Ah ok, that makes sense. Like I said- obviously not a city planner!

I am obviously not an architect nor a city planner but I do wish there would be more conversations about all the commercial buildings that are struggling to find tenants being converted instead of more new plans for more new buildings.

It's not that I disagree with you...it's that a lot of people don't feel comfortable working with tools in a place they don't own, and especially not installing something safety related. Whether it's good or not to be that way, many people (probably including this mom) have never owned their own places so they're not accustomed to doing their own manual work that way. I know I'd hire someone to install safety bars, would absolutely not be comfortable doing that and I own my place. Certainly wouldn't be messing with drilling bars into walls in a rental.

As for the windows....I dunno what kind of hardcore fortresses you've been living in but every place I've ever lived has windows that, um, can be opened. Easily. By just like, putting a little upwards pressure on them. A two-year-old couldn't open it but a six-year-old should be able to.

Yup. Especially something like this- I wouldn't know how to install this either (I'm a homeowner and hire people for anything safety related because of this). God forbid you install it yourself, incorrectly, and then something happens. So you deal with the guilt and you're culpable.

I'm so sad for the mom reading these takes. Like "how could you not do something you're not comfortable doing in a place you don't own!" Where's the empathy, damn.

Maybe it was cracked and the kid opened it the rest of the way.

I think it's a little....cruel to blame the victims in this. The mom reported it to the landlord, you're not supposed to have to do this work yourself in a rental.

Ellis Reid with Compass was amazing!

That may be true but that doesn’t mean we should take her word as gospel with zero further information. Im also someone who genuinely cares about the community and sometimes I’m in the wrong 🤷🏽‍♀️

You can also get a Citibike membership (which I'm pretty sure is still under $200 for a year- it's gone up recently though so don't quote me on that!). PATH to 33rd, hop on a Citibike for those last 10 blocks. Citibike membership is good in JC and NYC so you can ride it any time you choose at home too.

Personally I take my personal bike to the ferry, but I work in SoHo so it's a quick ride vs. midtown.

I wanna see the lamp please!

Damn y'all. I think they just accepted money for the event without vetting and now can't back out. They deserve the outrage from the community but let's not stoop to trying to make stuff up.

I dunno about "ungodly hours" but I walk alone at night on Bergen from JSQ too (all the way to McGinley Sq) and I don't feel unsafe. It's like any other big city at night- I keep my wits about me just like I did when I lived in Brooklyn. Also I don't feel any significant difference between walking on Bergen, JFK, or West Side Ave so it's weird to have that one in particular called out.

There's a ton of drop boxes on 440 but you'd need to take an uber or having someone drive you. The shopping center that has Lowes/Staples/Big Lots/Home Goods/Asian Market has at least 3.

A lot of the firm statements you're presenting as facts are your opinion. So I will just state that on my side, I am agreeing to disagree. You can continue to rant but we're going to keep our own perspectives at the end of the day so save yourself the time. Cheers.

Ummm which Boston university has 346k students? Philly? Or are you counting every single student in the city, each in different institutions with different privatized security companies?

Anyway that's not my overall point- I don't personally (again- my opinion) believe that CITY SERVICES should be privatized. My opinion. Universities being used as a comparison point was as I said before- apples and oranges. We can keep going down this rabbit hole but as I said before, we're comparing a private institution with a city. And my actual overall point is there's a lot of corruption in JC government and money isn't being properly allocated, and it's (AGAIN MY OPINION) that this should be fixed rather than hired out. You're welcome to disagree. Cheers.

There are 283k people in Jersey City. Please tell me of a university with that kind of enrollment.

I disagree with almost everything you've said here, most especially using private security for small/private institutions as a comparison point for a 911 dispatch system which manages all public services for an entire city. This is, to me, apples and oranges.

I can agree with a lot of what you're saying- obviously the city is failing and it needs to be fixed immediately, not have another round of reviews to have recommendations to be ignored. My point is- the actual system itself shouldn't be broken. Pretty much every other city of various sizes is able to run a publicly funded 911 dispatch system. NYC is doing it, Newark is doing it, Hoboken is doing it, etc etc. So...it can be done. It seems to me that this smells of corruption- refuse to fix the system (which is entirely fixable) so you can pay a private company to run it instead. And if I had to guess, all of our taxes will increase to cover this. And if I had to go out on a further limb, I suspect there will be shady connections between the private company that is awarded this contract and some higher-up government officials.

Privatizing public safety just seems gross to me. This is literally the bare minimum of what our tax dollars are supposed to be doing.

> At the November meeting, department employees told the council the 911 center is understaffed. Some workers, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Jersey Journal this week that the city has set up the 911 call-takers to fail because they have wanted to privatize the call center operations for years.

I believe this. Create a problem that can be solved by paying a private company more of our tax money instead of reforming the 911 system and hiring more people.

It was like 11 am. But still! Weirdos come out in the daytime too!

She sure did and I FLIPPED OUT at the time. She just found someone from our country (not hard, we’re Dominican) and they offered. She didn’t die! I mean she did but cancer got her not a New York stranger.

This wasn’t me but I honestly do this all the time in my moms memory. She used to visit me often and would sometimes get lost in the subway system and there was always a kind New Yorker willing to lend a hand. Once a dude got off the stop with her and carried her bags up the steps. Another time she ended up in queens accidentally (I asked her how and she said “I like to live dangerously”) and she found someone to drive her to my aunts salon in Bushwick. Sorry to derail the thread but this thread brought up those treasured memories!

Also if you are interested I’ll send you my invite code- I get a discounted month and so do you.

It’s a company where you pay them a flat amount per month and get a certain amount of credits that you can exchange for lunches at participating restaurants. It’s kinda like classpass but for lunch spots. There’s hundreds if not thousands of participating restaurants in Manhattan and probably about 10 in JC.

I freaking love crema and have some cool adult scifi and fantasy books that I either read/didn't like or were too YA for me, so check back on the weekend because more books are coming!

The only smart thing is several of the food spots participate in MealPal. Any time I work from home I bike over and get a poke bowl from Tidal.