Manhattan and core NYC has such a severe housing shortage that they would at least consider building a brand new island, while neighborhoods like Jersey City Heights have vacant lots and abandoned buildings with views of Manhattan. Are there not regional planning efforts, no connecting of needs/solutions? So many neighborhoods outside of DTJC are ripe for larger scale development - which would serve everyones best interests, yet these neighborhoods are allowed to remain a blight of single family houses and transit deserts. I don't get it.
Posted on: 2015/8/19 15:22
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Condo Board or Management decision?
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Home away from home
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This request for advice goes out to anyone who is/was on their condo board. I'm on mine - a 50+ unit property - and we hired a new management company a few years ago to try to get a handle on the situation left by the previous management/majority shareholder.
One of our biggest issues is dealing with the investor owners, who routinely ignore the Association's rules about move in/out notification, fees, and whose renters are basically trashing the place. Occasionally, our property manager catches a new rental tenant in the act of breaking the rules, and takes action on the unit owner - sometimes resulting in the unit owner pleading their case to the board members directly. I'm hoping to hear from fellow condo board members (past and present) what they suggest we do - intervene, or leave it to the management to take a strong stance enforcing fines, etc. Thanks!
Posted on: 2015/8/19 15:00
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Re: NY Times editorial on Hudson tunnel project
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Home away from home
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Back to the tunnel - here's an op-ed piece supporting Christie's cancelling the ARC project, the writer basically concluding (cost issues aside) the ARC tunnel was not the best design, and better options would enable more connections to NYC's transit network.
http://newyorkyimby.com/2015/01/why-t ... nnel-deserved-to-die.html Problems which the GATEWAY plan could solve - thus the urgency in getting both governors off their respective soapboxes and into the hard work of raising political and financial support for this project! Sure, it will be expensive but it will be 21st century solution providing maximum inter-connectivity for the metro area, vs. a 19th century solution (the ARC plan) providing yet another terminal.
Posted on: 2015/8/18 17:53
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NY Times editorial on Hudson tunnel project
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Home away from home
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Posted on: 2015/8/17 17:39
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No need to fret, JC - NYC could build a new 6th Boro!
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Home away from home
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http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/08 ... _a_sixth_borough.php#more
Probably unrealistic, but an good example of thinking outside of the box vis-a-vis urban planning, affordable housing. I can't help but wonder if Jersey City's planners read this. There are lots of areas in JC that are not living up to their development potential - the Heights, where I live, for example, due to infrastructure issues which we could correct more easily than building an entire island, such as real 24/7 mass transit access to the Heights.
Posted on: 2015/8/17 17:34
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Re: Republican state senator slams Jersey City on tax abatements
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More reading on the subject of abatements http://www.nj.gov/comptroller/news/docs/tax_abatement_report.pdf
Posted on: 2015/8/10 18:02
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Re: Bike Share System
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Home away from home
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IMO, this is never going to work for commuting for most of locations they selected - the model works in NYC as the people who use it generally live close to where they work, and there are many business "nodes" the bike riding population commutes to so the bikes are always in circulation.
Here, too many of them will most likely be taken to one of the commuting hubs necessitating moving the stock around during the day. It may work OK on weekends for occasional riders to use locally, although outside of DTJC much of the city is too bike unfriendly for the casual rider this type of bike would benefit. Quote:
It is!! I can't see that happening, and I'm a fairly fit and slim but at 54 even Newark Avenue from DTJC is getting to be too much, never mind Mountain or Paterson Plank Roads. Maybe some of the newer, younger residents coming from NYC who are used to a bike culture, but I can't imagine it will be a big cohort. I predict this will be confined to DTJC in the very near future.
Posted on: 2015/8/5 20:01
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Re: Republican state senator slams Jersey City on tax abatements
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Home away from home
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Quote:
What do you mean by "affordable" taxes? Are you talking solely about property taxes? I believe it's generally agreed that while property taxes, like all taxes, are regressive they are not nearly as regressive as consumption and income taxes. If you look at this study http://www.itep.org/pdf/whopaysreport.pdf New Jersey's % of total revenue from property taxes is considerably higher than the nation average (37% vs 22%), while our other taxes are on par, except for "other". How do you envision a fairer tax structure - more progressive property taxes? At the end of the day property is wealth, not income or consumption, so perhaps a flatter property tax structure is equitable, and higher taxes on discretionary spending ( read, the gas tax!) is needed if NJ is to rely less on property taxes. I think we also need to look closely at the situation of people who lose their homes due to escalating taxes - what is that about? If the value of your asset so exceeds your income that you can't pay the taxes on it, how did you get there? And should the property tax system be changed to accommodate you at other peoples' expense?
Posted on: 2015/8/5 19:08
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Re: Who in Jersey City has ideas that could change the world?
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Home away from home
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If I had good Ideas about anything I wouldn't be stuck here living in Jersey City. l'll pass...
Posted on: 2015/7/26 4:18
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Re: redevelopment plan for city hall
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Home away from home
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Quote:
From the perspective of a professional working in historic preservation, this building is a probably a good candidate for preserving. While it's been clad in aluminum siding, and has had it's windows replaced, it retains it's historic scale, cornice (under the aluminum, if not salvageable at least enough left possibly to replicate it), and particularly important - it's original pattern of windows and doors. I checked the 1928 Hopkins & Co. Map - this building was one of a group of frame buildings with outbuildings in the back - the small street level door may have been a "horse trot" accessing the stable or other shop in the rear yard http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=3471 in which case it retains it's 'historic spatial designation', a defining characteristic. As a simple frame structure, it would not take much to restore this building, and incorporate it into a larger development. The ground floor, along with the yard and the "horse trot" could be repurposed for some sort of public retail/dining amenity, which could be very cool.
Posted on: 2015/7/22 18:12
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Re: Need tee shirts!
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Home away from home
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My neighbor, Anthony Blunda, has his own T-shirt printing business. He's in the Heights:
order4abtees@verizon.net
Posted on: 2015/7/21 17:25
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Re: Is Jersey City Real Estate in a bubble?
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Home away from home
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This is evidence of a bubble in Manhattan. I think we need some more compelling examples of the bubble in DTJC than $800.00/s.f.
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2015/07 ... window_asks_950k.php#more
Posted on: 2015/7/21 17:21
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Re: Tips for a cheap and painless bathroom renovation
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Home away from home
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Quote:
Good luck with the project! Good post, very informative. I've been toying with the idea of re-doing my bathroom, so this was great information for me too. One last question: If you were to spring for one luxe feature in a standard size (5'-6" x 7'-6") - steam shower, Toto (or similar, with built in bidet function) toilet, or jacuzzi tub, what would it be? I'm thinking in terms of re-sale value potential and/or bang for the buck if it's just a personal splurge.
Posted on: 2015/7/21 17:02
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Re: PATH and The Shithole of Port Authority
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Home away from home
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Quote:
I for one really like the new WTC PATH station, and am looking forward to it being finished. I love how light, airy, architecturally engaging it is, and feel history will prove it was worth the time and money to create good design. I can understand how Downtowners feel tho' - for you all it is more like taking the subway from you lovely neighborhood, more like living in the city, and so practicality is key. Living in the Heights, my commute starts waiting for a bus on the corner of Palisade Avenue - shuttered storefronts, abandoned buildings, trash skittering in the wind - and ends at the WTC station - this beautiful, futuristic space, and up you pop into the amazing energy of Manhattan! The quality of the space is important; hopefully the quality of the ride will catch up.
Posted on: 2015/7/21 16:54
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