The Sounds Of Jersey City

A new web bulletin board catering to Jersey City's musical artists and interests has been launched. JerseyCityMucsic.com lists upcoming musical events, calls for musicians, and general music discussiont topics.

Via JCList.

Tower, Transit Village To Break Ground

The Western end of Hoboken will soon have a new condo tower as part of the The Monroe Center Development's "transit village" project. Breaking ground at the end of the week, the tower is part of a larger vision to renovate a five and half acre site at the 9th Street light rail station.

Part luxury condo development, part artists' haven, the project will include a 123 unite tower on Monroe Street as well as renovating the Monroe Center for the Arts. Also included in the final phase of the project will be retail space and ample parking in a deck.

Cars Released From Garage

The malfunctioining automatic parking garage in Hoboken has released its captives at least temporarily. We have to wonder, after being stranded by a car eating garage, who would still park there?

Restaurant Week Begins On Monday

The Hudson Resturant Week begins on Monday, January 23 and will continue weekdays until February 3rd. The special includes prix-fixe meals starting at $15 for lunch and $30 for dinners.

JC Vibe Seeks Community Input

Community news site Jersey City Vibe is promising a new version to come soon. More importantly, they are looking for user feedback for improvements. Unlike the site you are reading where the editor doesn't really care about your opinions, the editors over at JCVibe have put out an open call for suggestions. If you aren't yet a regular reader, we suggest you head over there now and become one, though don't let it interfere with your time spent here.

Destination Jersey City

Destination Jersey City is a new promotional site for, you guessed it, Jersey City. We're not exactly sure when the site popped up, or who is running it. We're assuming, based on the corporate style and shameless masturbatory plugging of the city, that its being run by an organization like the Chamber of Commerce of even a government department. There is no tagline though, and the domain is registered to a generic computer consulting firm.

In either case, what we did find of interest were the neighborhood maps including local businesses.

Hoboken Garage Takes Cars Hostage, Demands Ransom

The automatic parking garage in downtown Hoboken that has been plagued with problems is causing more headaches locking cars inside.

Local Blogosphere

Local blogger and Hoboken real estate agent Judy Marciano of Making the Moves has been made secretary of the Hoboken Rotary Club.

JC's LJ has noted that the already decrepit Newport Mall has gotten even worse with the closing of the Pavonia Brick Oven restaurant.

Condo Proposal Energizes Activists

Taking a look over on JCList this morning, we came across an urgent post regarding a proposed condo development three blocks west of Hamilton Park.

Outside of the historic district, the 7 story proposal would include 171 units, as well as a covered parking space for each unit. Variances are apparently required for the height, density, and covered parking.

Without having seen renderings of the proposal, we have to wonder just how awful this proposal will be. Indeed, a seven story building in an area of primarily two and three story brownstones may seem out of place. But then again, as the popularity of the downtown increases, demand for housing in the area will increase. This of course means either rents will rise or new housing stock is needed. Since the proposal also provides one parking spot for each unit, parking shortages are less likely to occur than if the lots were filled at the current zoing levels but without off street parking. In essence, even though there are more units, because off street parking is provided, less street parking will be used then if the lots were used as zoned without offstreet parking.

Whether you are for or against the proposal, the zoning board meeting is Tonight, Thursday, January 19 2006, 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, 2nd floor, City
Hall, 280 Grove Street, Jersey City, New Jersey.

Duffle Bag Watch: Day 189

So maybe you've forgotten that for the last six months, PATH riders' civil rights have been violated on a daily basis. After the first few weeks it seems the main stream media has forgotten all about the random bag searches. And despite the intial excitement over finding a kid with firecrackers, so far to date, we recall a grand total of zero terrorists have been caught by random bag searching. That's 189 days, and zero bombs. On day three of the Duffle Bag Watch, 1,100 bags were searched. Assuming they kept this pace, over 200,000 bags have been searched.

Meanwhile, we came across a blogger who has been searched four times.

You Are What You Eat

Dojo-Mojo has found some information for Jersey City folks looking to get Fresh, Local produce. Essentially, members buy into a farmer's crop. Then each week as new produce ripens, members recieve the bounty of the land. Technically speaking of course, "local" does not mean "in the downtown." But members will be able to get their vegetables from Grand Street.

And What about 98 Cent Stores?

New area blogger, A Sociologist Looks At Culture muses on the prevelance of 99 cent stores around Kennedy Blvd.

The Shore Club

Jersey City Vibe has some detailed information on the new Shore Club development in the Northern area of Newport. We couldn't find the exact location of this two tower residential complex, but after looking over the architectural renderings, a nice little video clip, and then comparing it all to Google maps, we're almost certain this building is going up at the corner of Newport Parkway and North Blvd.

What we did find interesting is that JCVibe mentions 37,000 square feet of retail space food store. Our hopes of course are for a Whole Foods. Sadly, 37,000 square feet appears to fall short when compared to the size of other stores under development.

Grocery Store Wars: The Phantom Stop & Shop

A few months back we took note of the abysmal state of local grocery stores. Since then we've been doing most of our grocery shopping in Edgewater or in suburban supermarkets [and we keep meaning to place a Fresh Direct order...]

Last year, one entrant in the Grocery Store Wars was the proposed uber Stop and Shop in Jersey City Heights. It seems the mythical Super Stop and Shop is attempting to strike back with a public relations campaign aimed at winning over political support.

At issue is the size and scale of the new development with several local activists claiming the new store will bring traffic, noise and all sorts of other things that a reasonable city already has too much of. The Stop and Shop promotional site has some renderings of the proposed store.

It seems, as far as we're concerned, that they've done as best a job as could be expected to mitigate the effects of building a major grocery store in the middle of an urban area. The proposed facades take into account the local streetscape, parking is disguised and the store at least appears to acknowledge its urban setting.

Additionally, a new modern grocery store in the Heights should hopefully, profoundly effect the quality of grocery stores throughout Jersey City; assuming service, quality, and product selection meets expectations, downtown grocery stores will be forced to clean themselves up to compete. We'll say a its about time for a new grocery store, though we're still hoping for a Whole Foods.

Liberty Harbor Taking Shape

Over the last few months, phase one of Liberty Harbor, the massive 6,500 unit development just south of Van Vorst Park has been growing steadily. While the project's official website is quite vague about the master layout of the site, the architects' behind it have quite a bit of information [13th Project under "Urban Infill"]. Duany Plater-Zyberk are well known promoters of New Urbanism. [For another example of their work, visit Seaside, Florida]. But, since their project map failed to actually identify street names, we did our best to piece together the new development. A project of this scale will no doubt signifcantly alter the neighbor ajoining it.

700 Grove

Making the Moves has a great picture of a large new building -- 700 Grove Street -- between Jersey City and Hoboken.

Schroeder Lofts

On the very northern edge of the Hamilton Park neighborhood, an empty lot under construction for the last few months recently recieved a promotional banner attached to the fence. The Schroeder Lofts is another midrise building going up between the Holland Tunnel and Hamilton Park. The website is claiming an eco-friendly design and "essential elements for urban living." Sadly, at the present time, floorplans are not available.