NYC: the sixth boro **HUDSON**

[Hamilton]

[deleted, see previous page]

[austlar1]

Great pictures. What is crime like there in "typical" neighborhoods. How does public safety stack up with Queens or the Bronx? I looks very cozy(and gritty too) from the pictures.

[Hamilton]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Great pictures. What is crime like there in "typical" neighborhoods. How does public safety stack up with Queens or the Bronx? I looks very cozy(and gritty too) from the pictures.

^^^I really do love the grit and the coziness--it's something you can't get in Manhattan or northern Brooklyn anymore. Crime is not bad in any of the neighborhoods pictured...North Hudson (Union City/WNY) is actually very very safe despite being mostly working-class and gritty. But two neighborhoods not pictured (Greenville and Bergen-Lafayette) are very dangerous. Last year in Bergen-Lafayette there was a shooting 200 yards from a police station...at 3pm in the afternoon...and no witnesses stepped forward! Also "the victim was uncooperative with police" is a typical line whenever there's a story about a shooting in those neighborhoods.

I made a map showing density in the NYC region by Census Block Group, with the cutoffs set at the average population density of Brooklyn (37,000/sq mi) and Manhattan (72,000/sq mi). I hope it illustrates why I think western Queens (LIC/Astoria) a good comparison for Hudson County. I think it also illustrates who there are at least four disjointed nodes of density in Hudson County running in a narrow strip north-to-south along the Hudson--these are the places that streetscraper visited in his photoshoots. Then immediately to the west of that is uninhabited marshes (the Meadowlands), so population densities drop from 60,000/sq mi to 20/sq mi over the course of half a mile. The Census counts this area as "land" even though it's often flooded, so it reduces the overall density for the county. You can also see Newark's Ironbound as a node of density in Essex County. You can play with the map HERE



http://i.imgur.com/LKijbpr.jpg?1

[Lipani]

Now this is a thread I've been waiting for. My grandfather grew up in Jersey City, something I only learned when I began putting the family tree together years ago (my grandmother lived on Long Island and more or less forced him to move there ). Despite spending many summers in New York, I still haven't spent any time in Jersey City. Many thanks for the outstanding photos, streetscaper! Definitely makes me want to visit this city the next time I visit family in New York.

[streetscaper]

On the specific point of western Queens and Hudson County, I think Crawford's and my comments were spot on according to the maps (really great tool btw, thanks for sharing). We both said that they both have very similar vibes and densities and vibrancies (as you say), but we qualified that statement with western Queens just being somewhat denser/more vibrant. It seems there are similar amounts of Brooklyn densities in the two regions, but western Queens has more Manhattan-equivalent densities. And when you go to a density much higher than average-Manhattan-density (>110,000), there are still many contiguous tracts that show up in Western Queens, and basically none in Hudson.






Overall they're very very comparable, however, and I very much agree with the LIC/Asotria comparison.

Anyway, lots of great info and commentary Hamilton! There's still so much left to explore in Hudson County (haven't made it to Bayonne with my camera yet, I've gone without), and beyond in Jersey.

[streetscaper]

Thanks for the great comments all!

[Hamilton]

^^^ I guess it depends what you count as western Queens. If you include Jackson Heights and are thinking primarily of that, then I agree that eastern Hudson can't hold a candle to that (very few places in the US outside BX/BK/QNS can!). But I guess when I think of western Queens, I think more of LIC+Astoria as being more typical, and Manhattan-level densities are not really more common there than in eastern Hudson. Certainly the densities in Hudson County almost never exceed 110k/sq mi, but even in western Queens (excluding Jackson Heights) this is exceptionally rare. And the 110k threshhold seems a bit arbitrarily chosen-I noticed that if you set the threshhold to 100k, eastern Hudson has more block groups in that category than LIC/Astoria do.



If I had to refine my point, I'd say that Hudson is very heterogeneous, and the east Hudson neighborhoods you highlighted have levels of density and vibrancy that are at or above the average for Brooklyn/western Queens (with the caveat that there are certainly Bk/Qns neighborhoods that are even denser and more vibrant). It's hard to make generalizations about these counties when they're so huge and varied. Maybe that's why city vs city comparisons are frowned upon here?

I think neighborhood-level comparisons are much more informative...West New York is more vibrant than Bay Ridge or Sheepshead Bay or Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn, but much less so than Downtown Brooklyn or Sunset Park.

Anyway, I forgot to say that this is an epic and amazing photo series, thanks for sharing!

There's still so much left to explore in Hudson County (haven't made it to Bayonne with my camera yet, I've gone without), and beyond in Jersey.

I think you really hit almost all of the most interesting neighborhoods.

Bayonne has pretty much just a single corridor of interest (Broadway), plus the industrial waterfront. Probably more efficient to get around on a bike when you're out that far.

Bergen/Lafayette has many pretty row houses, but also many vacant lots, and there are spots you should avoid unless you know your way around (Monticello Ave and anywhere south of Communipaw). The area south of Montgomery, north of Communipaw, and east of Lincoln Park has lots of stately 1920s and 1930s mid-rise apartment buildings as well as graceful Victorian mansions and row houses. The eastern end of Communipaw near Lafayette Park is reasonably safe and has some fine rowhouses too, but again, lots of abandoned properties. This is another trip that's probably ideal for biking rather than walking.

Farther afield in Essex County, there's the Ironbound, which has a lot of cultural interest, but lots of fugly wood-frame/vinyl architecture, and downtown Newark, which has good architectural bones but has a long way to go. So much potential there but so many parking lots and modernist travesties.

[volguus zildrohar]

Straight magic, my friend.

[excel]

Great pictures.

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by Hamilton

Anyway, I forgot to say that this is an amazing photo series, thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by volguus zildrohar

Straight magic, my friend.

Originally Posted by excel

Great pictures.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Hamilton

I wouldn't put anywhere in Bergen on the same level as the Hudson County neighborhoods in streetscraper's photo essay. In Essex, the only place that's comparable since white flight in the 60's is the Ironbound.

Certainly adjacent cities in Bergen County (Fairview, Cliffside Park, Edgewater, parts of Fort Lee and Palisades Park) are largely indistinguishable from Hudson County. Similarly, adjacent cities in Essex County (Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange) are largely indistinguishable.

It isn't Hudson County specifically that's dense/urban. It's older NJ communities proximate to Manhattan that are dense/urban, most of which happen to be in Hudson County, but many of which are in Bergen or Essex.

[Hamilton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Certainly adjacent cities in Bergen County (Fairview, Cliffside Park, Edgewater, parts of Fort Lee and Palisades Park) are largely indistinguishable from Hudson County. Similarly, adjacent cities in Essex County (Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange) are largely indistinguishable.

It isn't Hudson County specifically that's dense/urban. It's older NJ communities proximate to Manhattan that are dense/urban, most of which happen to be in Hudson County, but many of which are in Bergen or Essex.

Have you actually been to Hoboken, West New York, or the brownstone areas of Jersey City--the places shown in streetscraper's photos? If you have, I can't understand how you could say that these areas are largely indistinguishable from the communities you listed in Essex/Bergen Counties. Don't get me wrong, those communities are dense relative to the rest of the US, but they're dense in a much more diffuse way with lower densities spread out more evenly throughout the municipality than eastern Hudson. It's practically impossible to find a two or three contiguous blocks in Essex/Bergen that compares in density to the large strip of Hudson extending from the middle of JC up to Guttenberg. Sure, some municipalities (like Cliffside Park) might have *overall* densities comparable to Jersey City as a whole, but that's an artifact of municipal boundaries--Jersey City includes a lot of uninhabited marshes and abandoned waterfront. While that matters for some things, it doesn't really speak to the character of the built-up, inhabited neighborhoods.

You're right that there's nothing particularly special about Hudson County per se, but there *is* something special about this eastern strip. Its intensity of development is comparable to LIC/Astoria or the southern tier of Brooklyn. On the other hand, western Hudson County, Bayonne, and southern JC are much more similar to the dense urban parts of Essex/Bergen Counties.

Even in terms of built form, there's a big difference between these core areas and urban Essex/Bergen, as you can see in streetscraper's photos. I've traveled extensively throughout Essex/Bergen, and I can count a total of five blocks of brownstones/brick row houses in all of those municipalities combined. Hoboken and Jersey City have hundreds of blocks of row houses and brownstones, plus high-density 5-story 19th-century tenements that you rarely see outside of Manhattan, the Bronx, and northern Brooklyn. Here's Willow St in Hoboken for instance--and this is like a 20 minute walk from the PATH station:




On the density map above, you can see that the only place in Essex/Bergen with a sizable swath of 40,000+ densities is the Ironbound. But again, even in the Ironbound, the built form is totally different. There's only one block of row houses that I know of (Van Bruen St). Downtown Newark has another three rows of row houses on James St and NJIT frat row, but sadly nowadays they are surrounded by acres of surface parking lots.

I spent some of my formative years in Paterson and Passaic, two other dense communities in North Jersey. Technically according to the 2010 Census, they're denser than Jersey City. But in practice, there is nothing in Paterson that compares to the core neighborhoods of Jersey City/Hoboken/WNY in terms of urbanity or built form. I could never confuse a block in JC's Hamilton Park or along River St in Hoboken or Hudson St in WNY with anywhere in Paterson. But I *could* confuse a typical block in the Ironbound or East Orange with a typical Paterson block. They all share the same type of wood-frame, three-story construction with a smattering of 4-story brick apartment buildings that max out around 40-50,000/sq mi.

[Hamilton]

Came across this interesting map showing the frequent transit network within Hudson County. For some reason, it doesn't show the WTC-Newark and Hoboken-WTC PATH lines. It *does* show the Paulus Hook Ferry, which I didn't realize ran that frequently.

Almost all the lines are bus/jitney lines. The most frequent connections are the jitney buses; from Union City, jitneys run every 2 and a half minutes to 42nd street in Manhattan around midday. At rush hour, they run even more frequently.

The only rail lines on the map are the PATH lines (Journal Square-33rd St, Hoboken-33rd St, Hoboken-WTC, and Newark-WTC), plus the light rail lines (Hoboken-Bayonne, Tonnelle Ave-West Side Ave, Tonnelle Ave-Hoboken).



And here's a map of just the jitney network, including the ones to Washington Heights:

[C.]

Love these maps Hamilton, especially that they include Jitney routes!!

I'm surprised at the frequency of the Bergenline-Journal Square route.

[the urban politician]

Are these pics all taken in Jersey? I almost felt like there was some Manhattan and Jackson Heights in there.

Damn, great thread.

[photoLith]

Holy shit dude, I don't say this often; these images are freaking fantastic. Damn

[streetscaper]

Great maps Hamilton. The jitneys are really great. Even at midday the frequencies are very, very high as has been my experience.

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Are these pics all taken in Jersey? I almost felt like there was some Manhattan and Jackson Heights in there.

Damn, great thread.

Thanks! Just 1 or 2 were taken from Manhattan looking at the Jersey City skyline .. but yeah, Hudson County is pretty freakin' awesome and hardly known even for urban aficionados like ourselves.

Originally Posted by photoLith

Holy shit dude, I don't say this often; these images are freaking fantastic. Damn

Thanks

[10023]

It really should be part of NYC. Stupid, useless, meaningless "states".

Originally Posted by destroycreate

Wow! I am so impressed, this area looks amazing. Why don't more people want to live there?

Lots do, but it's a bit more difficult to get to. There are only two river crossings, the Holland Tunnel and the Lincoln Tunnel. If you work in Manhattan you'd probably much rather live in Brooklyn or Queens, but Hoboken and Jersey City are more desirable than Staten Island.

[MonkeyRonin]

Just gotta bump this up cause it was that good...

[dc_denizen]

how did I miss this...

New Jersey City!