I don’t disagree with any of the general sentiments here, but I’ll throw in my 2 cents based on my knowledge and experience:

• Firstly, one of the biggest cited points of the renovation was to be more accessible and plugged into the street grid, so in an absolute sense of the word, Gateway is inherently less fortress-like then it was previously. Yes the additional guard presence isn’t welcoming or ideal- but that’s also not exactly unusual practice right now in a lot of commercial property management circles (speaking as someone who previously worked in onsite property management in Midtown Manhattan throughout all of 2020).

• Not that we should automatically give them the benefit of the doubt either, but to play devils advocate (pun intended) for a second: i think it’s also worth keeping in mind that that most of the restaurant spaces aren’t finished or open yet (as of right now it’s just a Jersey Mikes, A Dunkin, a Grab-N-Go cafe type place, soon to be joined by Chip City), and the gym and a couple other spaces haven’t been leased yet, and many offices are still WFH/hybrid and may not be seeing their pre-Covid occupancy levels yet. Given all that: it’s possible that management may be hesitant to commit resources keep it open later with fewer people coming through, and fewer things open, so the reduced hours could well be a temporary measure until more retail tenants open up or a way to gauge foot traffic/demand in the area before doing a full rollout.

• Sometimes things also just get miscommunicated or fall through the cracks too. I’ll give an example here:

Last week they announced its opening midweek, but when I went into Newark and got off the train on Friday they still had “tenant only” signs up on the Newark Penn side Skybridge entrance and guards were still checking badges. The guards were still under the understanding that the area was closed off to the public since the restaurants weren’t open yet - even after I showed them the Instagram post. (FWIW guards didn’t stop me when I entered the “Jewel Box” entrance across the street from the main Newark Penn street-level entrance)….So I followed up with the Junction’s Instagram account that day and asked them to clarify why guards were still checking badges.

They did reply that they had since removed the signs and badge checks later on - I didn’t see a notification of that reply at the time so I DM’ed them a photo of a “tenants only” sign I took on Friday - they confirmed that they ran my original comments up to management back on Friday and had even followed up with the guards that morning to confirm it was open (Happy to report that the signs and badge checks were gone when I came in earlier this morning- just a couple security guards standing off to the side).

My point with that above anecdote is that sometimes Hanlon’s Razor is true: don’t always attribute to malice or conspiracy when stupidity/incompetence/negligence can also explain it.

That, and also by offering measured yet actionable and constructive feedback, pointing things out to the right people’s attention, and voting with your feet/wallet as well as your voice, sometimes things can changed quicker than you might expect.