park it here

Tomorrow at 7pm in the ground floor conference room at City Hall (94 Washington Street) there is a very important Planning Board meeting to vote on a new ordinance that essentially creates a new 'Park' category for zoning in Hoboken. If approved, it would pave the way for our City Council to designate the so-called SW6 site along First Street for a future park. A proposed mock-up of said park appears below:


Click here for a larger version that you can zoom in on, courtesy of Hoboken Now.

Now how does this apply to our dear northwest area of Hoboken? Well if this passes, than that same zoning ordinance can and will be applied to our giant abandoned square on 12th and Adams, seen below in a handy little Google map.



So the moral of this story is - if you want a park on 12th and Adams, then you better get your booty over to City Hall tomorrow (Tuesday 8/5) and show your support for for SW6.

This is the only way to voice your opinion. Otherwise a very small group of people will continue to make all the important decisions that directly affect your quality of life. Why not break off a piece of that power for yourself?

What would I ask for? An installation of super tall Redwoods in the shape of the letters 'HH' and of course a giant sculpture of my head that houses a small burger stand and beer hall. You know, for when the weather's nice.

western edge redevelopment meeting on wed 7pm sharp!

Click the below image to enlarge!


Do you like to give your opinion? Yes, of course you do! Well stop by City Council Chambers at 94 Washington Street at 7pm this Wednesday to discuss the future of the Western Edge Redevelopment plan. Now's your chance to have your voice heard.

Do you want good restaurants? Quality retail? Open space covered with real grass? Perhaps a bicycle fast lane along Monroe Street? Community pool? Do you want to make sure that future retail spaces are larger than what's currently zoned in our Upper Grand buildings, which sit empty because they are not large enough for businesses other than nail salons and dry cleaners? Thought so. Come and hang out on Wednesday evening!

Afterwards, we can do a conga line together back to our neighborhood.

tough day at the office

Looking a little rough on 13th and Adams. Time to replace the linoleum. Maybe new bamboo flooring? I hear it's very environmentally friendly.

This is a giant piece of land, directly across from the Upper Grand development. It's basically a double wide, and cuts Jefferson Street in half. Would be an awesome park, no?

small print, large opinions

No, you are not reading the above flyer all the way from the moon, nor are you a 95 year old who forgot their glasses. This itty bitty super tiny teensy weensy pretty much unreadable listing (taken directly from the official Hoboken website) is actually a public meeting announcement to invite local citizens and people with strong opinions to come to the next City Council Meeting and discuss the future redevelopment plan for the western edge of Hoboken. Clearly they do not want any of us showing up. Why don't we prove them wrong and show up en mass? Bring your noise groggers and megaphones and confetti and make tell 'em what you want in your neighborhood.

For example, if I was there I'd say - any future retail spaces must be at least twice as large as the ones currently existing in the Upper Grand buildings - because those retail spaces are so small no businesses can actually use them - other than nail salons and dry cleaners. This is a problem that should be corrected on all future developments. Why keep making the same mistake? Have you noticed how many unrented retail spots there are in the Upper Grand buildings? It's because the square footage of the spaces availalbe are TOO SMALL. Kind of the like the flyer above.

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 @ 7pm
CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS
CITY HALL
94 Washington Street

Unfortunately HH is not in town tomorrow night - so if any diligent and caring NW Hobokeners would like to file an official report with HH on what went down at the meeting, I will publish your report and make you a local honorary junior celebrity. You may not be as popular as Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, but you'll feel good about being one of the few who care enough to improve your own community. Please email me by clicking here.


Thanks Eddie, for the tip!

a brisk day in the park

Here's a look at the middle of Columbus Park. The city has planted a ton o' mums. Below, a few shots of my favorite type of tree, the Sycamore.





Today: sunny, windy, high of 47. Looks like Fall is finally upon us...

sw6 tonight @ 6pm: a greener, greater hoboken

If it is important to you that we have open park space in Hoboken, then I urge you to attend tonights City Council meeting at the Multi Service Center located at 124 Grand Street in Hoboken. It's open to the public and begins at 6pm.

Tonight you will be treated to such interesting topics such as storm water retention technology, sustainable design, LEED accreditation for new development, and everyone's favorite: The North Hudson Sewerage Authority!

In case you haven't heard of SW6 until just now, it's a comprehensive action plan for southwest Hoboken that including a six acre park, flooding solutions, and other interesting ideas for the future of SW Hoboken.

Click here to download the SW6 official master plan in pdf form.

Or visit www.hobokenspc.org for more info.

Although this is normally out of HH's territory, we felt it was important to bring to light. And besides, Hoboken is a total slacker in the green open space department. It would be a shame to miss out on such an interesting opportunity to completely transform a corner of our city into something truly revolutionary.

And even if you're not up for a revolution, wouldn't you at least like the opportunity to try and spot HH in the crowd?

perhaps a future park?

Our mayor was quoted as saying Thirteenth and Jefferson could be the perfect spot for a new park. Anyone have some extra grass seed lying around? And something to break up this concrete? And a few million dollars?

Happy Labor Day everone! Sorry for the lack of posting, I've been travelling. HH will be reenergized after the long weekend...

my tire swing is on fire mommy!

Considering all the hub bub recently about synthetic playground materials, I thought you might be interested in checking out this recent video from cnn.com about a playground that spontaneously burst into flames in Arlington and no one knows exactly why. Check it out:

CNN Video: Spontaneous Combustion Playground

Hey, at least it's a bunch of wood chips that are on fire. Imagine if it was synthetic astro-turf material like in Church Square Park? Toxic melting goo is so much fun to play on!

sun shining down on columbus park

Everyone knows Hoboken is lacking in the parks department. But us northwestern Hoboken residents are very lucky to have Columbus Park just a short distance away. Here's a map of where it is:


There are so many cool things to do in Columbus park- plenty of space to play catch, run around with your dogs, or play with the little ones on the awesome swing sets they have. There are also two public tennis courts attached. I have no idea where my tennis racket is at this point, having moved around so much, but it'd be fun to do a little back hand soon. Maybe it's in my parents' garage?

Also pictured in the far distance is the stil being built 1000 Jefferson. What an amazing location to live if you have kids and/or pets.

If you have a minute you should definitely check out these 360 degree pictures of most of our Hoboken parks. It's a quicktime .mov file put together by Joseph A. Corrado:

3D Hoboken Park Images

If you are having trouble, you can click here which will take you to the hobokennj.org website for more information.