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I love that site. Someone sent it to me at work a couple of years ago, and I had to close it because I was sitting at my desk, supposed to be working, and I was laughing so hard I was crying.
When I read some of the posts on that site, after a few minutes I am laughing so hard that tears are coming from my eyes. Thank God that my phone doesn't do that type of stuff!
How long ago did you grow up there? I can only go by my own experience and what I've seen, and I'm in Jersey City every single day. As I said, I work on the waterfront, but I've been in other parts, and I don't see this wondrous paradise of which you speak.
When I first started working in the city, in 1979, I worked with a number of people who grew up in "the Heights" in Jersey City. Most had moved out to the suburbs. One still lived there. That, I was told, was the "good" section of Jersey City. I didn't say one word about people not moving on to higher education if they grew up in Jersey City, so I don't know where you were going with that. The Jersey City people I worked with were mostly engineers, since that's the industry I worked in. They'd gone to NJIT or Stevens, both good schools. I also know people who grew up in the slums of Newark who have advanced degrees from good schools, so no, not everyone who comes out of rundown urban areas is doomed. A lot of factors play in.
I finally got to the Heights one day when I visited the woman, another secretary in the office, who still lived there. She was on the third floor of a building that looked as if it would go up in flames if you put a match near it, and she and her two kids lived in four rooms that were set up so that you could stand in one and look straight through all the rooms to the other side of the apartment. There was no hallway, just doors leading from one room to another. Sorry, but I was not impressed. Yes, I realize that all the buildings probably didn't look like that inside, but the neighborhood seemed very crowded in general.
Perhaps it's partly a matter of perspective from a person who grew up with woods and creeks around. I don't see people wedged into two-and-three-family homes that sit three feet from one another and are right up to the sidewalk as the optimum place to raise a family. YMMV, and it seems to have worked for you.
Never heard of "the Western Slope", so I'll take your word for it that it's as lovely as you claim. In the past year in particular, I've had to do a lot of driving from Newark to Jersey City, and based on where the construction and/or traffic backups are, my GPS has taken me through a variety of routes through Jersey City. Most of what I've seen looks rundown and sad, and that's what I based my post on. If you have better information for the OP, by all means share it.
I spent 17 years looking out of the western windows of One World Trade Center at the area in which I now work (near Exchange Place), and it was not a pretty sight. The rent was cheaper on the west side because the view sucked so bad. Crumbling old warehouses.
To answer one of your other questions--SOME people live in north Jersey because of the proximity of the city, yes, but not all. I grew up thirty miles from Manhattan in a town in which my family has been for five generations, but no one I knew had parents who commuted to the city back then, and my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., rarely if ever went to the city. We went on school trips to the UN and a few museums, of course, but I don't even think any of my grandparents were ever in New York City in their entire lives. Even when I lived in that same town while raising my daughter, I met quite a few people who were shocked and horrified that I actually took a train every day to Manhattan and worked there. They could not imagine.
According to City-Data (the info only goes to 2012) it does look as though the crime rate has dropped, so you had "only" 11 murders in 2012, compared to 17 in 2001. Jersey City's crime rate is still much higher than the US average.
There is so much bias in your post towards Jersey City that may not be evident to people considering move to Jersey City so I must respond.
I am an actual resident of Jersey City. You may have worked here since the 70s but you sure as hell do not have an iota of a clue as to what LIVING and or what it actually is present day. I wont dwell on the population statistics and murder rates - thats public search - but I will say MOST (>90%) of the violent crimes are highly concentrated in the Bergen-lafayette and greenville sections of Jersey city. The Heights and Downtown are not only family friendly (Parks, restaurants, public libraries, commodities) but enjoyable with a good nightlife! -- 15min train ride away from Times Square.
You surely haven't been to NYC if you're complaining of a multi-fam house with low sq. footage of living! There are multi-fam houses, single-fam houses, luxury condo complexes with hotel-like amenities all found in Heights and Downtown.
As far as public schools it is on the up and coming. McNair Academic High School has been on the top 10 NJ since 5 years now. More and more asian/indians with perfect SAT scores forcing more AP classes selections and other standards to climb across the board. Jersey City had winners at the Intel International Science Fair as well.
There is an uplifting movement in the Heights and Downtown with the Arts/Creative theme be it in new unique approaches to restaurants or commodity, you won't be disappointed taking a stroll down Central Ave during saturday evening or walking down Grove St - there's something for every one.
Sorry for the rant, I just dont want anyone deterred by the false information provided by people who have never lived in JC, nor have a clue of what it actually is like present day.
I concede it is not Utopia, but living here and having access to every thing I need and can order at a press of a button - I am happy.
There is so much bias in your post towards Jersey City that may not be evident to people considering move to Jersey City so I must respond.
I am an actual resident of Jersey City. You may have worked here since the 70s but you sure as hell do not have an iota of a clue as to what LIVING and or what it actually is present day. I wont dwell on the population statistics and murder rates - thats public search - but I will say MOST (>90%) of the violent crimes are highly concentrated in the Bergen-lafayette and greenville sections of Jersey city. The Heights and Downtown are not only family friendly (Parks, restaurants, public libraries, commodities) but enjoyable with a good nightlife! -- 15min train ride away from Times Square.
You surely haven't been to NYC if you're complaining of a multi-fam house with low sq. footage of living! There are multi-fam houses, single-fam houses, luxury condo complexes with hotel-like amenities all found in Heights and Downtown.
As far as public schools it is on the up and coming. McNair Academic High School has been on the top 10 NJ since 5 years now. More and more asian/indians with perfect SAT scores forcing more AP classes selections and other standards to climb across the board. Jersey City had winners at the Intel International Science Fair as well.
There is an uplifting movement in the Heights and Downtown with the Arts/Creative theme be it in new unique approaches to restaurants or commodity, you won't be disappointed taking a stroll down Central Ave during saturday evening or walking down Grove St - there's something for every one.
Sorry for the rant, I just dont want anyone deterred by the false information provided by people who have never lived in JC, nor have a clue of what it actually is like present day.
I concede it is not Utopia, but living here and having access to every thing I need and can order at a press of a button - I am happy.
I've always admired the Heights section...it reminds me a bit of Philadelphia neighborhoods, in that it's dense, residential, and not particularly upscale, but also stable. NJ needs more places like that, IMO.
In my search for a new place to call home I stumbled on Jersey City and on paper it sounds like is should be a great place to live (certainly more interesting than one of NYC's lesser five boroughs). Although, not only had I never heard it mentioned before I started my search I also haven't seen it compared to many other places on here.
From what I understand:
- It's a good size at roughly 250,000 people.
- Diverse.
- Next door to Hoboken & a short train ride to NYC without having the high-speed lifestyle of that city.
- Great river views.
So on and so on.
Meanwhile another city I found (Providence, RI) has a similar set up with Boston & Newport being close and people rave about it.
Personally I'd be tempted to check it out if I thought the COL was within my price range.
So what's the deal?
Love JC! I have been living here the past three years. I work in midtown. It's a great city in its own right, but at the same time you have unfettered access to Manhattan. Downtown JC is a collection of great neighborhoods: Paulus Hook, Exchange Place, Newport, Hamilton Park, the Heights, Van Vorst Park, etc. It is a mix of high-rise development and charming brownstones. Food choices are great and growing as more chefs get priced out of Brooklyn and Manhattan to come to JC. The bad sections are Greenville and Lafayette-Bergen. And Lafayette-Bergen is even showing signs of improving. Greenville is very rough so I recommend you stay out of there. Basically East of the Turnpike extension (I-78) is fine. The convergence of Grove Street and Newark Street is becoming a real hot spot with Newark Street becoming "restaurant row". Very diverse demographic and interesting architecture. The city continues to improve every day.
JC is one of those places if you got in at the right time then you got a decent place but lately it's become an overpriced and expensively area to live.
Typical of all NJ developments is they drop the condos and buildings and worry about the surroundings later. You got buildings being built in the middle of nowhere, there are still empty warehouses and dead streets.
For a neighborhood that is quite dead after work, they put way too many traffic lights. Back in the early 2000, I would rather spend $2500 to live in Battery Park,NY than $1500 to live JC. You're stuck using the PATH train which can be very unpleasant depending on where you use it.
The food around is over-rated and expensive. Most folks that eat there because they work there and don't want to go into NYC.
Hoboken area maybe the bright spot but after being stuck there many times due to traffic congestions I rather not be anywhere near. Very cold in the winter times with the blowing wind.
Overall the area is just overrated. I can get better places elsewhere.
How long ago did you grow up there? I can only go by my own experience and what I've seen, and I'm in Jersey City every single day. As I said, I work on the waterfront, but I've been in other parts, and I don't see this wondrous paradise of which you speak.
When I first started working in the city, in 1979, I worked with a number of people who grew up in "the Heights" in Jersey City. Most had moved out to the suburbs. One still lived there. That, I was told, was the "good" section of Jersey City. I didn't say one word about people not moving on to higher education if they grew up in Jersey City, so I don't know where you were going with that. The Jersey City people I worked with were mostly engineers, since that's the industry I worked in. They'd gone to NJIT or Stevens, both good schools. I also know people who grew up in the slums of Newark who have advanced degrees from good schools, so no, not everyone who comes out of rundown urban areas is doomed. A lot of factors play in.
I finally got to the Heights one day when I visited the woman, another secretary in the office, who still lived there. She was on the third floor of a building that looked as if it would go up in flames if you put a match near it, and she and her two kids lived in four rooms that were set up so that you could stand in one and look straight through all the rooms to the other side of the apartment. There was no hallway, just doors leading from one room to another. Sorry, but I was not impressed. Yes, I realize that all the buildings probably didn't look like that inside, but the neighborhood seemed very crowded in general.
Perhaps it's partly a matter of perspective from a person who grew up with woods and creeks around. I don't see people wedged into two-and-three-family homes that sit three feet from one another and are right up to the sidewalk as the optimum place to raise a family. YMMV, and it seems to have worked for you.
Never heard of "the Western Slope", so I'll take your word for it that it's as lovely as you claim. In the past year in particular, I've had to do a lot of driving from Newark to Jersey City, and based on where the construction and/or traffic backups are, my GPS has taken me through a variety of routes through Jersey City. Most of what I've seen looks rundown and sad, and that's what I based my post on. If you have better information for the OP, by all means share it.
I spent 17 years looking out of the western windows of One World Trade Center at the area in which I now work (near Exchange Place), and it was not a pretty sight. The rent was cheaper on the west side because the view sucked so bad. Crumbling old warehouses.
To answer one of your other questions--SOME people live in north Jersey because of the proximity of the city, yes, but not all. I grew up thirty miles from Manhattan in a town in which my family has been for five generations, but no one I knew had parents who commuted to the city back then, and my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc., rarely if ever went to the city. We went on school trips to the UN and a few museums, of course, but I don't even think any of my grandparents were ever in New York City in their entire lives. Even when I lived in that same town while raising my daughter, I met quite a few people who were shocked and horrified that I actually took a train every day to Manhattan and worked there. They could not imagine.
According to City-Data (the info only goes to 2012) it does look as though the crime rate has dropped, so you had "only" 11 murders in 2012, compared to 17 in 2001. Jersey City's crime rate is still much higher than the US average.
The takeaway - you don't know what you are talking about. You grew up in the woods and creeks and congrats on all that space you had, but that's not how most of the world lives.
You never lived in Jersey City. You work in one section, you got invited to one co-worker's lousy apt. once and you got lost a few times. Thus, you cannot give a well-informed opinion about living in Jersey City.
In your first post, you said "So now you have a city that has a very expensive waterfront area and an interior that is mostly urban blight, rundown and crime-ridden." If it's so bad, how are the people from my neighborhood so well-educated? because it was a great place to grow up. I'm not talking about the exception, I'm talking about the norm around me. To this day, suburban parents send a bunch of kids to St. Peter's Prep and even a few to Hudson Catholic. Jersey City is not Newark. It's not Camden, Trenton or Paterson. It has much to offer.
I asked if you went to a top college. You replied that you work with engineers that went to Stevens and NJIT. {and i forgot to mention there was a stevens grad from my block) Where did you go? What does it mean that you work with engineers? Do you answer phones? I'm not saying in my opinion there's anything wrong with that, but the parents on my block would have thought that. That's just the way they rolled.
Yes, some of us have left the heights, but educated professionals are moving into the heights. On 942 avenue, three shops sharing space just opened 1) a tea shop 2) a gluten free bakery and 3) a fancy soap store. Do you think the owners are catering to gangsters who want a gluten free carrot muffin with a cup of white tea?
Re-read the other JC resident's post - the city has great restaurants, bars, and a burgeoning art scene. The crime-ridden area, i.e. not the majority of the living space, is confined to an area rife with drugs, welfare moms, kids with no dads, a problem in every big city in America. It is one section and that's all.
You have made over 24,000 posts. Does your boss allow you to post on this website from work? To post that often means you like to give opinions, even if you don't know what you are talking about. Some of your posts might be well-informed. This one was ill-informed.
Ok, ok, I concede, there's apparently much more to Jersey City beyond downtown/waterfront than meets the eye. I'll take the word from those of you who live there and love the place. I'm shocked, shocked I tells ya!
I always liked JC outside of that downtown gentrification nonsense because its filled with real people. Aside from that there is no real reason to hype neighborhoods like the Heights or JSQ. They are lower middle class mostly blue color enclaves. Any people on this forum that try to make them out as great places to live or the next this or that is living in a fantasy world. Except them for what they are and don't push for organic ketchup stores.
Aside from that there is no real reason to hype neighborhoods like the Heights or JSQ. They are lower middle class mostly blue color enclaves. Any people on this forum that try to make them out as great places to live or the next this or that is living in a fantasy world. Except them for what they are and don't push for organic ketchup stores.
Hype or not, the plans are in motion to transform Journal Square. Any neighborhood with a PATH stop will see investment dollars from here on out.
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