Late night open thread

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Friday night MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA with PETER FRAMPTON!

It's 70's night here on the Music Series! You get all three of tonight's songs for free but you have to promise to buy just three videos at regular club prices over the next three years. So what if they're $27.99 each? Johnny's not even making you send him a penny to get all these fine 70's tracks, probably right off an 8-track somewhere. We're going to kick it all off tonight with a big 1970's hit 'Do You Feel Like We Do', all 14 minutes of it. Hey, remember, 70's.

To that end, smoke 'em if ya got 'em

Friday night MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA with THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT!

Boy does Johnny love this song and boy howdy does it scream 1970's, 1977 for those keeping score at home. Alan Parsons had his talented fingers all up in the 70's producing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album, maybe you've heard of it. Parsons won a Grammy for his efforts on it.

1970's night rolls on with 'Some Other Time'

Friday night MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA with STEVIE WONDER!

You can't throw a 70's night and not have some Stevie Wonder, especially on his birthday. Out of Saginaw Michigan, happy 66th birthday to the one and only Stevie Wonder! 'I Wish' from 1976 sending you on your way tonight.

The Mayor and City Council President have some serious questions to answer

Johnny's been letting this story simmer this week and let the facts trickle out organically and trickle they have.

First, a little stage setting. Transmission is a club at 150 Bay St. that despite the locals push back was deposited in a small crowded area of the Powerhouse Arts District. All the concerns locals have voiced thus far have come true and yet the city is glacial in dealing with them.

Transmission a month ago was raided and arrests made. Underage drinkers and drug sales were the order of the night. Undercover officers went in and instead of taking notes for future reference felt things were so bad they brought in the black and whites. How BAD is it in there? Great for the PAD property values by the way to have such a club in operation. Underage drinkers and drug sellers. Classy.

Two weeks after that police were called as the clientele got out of hand, were seen drinking and taking drugs in cars, and challenging pedestrians walking by to fistfights. The Transmission owner said the booking agent that night tricked him.

Last Saturday night at Transmission a local style blogger had a party. The crowd was large and the streets were packed as usual and nobody in the neighborhood could sleep with the windows open.

Steve Fulop, Jersey City Mayor, showed up (for what the party host said was about two hours) along with Council President Rolando Lavarro. The two top members of the Jersey City government hanging out in a club with such a reputation? One where drugs have recently been sold and underage kids drink. Why would either think this is a good idea, to contribute their names to such a place? At this point the only thing missing from Transmission are illicit dice games on the 150 Bay veranda but there they were, giving the glad hand.

Their presence gets more scrutiny when the police showed up to go through the club at 1am. Did police not know Fulop was inside? Is the club so bad (and remember Johnny pointed out the undercovers went in at 1am in his report on this last Sunday) they feel they just need to go inside and check around? If so, again, what business do the mayor and council president have inside?

Which brings us to our last order of business, yes, the mayor and council president were more than likely present at a party where drugs were being used. Remember this bag of powdery substance right outside Transmission, taken by Johnny Sunday morning?

See those items? Those are the exact kinds of things that quickly get dumped when police start showing up.

Is this the kind of example you, Mayor Fulop and Council President Lavarro want to set? Is this a good message from either of you? Know what it is? It's every bad stereotype of the new downtown setting itself in stone to the rest of the city.

Late night open thread

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

The contemptible Chico Ramchal has resigned in disgrace

Contemptible? Oh you bet. He has contempt for taxpayers and the people in his ward when he cuts a plea deal to not go to jail for five years for falsifying job records for his no-show job. Yeah, a no-show job and some still say this clown really works hard for people.

Horseshit. The people saddest to see him go are the ones in Ward B who see a chance to make a buck trading off his name. The people who he boldly protected by stopping fines for parking across sidewalks and non-running cars in front yards.

Contempt for anyone and everyone in his CHOICE to drive drunk. He didn't think there'd be any consequences for it because of who he is. If it weren't for the award winning reporting from the Jersey Journal's Terrence T. McDonald we never would have found the incredible level of contempt Ramchal has for Jersey City residents (or anyone else in his path that night). He's probably stunned it went this far. Johnny's quite happy it went this far and is upset it didn't go further.

Let's face facts, Chico Ramchal got a special deal in all this because he had a Jersey City council job to forfeit and make the judge look good. He should be in jail. Time on both counts. Judges sentence for contempt of court well how about jail time for contempt of city? Contempt of taxpayer?

Johnny's very outspoken on drunk drivers and their lazy self serving choice to do so because he was the victim of one. Especially out here, in the land of taxis and Ubers and Lyft. Again, Ramchal didn't think the rules applied to him so these ideas probably never even crossed his mind.

Selfish contemptible lawbreakers shouldn't get special treatment as Ramchal did here because they have a shiny object to barter with. Johnny will never get used to nor accept the politicking and the blind eye turned as it is here in Jersey City. Hell, he half expects Rolando Lavarro to wait two years and try and name a park after Chico.

Jersey City, make it yours.

Late night open thread

“Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.”
 -- Mike Royko

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Central Park just opened four previously off-limits acres

It's true, a section of Central Park, almost four acres has been off-limits to everyone and has recently started allowing people back in, as long as it's during limited times and limited amounts of people:

Did you know that there are four acres of Central Park that have been closed off since the 1930s? While the Central Park Conservancy has given the park a remarkable new life since the 1980s, they haven't quite gotten to everything, but now they've announced a "new" (to you) section is ready for humans: the Hallett Nature Sanctuary (née Promontory) will open this summer.

Aside from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, the Sanctuary—located by the Pond—is the only permanently fenced-off section of the park. “The story is, [then Parks Commissioner] Robert Moses closed it off because he wanted it to turn into a bird sanctuary,” said the CPC's Douglas Blonsky.

So follow this link and see the exact whens and wheres to get a look at this previously unseen (and unspoiled) tract of land.

Late night open thread

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
 -- H.L. Mencken

Time for Jersey City, After Dark