I doubt I have any that you aren't already familiar with: coalitions and vote drives and all the hopeless drudgery critical to democracy. No easy wins.

And I think that's harmed by tacit endorsements of divisiveness, however ill-defined the group it's aimed at.

First-wave gentrifier waxes polemic about gentry. Neophyte politician takes bait.

We need people to effectively take on the HCDO. This isn't how you do it.

I don't think you understand the 4 in E4.

I can see the conversation go like: Paris is a city of sophisticates and Uncle Rich will ruin EVERYTHING!

But l'm 99% sure Boggiano just couldn't be bothered to go.

We pay our officials to work for us. When someone else pays them--in cash or gifts or trips to Paris--our officials don't work for us anymore.

This trip is worrying because there's arguably legit reason for the mayor and a few councilmembers to visit Pompidou, even on the taxpayer dime. Yet this vanilla trip gets shrouded in secrecy. Makes it hard to forget we live in Hudson County.

Chiming in late, but I think this has some of what you're looking for: https://data.jerseycitynj.gov/explore/dataset/p22-146-417-communipaw-ave-sp/information/

The outcomes you're claiming are not certain. I think you're flailing here.

Replying to everything here to avoid multiple threads.

Shadow maps abound. From what I'm seeing you'll get early morning shade in the northwest corner of the park, so you're correct. But it only affects a sliver of the park and won't affect flora or recreational use in any meaningful way.

I would prefer midrise there as well, but you won't get 420 units out of it on that plot. I don't like the surface parking, but otherwise this is a good plan at ground level.

Trepidation is a reaction to any undesirable outcome, whether reasonable or not. And I don't think it's unreasonable to prefer midrise. That said, the urbanist pubs you cite, much as I tend to agree them, are neither data nor best practices in any practical sense.

The tower is north of Berry Lane. It won't cast a shadow on the park.

The notion that a single high rise will bring in "disconnected" people is hard to credit. This particular project has much more public engagement at its base than the entirely enclosed Foundry or the tucked-away Lafayette lofts. It's also occupying space that's been civically and commercially dead for decades. If the complex fills with the most insular people imaginable, the community loses nothing.

I get the trepidation. Lafayette's low-key low-rise character feels more like an old mill town than an urban neighborhood, and that charm is hard to let go of. But mill towns have mills. Lafayette doesn't anymore, and when it did it wasn't pleasant. It's a residential neighborhood with easy access to a major world hub. 420 units with public space over a dead steel steel mill doesn't seem like a threat to the neighborhood to me.

I continue to hope that the place is well patronized by people who don't like me, and that's why I always see it empty.

But I think it's just a mixture of not enough office workers in the building and absolutely no attempt to attract anyone else. I mean, just walking into Harborside feels like trespassing sometimes.

I got supplies delivered. I hired out carting. My equipment fit in a hatchback. It's not hard. Plenty of trades do need a truck--though usually a van--but that tends to be for a mobile toolbox, not hauling.

I can't, of course, know what motivates everyone's vehicle purchases. But with truck sales up, new home builds flat or declining and recent spikes in disposable income, it's hard not to see vanity when highways become seas of clean pickup beds and king cabs.

I did 15 years in commercial renovation. You didn't need a pickup truck. I know this because I never had a pickup truck.

There are a lot of people out there who like to feel that they need a truck, and buying one is incredibly easy. I can't know if that applies to you, or if you honestly thought it would make your life easier. But with truck sales being almost entirely feelings based these days, it's hard to give anyone the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Pasting this list of daylong scenic meanders I posted a couple years ago. Nature doesn't change that quick. This isn't exhaustive, but it'll keep you busy for a season:

Hiking:

East of Hudson--trains from Grand Central:

Breakneck Ridge: Hudson Line to Breakneck Ridge station.

Mt Taurus/Bull Hill: Hudson Line to Cold Spring, trailhead just north of town on Rt 9W. One of these trails eventually joins Breakneck Ridge, but it's a schlep.

Appalachian Trail (NY/CT): Harlem Line to Appalachian Trail station

Appalachian Trail (Bear Mountain): Hudson Line to Manitou

West of Hudson--trains from Hoboken:

Ramapo Dunderberg Trail (Harriman State Park): Port Jervis Line to Tuxedo

Appalachian Trail (Harriman): Port Jervis Line to Harriman. Trailhead about 2 miles south of station on Rt 17.

Schunnemunk Mountain (highest in Hudson Highlands): Port Jervis Line to Salisbury Mills. Trailhead on Otterkill Rd under the huge railroad trestle you just went over on the train.

Biking/meandering:

Duke Farms: NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line from Newark or NY Penn to Raritan. South on Thompson St, west on Somerset, south again on Nevins. Cross the pedestrian bridge and keep going to the Duke Farms gate. Miles of bucolic paths to get lost in.

Harlem Valley Rail Trail: Harlem Line from Grand Central to Wassaic. Trail starts at the station.

D&R canal: NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line from Newark or NY Penn to Bound Brook. Enter the path just over the Raritan River bridge from downtown. Go west/south from there. North/east toward New Brunswick isn't great.

Columbia Trail: Raritan Valley Line from Newark or NY Penn to High Bridge (weekdays only). Walk north on Main St. Trail starts a couple blocks from the station.

All legit, but that's the entire continent except maybe CDMX.

Attractive, accessible, affordable. Pick two.

Miss America on West Side holds the fort as the last true diner in this town.

The food is fine.* Not great, not even particularly good, just fine. It's a diner. Fast, cheap, filling.

*When last I went in 2019. Please don't ruin my life by telling me it's not anymore

Infrastructure really is the answer here. What got Leonia and other towns' local-only ordinances rejected was this morally and legally troublesome "roads for me, not for thee" approach. And it's practically unenforceable anyway.

A city that's willing to calm its streets for everyone and redesign their roads accordingly isn't going to have that problem.

I don't love it because, let's face it, enough people would be willing to pay the charge to clog our streets anyway. And they'll feel entitled to a shorter trip, at greater risk to anyone using a crosswalk.

But I can comfortably guarantee we'll never see it enacted. The NJTA likes our overflow capacity too much to let that happen. We're not a city to them, we're a customer queuing space.

No one is proposing pulling a Leonia. The likeliest action would be traffic calming like lane-width reduction and sidewalk bulbouts on city-owned streets. Tunnel traffic will still filter through the city, but at lower speed, reducing the effectiveness of the shortcut.

It's the best we can do, and it's why the turnpike widening would be a disaster for us.

There's also the oft-bandied idea of a surcharge for anyone who enters the tunnel within an hour of exiting 14 b or c. That won't happen, of course, because the Turnpike authority wants cars to filter through here. We're a traffic repository to them.

>Nope.

Compelling, but I'll stick with geography.

These people also ride the subway, where they spread-eagle like porn wannabes.

But the turnpike is to the right.

Look at the map. There's only one area where you can put WTC in a frame with the turnpike curving to the right. And we know the image isn't flipped because WTC is to the left of 1 NY Plaza and the Battery.

Yeah. The whole area was abandoned rail facilities lousy with illegal dumping. Including just north of what's now LSP from the canal almost to Grand.

Not sure what you're arguing. Can you pinpoint the photo location?

You're right--WTC is a straight shot down Grand and we don't see Grand. I still think it's north of LSP, though, given the turnpike curve. Probably toward the end of Aetna St.

Dunno, this looks a little farther north. Around the present JCMC lot or even the substation on Paific and Grand? It was all abandoned rail yards in the 70s.

Forget the headliners. Most big metros have equivalents to our "nice" places, and almost everywhere has some kind of fine dining. But very few regions have anything like White Mana or Laico's, let alone entire neighborhoods to trawl like India Square or the Ironbound or Flushing.