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I keep hearing mixed things about Jersey City. I thought that Jersey City was being 'revitalized' and would be soon the "New Hoboken" kind of like the new Park Slope Brooklyn, the new Williamsburg. So, how come Greenville is so bad? Is it "Blacks" that you are talking about? Everyone says "Stay away" from Martin Luther King Blvd. It has been my experience in this USA of ours that any street named MLK is in a black neighborhood. I'm curious. We were thinking of moving to JC, and Greenville had some nice remodeled apartments. I hear that the Heights is the place to be. Can anyone tell me, what life is like in the Heights. Does anyone speak english? Can you survive just fine without a car? Are there small shops, pork stores, markets, etc? Thanks!
I keep hearing mixed things about Jersey City. I thought that Jersey City was being 'revitalized' and would be soon the "New Hoboken" kind of like the new Park Slope Brooklyn, the new Williamsburg. So, how come Greenville is so bad? Is it "Blacks" that you are talking about? Everyone says "Stay away" from Martin Luther King Blvd. It has been my experience in this USA of ours that any street named MLK is in a black neighborhood. I'm curious. We were thinking of moving to JC, and Greenville had some nice remodeled apartments. I hear that the Heights is the place to be. Can anyone tell me, what life is like in the Heights. Does anyone speak english? Can you survive just fine without a car? Are there small shops, pork stores, markets, etc? Thanks!
first off you'd be well advised to steer clear of greenville, it is probably the worst part of JC.
JC, especially near the hudson has changed dramatically over the years but away from the isolated newport area the neighborhoods can be sketchy.
Any talk of it being the new hoboken is just real estate sales hype. you can find some ok places to live in JC but overall JC is just another old decaying urban area.
The heights area is borderline OK many hispanics, and english is spoken though you will hear a lot of spanish, there is a busy shopping area and there is some public transport. If the heights is the limit of your price range then I would pick that way over greenville
IMO, I would stay away.
As I mentioned in another post, the word "renaissance" is thrown around pretty loosely. The business district has been worked on in JC so that big business and Wall Street will come in. There are some brownstones in Downtown that are worth a fortune. Greenville is bad...really bad. Downtown is not safe at night. Marion is not good either. The Heights is still high crime. I know of some builders that are working in Pacific Ave that cannot even leave any of their equipment alone for one second, or it is robbed.
Im not sure where your comming from but EVERY major uban area has its fair amount of crime. The waterfront area of Jersey City is VERY nice but once you leave that 5-6 blocks your back into the urban decay. Both int he people and the buildings. I would not want my wife walking the streets after dark anywhere in JC just because of the "what if" factor. If you are used to living in a "city", if you can handle yourself (dont look like or act like a willing victim) then its not a horrible place to live. If you want peace, tranquility, safe, uneventful, then JC is NOT the place for you.
I find all the perceptions of JC that people who live down the shore and elsewhere have. If you don't live here, how do you know it is unsafe at night? Have you been in the downtown area at night in the past few years?
Clearly there are good and bad parts of JC. Most of Greenville (aside from the Country Village section) is not a good place. Bergen-Lafayette is so-so; the part close to MLK isn't great but the part by the light rail stop is seeing a lot of improvement. The Heights and Journal Square are variable, with some blocks decent and some blocks you wouldn't want to live on. The areas of the Heights by the light rail stops are the most convenient as far as travel goes, although there are also parts that are within walking distance of the Journal Square PATH station. There are definitely shops, especially along Central Ave, although nothing like the shopping strips in Brooklyn Heights or Park Slope. Think of it as roughly like the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn, if you're familiar.
There are parts of downtown that are better and worse. Contrary to what some people say, it's not just Newport that's "safe" and "gentrified". Pretty much the entire area east of Marin has been gentrified, and development has spread west pretty quickly. The area around the Grove PATH has been transformed enormously over the past few years, although it has a way to go to be like Hoboken - there are still a mix of people from all sorts of backgrounds and income ranges, and yes, like in any city neighborhood you should be aware of your surroundings when you walk around at night.
Look, Jersey City is a lot like Brooklyn. People live in multi-million dollar brownstones in Brooklyn Heights or Boerum Hill only a mile or two from Bed-Stuy (one of NYC's most notoriously rough neighborhoods), and people in Paulus Hook or Van Vorst Park in Jersey City live about the same distance from areas like Greenville. (Not that either of those JC neighborhoods is exactly like Brooklyn Heights, but you get the idea.) There are "good" parts and "bad" parts. But it's a city and has all the benefits and drawbacks of a city. Why anyone compares it to suburbs is beyond me.
If you want to know what JC is like, come see for yourself. If you have lived in a city you will probably be able to get a good sense of various neighborhoods. There is no substitute for your own first-hand experience and research, especially when the alternative is armchair analysis and opinion blithely delivered from dozens (or thousands) of miles away.
Last edited by downtownjc; 12-11-2007 at 07:03 PM..
I find all the perceptions of JC that people who live down the shore and elsewhere have. If you don't live here, how do you know it is unsafe at night? Have you been in the downtown area at night in the past few years?
There is no substitute for your own first-hand experience and research, especially when the alternative is armchair analysis and opinion blithely delivered from dozens (or thousands) of miles away.
My inlaws live in Downtown JC...2nd Street.
Awful place to be at night. Hardly any of the "old neighborhood" is left, as they all moved away...do you wonder why?
I would bet if your in-laws own a brownstone their home is worth far more than those of most of their friends that moved away. I think that speaks to the rise of Jersey City (slow it may be) after a long period of decline.
Yes, downtown had a long slide that didn't really stop until a few years ago. But for all the families that moved away, there are new families moving in. Brownstones don't go for almost $1 million when people who can't afford such expensive places aren't moving in.
Look, I'm not saying downtown JC or any part of JC is some idyllic paradise. Far from it. But it's not nearly as bad as the average Jersey suburbanite would think.
The "slide" has not stopped.
Crime has not gone down.
Stores on Newark Ave have bars on their windows and gates pulled across their fronts for a reason. People who live on first floor apartments have bars across their windows for a reason.
Do you feel safe even at McDonalds on Grand St at night?
Montgomery Street?
Quote:
Look, I'm not saying downtown JC or any part of JC is some idyllic paradise. Far from it. But it's not nearly as bad as the average Jersey suburbanite would think.
Average suburbanite?
So if I picked 50 towns in NJ, and asked you if you feel safer walking in those towns are on Ocean Ave or Monticello Ave or Garfield Ave or Pacific Ave in JC you, where would you answer.
The sterotyping on here gets to be a little much as far as calling someone "average" anything but I have posted here before about this. I lived in several areas of JC over a span of 15 years.(moved in and out a few times) I lived there because it was affordable. If I would have had more options I may have never lived there but I can't say for sure. I moved in and out because it was not my first choice. The downtown area is really fairly safe. I did not say super safe.
The area up by journal square is not as safe but I worked nights in those days and took the path home and I am still alive. I did have a few incidents but I was never mugged. The western area around Journal square was a prostitution area in the 90's and there were few entertainment options. It was a money issue for me. That's it. I have no experience in buying in those areas.
The downtown area was decent 20 years ago so the people who purchased there in the late 80's early 90's were not taking the huge risk that some on here make it out to be. Downtown was significantly more expensive for as long as I can remember-going back more than 20 years. I lived really close to the area near MLK at one point(closer to the college) and though I had no incident, it was a neighborhood lacking as far as services, food, and other conveniences. That is not an area for much night walking. In downtown many people walk around at night.
I have posted this before as well-
People who live in the burbs usually rec that kind of area even when it is not really appropriate. A young person moving to NY/NJ area is not usually looking for that. They would most likely be interested in the city and want convenience. They are in a different stage of life. They should be prepared to make trade-offs in order to come. If they want a town like Charlotte they would go there instead. So they come to this place and certain negatives come with the turf. It has to be worth it to them.
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