City Planners in Jersey City, never asking the right questions

Johnny is pissed off after is walk through PADNA this morning.

City Planning, friends, if you've ever needed more proof these people get to work, eat Coco Puffs for about an hour and then do, well, nothing. When they allowed Mill Creek, Toll Brothers, Pavarini McGovern, Trump and Shuster to get plans passed (once City Planning failed to list PADNA as a historic District by the allotted time -- funny how THAT worked) so overwhelmingly friendly on terms to the builders downtown residents are now dealing with City Planning not asking the right questions. Did city planners ask since the roads are so small where you're working if they had any kind of pick up and drop off plan for deliveries? You'll see in the images below this question was never asked. How will the trucks impact those bombed out narrow roads? This question sure doesn't look like it was asked. Did City Planning gift the builders with some kind of "Just park in the streets residents be damned" rider?

So now friends your car, legally parked, is at the mercy of delivery trucks downtown (When the construction bros don't sneak into a legal spot without a city tag). Trucks line the streets, streets supposed to be able to handle street traffic have been closed, narrowed further, bombed out and their plastic they use to cover the delivery loads simply finds a home in a tree or a power line (Mill Creek are ESPECIALLY BAD about understanding they make a mess and it needs to be cleaned the hell up).

So City Planning, let's ask if you planned for these builders to give you some kind of plan to move supplies in and out that don't require trucks to sit for UP TO THREE HOURS on city streets? You allowed Toll to close off an entire city block. You allowed Mill Creek to close off an entire city block. Why can't these trucks wait in the VAST amount of property the builders are now taking up? C'mon City Planning, you allowed this swaths of land to be taken and now they STILL want to inconvenience residents.

Somewhere, somehow someone at City Planning in Jersey City will read this screed. And they'll head right back to the kitchen for more Coco Puffs.

All the trucks you'll see have been parked this morning for at least one hour, some much longer.

The snow is not going to let up anytime soon

If you were hoping for the day to improve so you could run out and get some things done, good luck with that. The snow arrived late but forecasters say it's still going to bring us 4-8" with it now looking like a heavier amount is more likely. Do be careful should to head out later after the snow stops tonight as the temperatures are going to bottom out and whatever melted over the last couple days is going to freeze up. That's a potential for a LOT of ice around here friends. Since it's dropping into the middle-teens tonight that means the salt on the roads and sidewalks is probably not going to help too much.

Here's an image of the Mill Creek rehab project downtown. Johnny saw the snow sticking to the safety netting (that Mill Creek employs yet many other contractors in Jersey City do NOT) making it look like some kind of eerie spider web. Cool beans.

If it's a snowstorm you know Johnny's all up in it

A few animated gifs from this quite pretty snowstorm. That black netting on the Mill Creek building rehab is such a natural background. Maybe there's a way to keep the netting up even after the building reopens and turn the Morgan Lot into a drive in movie joint. Johnny's an idea man.

Confirmed: Warehouse demo starts tomorrow

Now, it may just be the boxy portion AT Morgan and Warren (Avoid this area tomorrow drivers) and not the taller well-graffitied warehouse but Johnny confirmed in talking with three guys tasked with taking it down that tomorrow it is. Johnny also hipped them to the fact the small building has no structural integrity as portions of the roof have caved in (looking back in the pictures Johnny took from a friend's place when about 15 "interesting characters" got inside those warehouses and half the Jersey City PD turned out to arrest them, you can see the open roof areas).

This particular building would have most likely had to go but losing a city's history and old warehouses that could have been saved (Like Mill Creek is doing) if the city planning commission had even tried to get the paperwork designating the Powerhouse Arts District a historical district in on time. Inept? Paid off? You tell us, the fact is we lose a lot while the Jersey City planning commission is asleep at the switch.

Johnny's seen a lot of construction vehicles but this takes the cake

In his last few years of walking the dire wolf through, and visiting friends in the Powerhouse Arts District, Johnny has seen just about every conceivable construction vehicle: Dump trucks, long trucks, short trucks, loaders, haulers, little golf cart zippy things but he had never ever never seen a construction vehicle like this before this morning:

Yes, the guys at Mill Creek rehabbing the building at Warren and Morgan have a horse trailer to aid them this morning. So either Mill Creek is putting in off-track betting and want some ambience in the lobby or maybe they are going to turn the famed Morgan Lot across the street into a horse track. What? It could happen. We could hold the Jersey Derby or SpacePunk Stakes over there. Johnny didn't see any sulky's lying around so we're guessing it could be thoroughbred racing.

Ah, perchance to dream.

Smile for your close-up Jersey City

Crews are currently filming what Johnny was told is a commercial (or parts of a commercial) on Morgan St. at Warren this morning. Take a look at the pics and from the looks of that buffet table they plan on being here for a while today.

One a side note, Johnny heard two jagoffs from the Mill Creek construction team working on the old dark brick building at Warren and Morgan looking at the commercial set-up and complaining it would make their trucks take circuitous routes to their job site and for them that was a problem. Hey, morons, how do you think the people in the Powerhouse Arts District feel when you block off entire streets for your worksites? How do you think they feel when half their roads are blocked for you and Goldman and Tish and Shuster and Toll Brothers? We're just glad to see film crews still heading over into the PAD after all the whitewashing of the character of the area from mayors Healy and Fulop along with the aforementioned developer vampires.

C'mon Municipal Utilities Authority and Department of Pubic Works, try a little harder than this

Earlier this week the Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA) announced an "aggressive" campaign to start filling in potholes all over town. Why the MUA? Because the Department of Public Works (DPW) can't keep up because they are busy installing personal gas grills in their offices. Some of these potholes have gained mythological reputations and Twitter accounts. Johnny called one in, baseball size BUT it's going to become watermelon sized and SINK because if you look at the pictures below you can see a good six inch VOID under street level. It's sagging badly inward. We're of the mind the construction crews for Toll Brothers, Shuster, Lloyd Goldman's bunch via Pavarini-McGovern and Mill Creek should pass the hat since their trucks' constant pounding most likely exacerbated this one.

Johnny called it in and the "aggressive" MUA/DPW campaign stopped by and it looks like threw one, maybe two shovels of asphalt over it (some did get inside LOL) and left.

So our question to the MUA/DPW is, does this count as fixing a pothole? When you say you've fixed 5000 around Jersey City does throwing a couple shovels of asphalt count as fixed? You cannot half-ass this stuff gang. These holes get worse and worse and a shovel here and a shovel there doesn't do shit.

So, one more time, did you count this one at Warren and Morgan as a fix?

To protect and serve...and nap...

OK, don't get Johnny wrong, there is nothing funnier than developers like Toll Brothers or Mill Creek, Tish, Trump, or Lloyd Goldman or anybody else getting ripped off. They are required to foot the bill for the too many to count police officers often seen standing around construction projects doing nothing, sipping coffee, enjoying a cigarette and so forth. Well this guy, we'll call him Mr. Sleepy, has been tapped by one of these developers and he's found a great way to pass the day, sleeping in his car while he should be standing on a street corner looking important in his police vest and sipping coffee (picture taken at 8:55AM). Again, nothing makes us happier than a developer losing money BUT this guy is also supposed to be the one stopping truck and crane and backhoe traffic so people can cross at intersections. He should be the one stopping traffic from going down closed streets (because the police unions insist only someone with a badge can correctly point to a road closed sign). He should be another set of eyes out there looking out for the public or at least for the people paying him.

Also, what does Mr. Sleepy tell the residents who see him not only sleeping in his police vest, no, he's going the Full Monty with a sleepers blindfold on to boot. Johnny had seen this guy doing this before but spared him the embarrassment (not to mention the city) but figured maybe it IS time to break some eggs over at City Hall and get Police Chief Robert Cowen hipped to what really happens on the streets of Jersey City. Maybe he'd agree it's time to move these poor overburdened police officers off these gravy assignments and let citizen-tasked traffic coordinators handle pointing at road closed signs.

Maybe they can at least stay awake...