Reply With QuoteRides on the light rail will begin Monday the 17th after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Free rides for the first week of operation, I'm told.
I saw the lightrail working on Tuesday, it looked great! I didn't see anyone on-board, I'm guessing they were training the operators. Such a surreal site, Newark's lookin beautiful!
Rides on the light rail will begin Monday the 17th after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Free rides for the first week of operation, I'm told.
Great I cant wait. Thats how we do in Jersey free rides to lure you in then hit you with the fare and scare the crap out of you. lol
On the same Tuesday, I passed by the Devils Area without camera unfortunately, and it was looking as if a quarter of the steel skeleton had risen. It's moving fast at the construction site.
We just moved out of Pavilion. I don't miss it. Many of the people that live there have no respect for their environment or the other people who live there, and management had no intent on improving the situation. It was evident to me whenever I'd see garbage or spit on the floor in the elevator, or when the parking gate would be broken, or everytime the elevators were broken...I think the culmination occured when a five-year-old child was missing for several hours, the Newark police went door-to-door trying to find him. Around 2:00am the fire department showed up. Turns out the kid was stuck in the elevator, and when asked why the guard didn't see him, the response was that the cameras in the elevators didn't work. But the views were amazing, I'll give Pavilion that.Originally Posted by ryanov
BTW, I noticed you posting on a railroad forum about the light rail - my cousin posts there all the time (i think his name is hsr_fan or something). Send me a message here or something, I'm the Kevin in all of those articles (my wife and I had our picture in the NY Post on Thursday about 1180). It'd be nice to get to know our neighbors!When we looked at the studios, we were amazed by the fact that they're virtually 1 bedroom apartments without doors. The studio is split up into three sections, a great area, the entry area, and a back sleeping area (no window). Some creativity could allow two roommates to share the apartment. As far as there being nothing to do after the work day, there are three nice pubs in downtown Newark: the KilKenny Alehouse (formerly the Hamilton pub), McGovern's Tavern, which is now open on saturdays, and Skippers Plane Street Pub. Oh, and Mix 27, which is new. If you're not into downtown, there are plenty of places in the Ironbound that offer nightlife...and great Brazillian food.
Last edited by kevin; July 14th, 2006 at 11:37 AM.
Glad people are talking about Eleven80. I was told by one of the managers that the building won't be ready to move in until August. Make sense because honestly, that building is in no shape to be moved in right now--the outside of it anyway. And what's this I hear about the new light rail being free for next week?
Newark Mayor Chases Suspect,
but His Guards Make the Grab
NY TIMES
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
July 14, 2006
Mayor Cory A. Booker began his term on July 1 in Newark vowing to reduce crime with a program of zero-tolerance policing.
Yesterday afternoon, the new mayor — along with two police officers in his security detail — had a firsthand opportunity to put that policy into effect.
In a city known for rampant crime and a murder rate that has been rising even as it has been generally falling nationwide, it is not unheard-of to see crimes take place in broad daylight.
Sometimes they even take place in front of City Hall.
Mayor Booker and his guards left Newark’s City Hall around 12:30 p.m.
yesterday for a meeting and stumbled upon what appeared to be a confrontation across the street: a police officer and a man in a standoff on Broad Street. The officer held a gun and the man wielded a pair of scissors.
The police later said that the man had just robbed a customer in the City National Bank of hundreds of dollars. In escaping the bank, the man was brushed by a car and fell.
When a nearby police officer went to help him, the man tried to stab the officer with the scissors, but missed, Mr. Booker said. The officer drew his gun as the suspect was running away.
Mr. Booker, 37, who played tight end on Stanford University’s football team, said, “I took off my jacket and gave chase.”
The two officers with him, Billy Valentin and Kendrick Isaac, began running, too.
The guards overtook Mr. Booker and took the man down in front of a parking lot.
Mr. Valentin, 37, a 12-year veteran of the force, said, “He actually didn’t see it coming because he was looking at the officer with the gun, and we came from behind.’’
When Mr. Booker reached the group, he began shouting at the robber: “Not in our city anymore! These days are over!”
Mr. Valentin and Mr. Isaac were recently selected to be guards for Mr. Booker, who recently received death threats from gang leaders in prison.
“These guys, who obviously sprint faster than their mayor, saved a situation from getting far worse,” Mr. Booker said with a laugh.
“I was embarrassed by my own security detail, which I will never forgive them for.”
He said the police arrested the man and took him into custody.
The suspect did not have far to go. Police headquarters was around the corner, only a few buildings down from City Hall.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Go Cory, you badass.
July 17, 2006
Rail Spur Brings Downtown Newark a Taste of Its Past
By RONALD SMOTHERS
In downtown Newark, unveiling a rail line to entice visitors, and development.
NEWARK, July 14 — With the scraping of metal wheels on metal track and the occasional sparking of pantograph against overhead catenary wires, Newark’s rail transit system on Monday will usher in what many hope will be a new era.
A new mile-long light rail spur downtown, which took four years to complete, is to start service between the city’s two commuter train stations and make parts of the city more accessible.
The $207 million spur — in some ways a throwback to the city’s past — will take about 10 minutes for a ride starting underground at Pennsylvania Station, the city’s main rail hub, and traveling northward to the Broad Street Station, much of the time at street level.
A northbound train will make intermediate stops at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, at Atlantic Street and at Riverfront Stadium; a southbound train will make intermediate stops at Washington Park and at the arts center.
It is the stretch above ground that is reminiscent of the 1930’s and ’40s, when Newark was a far more vital city. At that time trolleys, sleeker ancestors of today’s angular light rail cars, crisscrossed the city powered by a tangle of overhead cables serving lines converging on the city from the Oranges, Maplewood, Bloomfield — even from as far away as Paterson.
More than looking to its past, however, the new line represents this struggling city’s future, opening the northern end of the downtown to commercial, retail and residential redevelopment.
Developers note that the Morris and Essex and Montclair-Boonton rail lines, which pass through Broad Street Station on the way to Manhattan, carry large numbers of Newark commuters who will now have an easier way of reaching downtown.
“It was so difficult getting from the Broad Street station to downtown by bus on the streets,” said Joseph North, the general manager of New Jersey Transit’s light rail operations and the Newark subway system.
Marc E. Berson, a major developer in the city and owner of the Newark Bears, the minor league baseball team that plays in Riverfront Stadium, said: “This area of Broad Street has always been one of the gateways into Newark because of the train station and Interstate 280. And if I could script what happens with this new light rail spur, I would like to see it be retail and downtown residential.”
For now, Mr. North said, the transit agency expects the spur to attract 4,000 riders a day in the first year of operation. Trains will leave every 10 minutes during rush hours and every 15 minutes at other times.
Mr. Berson, the president of Fidelco Realty, which has purchased a 17-story office building near the Broad Street station, is not alone in envisioning a period of redevelopment.
The Newark campus of Rutgers, which also owns several parcels near the northern end of the spur, plans to move its business school, along with 3,500 students, into 11 floors of Mr. Berson’s building and build dormitories for undergraduate and graduate students.
Steven Diner, the provost of the Newark campus, said that the expansion plans had been on the drawing board for a while, and that the light rail spur was “icing on the cake.”
Saying the Broad Street train station is the most underused “asset in downtown Newark,” Mr. Diner noted that besides Rutgers, such institutions as the Newark Museum and the Newark Public Library also had ambitious expansion plans in the area.
In addition, Berkeley College, a 75-year-old school that began as a secretarial school in East Orange, has embarked on an $11 million project to renovate a low-rise building on Broad Street across from the spur’s Washington Park stop.
Developers and civic leaders here, who have agonized over the halting pace of redevelopment over the last two decades, long talked about creating a “critical mass” of redevelopment activity that would turn the crawl into a walk and then a trot.
Lawrence P. Goldman, president and chief executive of the Performing Arts Center, said in an interview that the center, which is currently seeking a developer to put up a mix of 250 residential and retail properties on land across the street, had been approached by builders who were aware that the light rail was coming.
“When you add light rail to subways, buses and commuter rail lines, you build a level of excitement and uniqueness,” Mr. Goldman said. “It fills the air with a sense of urbanism that distinguishes this city from the experience of the Short Hills Mall.”
In aging cities like Newark, major construction projects are often complicated by a variety of costly hurdles involving the environment and landmarks. In this case, age and history acted in the city’s favor, said Les Eckrich, New Jersey Transit’s senior director and project manager of construction for the spur.
For one thing, Mr. Eckrich said, the transportation agency was able to use part of a tunnel that as far back as 1929 served the vast network of trolley lines operated by Thomas N. McCarter, the chairman of the Public Service Corporation, which later became Public Service Electric & Gas.
At that time, the tunnel ran to the trolley terminal, a hub for lines that once served two million people with about 2,400 cars.
In addition, Mr. Eckrich said, the agency was able to use some of the old right-of-ways for the light rail tracks and overhead power lines and did not have to acquire or disturb expensive downtown real estate.
Through a competition, the agency settled on public art that will be displayed at each of the six stations. At the Atlantic Street station, near a post office, windscreens will resemble a franked postage stamp.
At the arts center station, a 100-yard-long terrazzo walk will have 26 bronze plaques honoring New Jersey performers, from Sarah Vaughan and Abbott and Costello to Bruce Springsteen and Queen Latifah.
In addition, Mr. Goldman said the transit agency showed an appreciation for the performing arts by installing a “floating track bed” atop several rubber disks at the arts center stop — in an effort to keep passing trains from disturbing a performance or recording session.
“You didn’t want to create a situation,” he said, “where during the pianissimo you suddenly have a concerto for orchestra and light rail.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
www.localsource.com
Makeover planned for Market Street
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 2:09 PM EDT
VAILSBURG, NJ - One of Newark’s busiest streets and most important intersections will get a completely new look, as the Department of Engineering launches the resurfacing, beautification, and drainage improvement of Market Street and Elizabeth Avenue. The Market Street Improvement Project will include the famous Historic District Four Corners intersection of Broad and Market streets. The construction is expected to begin Monday.
The construction project will begin with the ceremonial demolition of one of the four newsstand/bus shelters at the Broad and Market intersection, at 11 a.m. Monday. The Four Corners is one of the busiest intersections in New Jersey and this crossroads dates back to Colonial times.
“Market Street is one of our city’s oldest and most important thoroughfares. It dates back to Capt. Robert Treat and his Puritan founders. Now we are restoring this great street to its deserved grandeur, while making it safe and convenient for today’s motorist and pedestrian,” said Mayor Sharpe James.
The project will also improve the Elizabeth Avenue corridor from Grumman Avenue to Meeker Avenue. The city proposes to make improvements to Market Street from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to Ferry and Mott streets. These changes will help to ease congestion and reduce diversions to residential areas by improving traffic flows on Market Street, according to engineering director James D. Adams, whose department is overseeing the project.
A landscaped median will be created between Prospect and Madison streets, along with a left-turn lane south of Raymond Boulevard onto Prospect Street. Market Street will also see new trees, decorative lighting, reconstructed sidewalks, utilities and drainage under the program.
The reconstruction project, which is being done by DeFino Contracting of Clifwood Beach, is being funded by a $3.51 million grant from the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Highways Administration. Construction is expected to be completed by June 2007.
Sounds like Newark is finally turning around. Let's hope the momentum isn't lost.
I checked out the new train
and it's pretty ridiculous imo. They have two stops that are a block apart from each other -
The goal is to link Broad Street Station and Penn Station.
History question.
I was walking by 1180 last week and I noticed the initials 'LN' over the main entrance on Raymond St. Does anybody know the original name of this building?
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