VNA MEETING: MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26TH AT MADAME CLAUDE CAFE
September 22, 2011
VNA 2011-2012 “Season” Starts Monday!
Monday, September 26, 2011
7:30 PM
Madame Claude Cafe
364 1/2 Fourth Street
Jersey City, NJ 07302
On behalf of the The Village Neighborhood Association Board of Directors, I’d like to invite everyone to our first 2011-2012 meeting on Monday, September 26, 2011 at Madame Claude Cafe.
We were thrilled when Alice Troletto and her husband Mattias Gustafsson invited us to have our meeting in their restaurant. The restaurant will be closed to the public, so the VNA will be providing refreshments for our meeting.
To say the summer was quiet is truly an understatement. Hurricane Irene left many Village residents under water, while exposing city-wide problems with our infrastructure. Newark Avenue construction was often difficult to negotiate, and quality of life issues around student lunch hour unexpectedly resurfaced.
So what’s on our agenda for Monday?
VNA Meeting: Special Guest Councilman Steven Fulop
March 5, 2010
The Village Neighborhood Association
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: PS #5 (Please see the map below)
General Meeting Information:
The Village Neighborhood Association holds their monthly meeting on the second Tuesday of the month in the Auditorium of the Dr. Michael Conti Public School (PS #5). Meetings begin at 7:30pm and are open to the public. Please use the school’s main entrance located on Merseles Street. [Read more]
VNA November Meeting: Newark Ave. Streetscape Phase III and More
November 15, 2009
The Village Neighborhood Association holds their monthly meeting on the second Tuesday of the month in the Auditorium of the Dr. Michael Conti Public School (PS #5). Meetings begin at 7:30pm and are open to the public. Please use the school’s main entrance located at 182 Merseles Street.
Creating Places Worth Caring About.
April 4, 2009
The TED conference, as some of you may know, is an annual event held to showcase the world’s most influential thought leaders in the areas of technology, entertainment, and design.
This talk by James Howard Kunstler from 2004 speaks volumes about our neighborhood. In particular, the VNA’s efforts when it comes to our “public realm in the form of the street”, and that is the stretch of Newark Avenue between Coles Street and Mary Benson Park.
Keep this in mind as he speaks about civic design, and shows examples of Main Street. Newark Avenue was designed and constructed well before WWII, the point in time Kunstler feels that our nation’s design sensibilities were “thrown in the garbage”. Newark Avenue was designed right, it was sadly left to deteriorate over the years.
Newark Avenue is “a place worth caring about”, it is simply up to us to do so.
Welcome to Jersey City…it’s a beaut!
August 11, 2008
Mayor announces beautification program for 15 entry sites to city
Article: The Jersey City Reporter
By Ricardo Kaulessar
TEAR IT UP TO MAKE IT NEW – Construction workers work Tuesday at Ralph Lambiase Plaza on Newark Avenue, where by the middle of this week there will be new concrete pavers, signage, and shrubs.
Jersey City government would like for visitors to see how beautiful their city is as soon as they enter it.
That idea was conveyed at a press conference Tuesday morning at Ralph Lambiase Plaza on Newark Avenue, where Mayor Jerramiah Healy and other city officials announced the city’s new Gateway Beautification Project.
The project calls for 15 sites, located near entry points to the city (known as “gateways”), to get upgrades such as newly planted shrubs and roses, shade trees, flags, improved signage, and walkways.
The project started on Tuesday with a construction crew tearing up Ralph Lambiase Plaza on Newark Avenue. A new, improved plaza is expected to be seen by the public as of this coming Wednesday, April 23.
The project has an estimated cost of $500,000, which is funded by money from the state’s Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) Program. Urban business districts like some in Jersey City can charge 3.5 percent sales tax rather than 7 percent, and can use that money for beautification.
People judge by entrance
Healy touted the benefits of the new beautification project as the pounding of jackhammers provided a soundtrack.
“They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but the problem is that first impressions are important,” Healy said. “We want to make sure that our entrances to the city and to these various neighborhoods in Jersey City live up to what we know we have here, which is a great city.”
No sites in Ward F
After the press conference, City Councilwoman Viola Richardson took issue with the fact that none of the sites are in the city’s Ward F, which she represents. She said the area around the Bayview Avenue entrance to the NJ Turnpike should have been included.
But she was informed that there were no UEZ-qualified businesses in that area.
“I will be working to get this project into my area, to find some funds to do this,” Richardson said.
But the mayor’s spokesperson, Jennifer Morrill, was quick to rebut Richardson’s comments, saying this beautification project is only a first phase. She said that a second phase to cover other entrance sites into the city that could not be upgraded this year.
And Roberta Farber of the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation said the city has a $1.3 million revitalization project slated to start in the next two months for the section of Richardson’s ward known as the Junction, where Communipaw Avenue, Grand Street, and Arlington Avenue intersect. It will include a new streetscape, lighting and other amenities.
Jose Arango, Director of the city’s Division of Economic Development, said Mayor Healy pursued the beautification project starting last year. He met with Arango, Farber, and city engineer Bill Goble.
Arango said the project will have a positive impact upon the city.
“We believe that part of development in the city, economic-wise, is to create a pleasant place where people can shop and people can live,” Arango said.
Farber, who oversees the city’s UEZ program within the Economic Development Corporation, said there will be a contract with a private company to do maintenance of the beautification sites.
And homeless people will help with the cleanup, as per the city’s current contract with the DOE Fund, a nonprofit organization that puts homeless men and woman to work.
City Council President Mariano Vega said the beautification project is part of the three-pronged effort by the city to make Jersey City a tourist destination. The effort also included the city’s introduction earlier this month of the city’s recreation 10-year master plan to upgrade the city’s parks, and the upcoming plan this summer to create a tourist marketing plan for Jersey City.
Other comments
Anthony Lambiase, director of the city’s zoning division, is the brother of the late Ralph Lambiase for whom the plaza is named.
“[My brother] would say, if he was still alive, that this is great project that helps make the city more beautiful, and shows that government is working,” Lambiase said.
Pat O’Melia, local radio and television host, helped refurbish the Blakeslee Monument located on a traffic island near the intersection of Broadway and Highway 1 and 9. That traffic island is one of the sites in the beautification project.
“Planting some new grass and shrubbery, it’s a great idea and it can’t hurt,” O’Melia said.
Comments on this story can be sent to rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com
