Escape for Summer

Sure, summer has so far been mostly rainy and cold. But eventually summer will arrive, and that means hitting the beach. So just in case you want a little bit more sand than Newport Beach offers, here are a few getaway special deals:

NJ Transit Beach Special
Hoboken Now points out a NJ Transit discount on beach tags along the NJ Coastline. Round trip fares include beach passes for several destinations along the route with savings up to $6.50.

Atlantic City Express
The brand new ACES train service, an express train from New York / Newark Penn Station to Atlantic City, is offering a short time discounted fare of $29 for those who want to gamble. The train has bar service and runs Friday through Sunday.

Sandy Hook, by Boat
If you rather cruise your way to the beach, SeaStreak offers ferry service to Sandy Hook from Manhattan seven days a week. Twice daily service provides a 30 minute jaunt to a dock in the highlands, includes a short shuttle service, and admission to the beach.

Northeast Corridor
Meanwhile, Amtrak is running a 25 percent discount on Northeast Corridor rail service. So if the beach isn't your thing, consider some of the nation's great historical cities like Boston, Philadelphia or Washington D.C.

Finishing Touches in Liberty Harbor

Construction in Liberty Harbor North has slowed to a crawl and new buildings aren't expected to break ground for a while. However, at the southwest end of the current development are three buildings receiving their finishing touches.

The Regent finishes off the end of the street. The rental building will sport a rooftop pool and be the third of the larger residential towers after the Sutton and the Zenith. The marketing department claims the brickwork reminiscent of Art Deco, but our first thought was that it resembled the Kalahari Apartments.

Adjacent to the Regent are two more buildings, row houses sporting an anything goes architectural style.

255 Washington Street

Beer Garden Opens to Crowds

Friday night saw the opening of the Zeppelin Beer Hall, a massive German style beer garden in the base of the Zenith, a luxury rental tower in the newly opened neighborhood of Liberty Harbor North on the south side of the downtown. The beer hall has a capacity of 800 and claims more than 144 taps, though the total number of available beers is much lower than that.

The main beer hall features two separate rooms with bars, as well as a food service station. Within the hall are picnic tables that match those outside, and in the secondary room is a small bandstand, though no musicians performed over the weekend.

Friday service opened to a beautiful summer afternoon interrupted only briefly by a sudden downpour. But the beauty of Zeppelin Hall is the large capacity inside as well as out, and until the rain passed, there was plenty of room indoors. After the rain cleared, the outdoor tables quickly filled.

The staff seemed unprepared Friday to deal with the crush of people. The two indoor bars were both overwhelmed and the outdoor bar did not open Friday. The bartenders flipped a stack of credit cards representing open tabs like a pile of playing cards. Customers could choose from a half liter ($5), liter ($10), or pitcher ($15), and the sheer number of orders simply slowed service to a crawl.

The garden abuts against the light rail track, and the train sounds an air horn as it approaches a grade crossing and Jersey Avenue station, also adjacent to the garden. Saturday night patrons began cheering each time a train passed to the chagrin of residents of the Zenith rental building prompting noise complaints.

Sunday afternoon brought out a family crowd, and by late afternoon the garden was again filled with everyone seven to seventy. The installation of umbrellas provided shade Sunday too. By Sunday, the long lines for beer seemed to have abated, and the outdoor taps were turned on.

The beer hall has plenty of room indoors and out. There is plenty of space between tables to walk, and enough open areas where groups of people can gather.

The kitchen serves a variety of burgers and German style sausages. By Sunday, they had sold out of most of the sausage varieties, with only a kielbasa available, served with fries and sauerkraut. The burgers are passable; some interesting combinations are available, including burgers with kielbasa, but the beef isn't terribly high quality. The fries were fresh, crisp and everything you would want.

Parking is available at a lot on Jersey Avenue, about a block away from the beer hall. But with easy access to public transportation, and the quantity of beer flowing from the establishment, its probably better not to drive. The Jersey Avenue light rail station is a block away and trains run every ten minutes. The location is also just 6 blocks from the Grove Street PATH station, making the beer hall about 15 minutes door to door from lower Manhattan, a far easier trip than the hour to Astoria. See the Google Map for how to get there from the PATH and Light Rail.


After an early rain storm, crowds fill up the garden on Friday night



A mock German style building inside the beer hall adds to the whimsy


The floors inside the beer hall add to the German feel


Sunday afternoon was a family friendly crowd


Umbrellas were installed Sunday morning


Yes, that's the window of a luxury rental apartment 10 feet above the beer garden


By Sunday, the outdoor bar was operating too

225 Grand Street Bricked

The first of bit of facade is going up on this Grand Street rental tower; the Marin Boulevard side of the tower is getting covered with goldenrod bricking.



So far it seems the tower will have a set back on the Grand Street elevation.




Gulls Cove looms behind the new tower as the construction crane sits off to one side.

Foundations, Rebar on Wayne and Barrow

The small project on the corner of Wayne and Barrow is getting foundations poured over the wooden pilings pounded into the ground a few weeks back.

Beer Garden Finally Opening

Rumor has it that the Zeppelin Hall, a German Style Biergarten is finally expected to open on Friday afternoon, serving up beer and sausages and all sorts of German food.

A tipster sent us the above photo as well as this one from the inside:



Zeppelin Hall is located in the base of the Zenith, shown below, in Liberty Harbor North.

Hoboken, Downtown Foreclosures on Par with Manhattan

The New York Times has mapped foreclosures in the region with all sorts of pretty colors. Downtown Jersey City and Hoboken are fairing well, particularly compared to the outer boroughs. A high rate of foreclosures lowers home values in neighborhoods by flooding saturated housing markets with additional stock. The real lesson gleaned from the Time's map however is the further from the island a neighborhood is, the higher rate of foreclosure.

Newport Pharmacy Moving Across the Street, Still Not in Newport

Newport Pharmacy, an independent pharmacy on the corner of 9th and Erie, is moving to 9th and Erie. The pharmacy is crossing the street into a corner space in the Hamilton Square development. Exeter Properties has said they prefer independent local businesses to fill their retail spaces.

Park Renovation Slaying Trees

Renovations have begun at Hamilton Park, just in time to close it for summer. Construction crews have slashed a half dozen large trees with 18 inch diameters, casualties of low bid contracts.

The renovated park will include an expanded playground, two dog runs, and renovated ball courts. In addition, the historic pathways will be reinstalled and Victorian style lighting. About half the park will remain grassy fields.

The dog runs caused a controversy among residents. For several years, dog owners have been illegally allowing their dogs off leash on the grassy areas of the park. Not only did many park goers feel the illegal activity was unsafe, but the dogs also destroyed the grass. As plans for the renovation were drawn up, two dog runs were included in the design, one for large dogs and one for small dogs. Four final plans were drawn up and community residents voted on the plans; the selected plan included a smaller allotted space for the dog runs. Moreover, the selected plan divided the dog run space in half, with two roughly equal sized runs for small and large dogs. Large dog owners pointed out that larger dogs needed more space than smaller dogs.

Part of the controversy stemmed from the way the the park's plans were voted on. The final vote was suppose to only be about the layout of the park renovation, not the amenities. However, one of the designs included a small putting green, while another design did not; both these designs were otherwise identical, and both were the only design where the two dog runs abutted against each other. Proponents of the dog run claim the two virtually identical designs split votes allowing the chosen design to win.

Meanwhile, the park was originally to remain at least partially open during renovation. However, the contractor insisted on closing the entirety of the park during renovations, meaning the park will be closed for much of the summer. However, local developer Exeter Property has volunteered a lot adjacent to the park to serve as a temporary playground. The playground should be open by June.


Hamilton Park was closed in early May for renovations; residents look forward to the park reopening on a cold January day


The informal dog run / unused tennis court has been stripped of fencing


The old playground has been crushed


Exeter Property, developer Hamilton Square, a project adjacent to the park, has promised a temporary playground on land that will one day be a small residential building.

The Exeter Property temporary playground lot with Hamilton Park in the background