Montgomery Street, South Side, Feb. 5, 2008 (Jersey City, Trenton: for sale, apartments, city hall)

[DessertRat]

Okay, I figured out how to easily put at least 100 photos on PhotoBucket . . . not sure if I can put more there, or if that was just the limit of bulk uploading at one shot.

I was going to do this more elaborately, and give descriptions of everything, but that will take too much time (it's going to take long enough to paste 100 links into a message).

These were taken walking up the north side of Montgomery, from the eastern end at Exchange Place/the Hudson River to the western end at West End Avenue (appropriately enough ). I just shot the south side of the street on this session, to avoid having to keep crossing and to make the trip shorter. I'll do the north side next time (and hopefully figure out how to keep all the photos posted on PhotoBucket).

I'll put a comment on at least a few of them, including the Beacon photos. I guess I'll chop this up into 10 messages, too.

The statue is a monument for the mass Polish extermination by the Soviets in WWII (part of what started WWII actually):


The city is redoing the "pier" at Exchange Place:
ere's a closer view of the statue:







I was trying to hurry to the LightRail station to get a decent picture of the train pulling out, hence the blurriness here:






Here's an already existing condo (in the back) and a new condo being built in the Exchange Place neighborhood. The Intersection is Montgomery and Hudson St.

[DessertRat]

The building with the red brick trim is obviously a condo right on Montgomery--again this is the Exchange Place neighborhood.



I took a few shots looking more forward from the side of the street I walked down.


There are a lot of great restaurants on Montgomery for these few blocks:


Here's a closer view of that other condo building:


There goes the parking enforcement vehicle--that's actually one of the biggest menaces in this area. You can illegally park for one minute, thinking you'll be safe, and you'll turn around and have a ticket.





The post office. This is the nearest one to me, but I have a P.O. Box in Manhattan, so I almost never go here.







This brown building is one of my favorites in the area. It's an old bank building. I think they're converting it to either condos or offices.

[DessertRat]

Here's an older condo building (the big one):


This is one of the more interesting buildings architecturally--the retained an older building and constructed a modern one around it. It's currently for sale (I think as office space):




A couple of big parking lots--one for that big condo building, another for the government employees working at City Hall (which is across the street, so it will be in the next batch of photos):


Here's one of those dangerous corners where you can buy drugs . . . well, or dru s, whatever those are. This is the corner of Montgomery and Grove Street. I live one block from here:




The front of this building is boarded up--fischfan would be peeing in his pants at this point:


Here's another interesting architectural oddity--a little house, set back from the sidewalk, so they actually have a lawn. There are a couple of these in the neighborhood:




Van Vorst Park--it's very nice, but only a block, so it's small. I think the woman crossing the street with a baby carriage appears to be fearing for her life . . . . hahaha:


Surrounding the park on all sides are some very nice, but extremely expensive brownstones:




This is another very cool building:

[DessertRat]

The smaller buildings on the right are the start of some of the government assistance apartments. I'm not sure if these are some of the ones that some folks around here are afraid of??



More of them. You can see they do not have very fancy window treatments . . . well, neither do I. Maybe you should be afraid of me, too :








Uh-oh, those folks aren't white. Anyone getting scared yet?


This is a very cool older church on the right. Jersey City has tons of these:


More government assistance apartments:

[JackedInPrinceton]

This looks like heaven compared to Trenton, no joke! I gotta take a nice day trip to Jersey City with my friends... Looks sort of like a mini-manhatten.

[DessertRat]

Do I hear JerseyMan's knees knocking? (by the way, you can see the Beacon off in the distance in this photo)


More government assistance apartments. The first time I saw these, I had already been to (and stayed at) EuroDisney (now Disneyland Paris). These still remind me of the Sante Fe Hotel there . . . pretty cool looking I think:


An industrial holdout:


Looking south down the cross street:


The Turnpike Extension (I'm exit 14C, by the way ) overpass is next:

[DessertRat]

The train tracks are next. I actually love trains, love hearing the train horns, etc. I would miss living close to train tracks:


Unfortunately, the right-of-ways are not very attractive here. This is the biggest thing I saw that I would say is a problem--not a safety issue, but it would be nice to not have so much trash around:




This is the Hudson County School of Technology--not exactly dangerous:




A large government assistance apartment building:

[DessertRat]

And finally we're at the former Jersey City Medical Center, parts of which are now being remodeled into The Beacon "luxury condos" (although this first building doesn't appear to be yet . . . I don't know exactly what the plans are):








One oddity about The Beacon entrance road--razor wire on the left-hand side. Not exactly aesthetically appealing:






Right across the street, going west, from the Beacon, it's a medical center and luncheonette. They'll take your blood pressure while you eat pastrami:


Here's another cool old church:

[DessertRat]

Grocery Store--small and not very fancy, but they've got lots of basics. I went in this place a lot the last couple times I did the Jersey City Artists' Tour, because I (and a bunch of other visual artists) was set up in the Armory right across the street (again, that will be in the next batch of photos):

[DessertRat]

Mmmmmm . . . Burger King :



Not sure who said there were no stores, restaurants, etc. close to The Beacon:




These folks were advertising for a tax preperation service:


I couldn't have been more bummed out that this place was closed when I went by--but my wallet, and especially my wife, was happy (I'm definitely a video game addict):




Another new condo conversion:



South down the side street next to that condo:








Looking south down JFK. There are lots of beautiful older homes in this area, many of them now converted into offices (especially doctor's offices):