Hudson City - what if Hudson Co, NJ were a city?

[Hamilton]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Have you walked around Van Vorst Park, Hamilton Park and Paulus Hook in Jersey City? Sure, those neighborhoods aren't connected to each other physically, but they all have very substantial, contiguous, pre-war brownstone construction.

The gaps between these neighborhoods are being filled with more high-density/high rise development, not unlike many prime areas of Brooklyn.

I would add that the gap between Hamilton Park and Van Vorst Park is just two short blocks (the Newark Ave/Columbus Ave commercial corridors), while Paulus Hook is separated by three blocks at most. Hoboken is a pretty solid square mile of brownstones with no gaps. Neither is as large a swath of brownstones as the Park Slope+Prospect Heights+Crown Heights agglomeration, but Crawford's comparison to Queens or the Bronx is ridiculous.

There's nowhere in Queens or the Bronx with 40- or 50-block swaths of 19th-Century brownstones like Jersey City and Hoboken. The Bronx was still farm fields when the brownstones in Van Vorst Park went up in the 1850s. The Bronx's brownstones are limited to a seven-block historic district in Longwood and another seven blocks in Mott Haven. In Queens there is one block in LIC (Hunters Point Historic District) and maybe 5 or 6 blocks in Astoria (Steinway Historic District) that were built as 1880s and 1890s brownstones. The typical Queens and Bronx row house was built in the 1900-1930 range, when row houses started to be built for the middle class.

Hoboken is nice but it doesn't compare to Jersey City in it's brownstone stock.

I would say that Hoboken has houses just as grand as downtown Jersey City's, and has a larger contiguous swath of brownstones than downtown Jersey City. Hudson St in Hoboken, for example:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7484...7i16384!8i8192

[Hamilton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

It's subjective, to be sure, but I think there are clear differences. Park Slope was built to be the wealthiest neighborhood in the country, and is full of the most prominent residential architects of the day, like Rosario Candela and Montrose Morris, all surrounding one of the most iconic parks on earth.

This might be true about the later multifamily buildings, but not true about the brownstones. The brownstones in Hoboken and Brooklyn's brownstone belt were built around the same time, with identical floor plans, targeted at similarly wealthy residents. Even looking at the interiors, you see identical staircases, newel posts, crown mouldings, pocket doors, parlor coves, mantels, etc. The development histories of Hoboken/downtown JC and Brooklyn were in lockstep throughout much of the 19th Century. The first development boom in both was set off with the introduction of the Fulton/Stevens steam ferry in the 1820s (Hoboken actually got regularly scheduled service before Brooklyn Heights). PATH opened a month after the first subway tubes to Brooklyn in 1908.

The block you linked to in Park Slope is not a typical Park Slope or brownstone Brooklyn block. The area near Prospect Park West and Grand Army Plaza is exceptional even compared to most of brownstone Brooklyn. Here's what a typical southern Park Slope block looks like: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6651...7i16384!8i8192. Downtown Jersey City and Hoboken's architecture is more in line with southern/western Park Slope, or Boerum Hill or Cobble Hill.

By the way, I used to live near Prospect Park, and while I enjoyed it, but calling it "iconic" is a bit much. Hell, most people who live outside NYC have never heard of it, how can it be iconic? Anyway, I always considered Sunset Park to be the best park in Brooklyn because of its town square feel and scenic view, even though it's smaller.

As far as commute goes, I've lived off the R line and the PATH and it's no contest which is a more reliable and faster commute experience. PATH is quicker, runs more frequently at rush hour (every 4 minutes as opposed to every 6 minutes for the R), cleaner, and cheaper. The only downside is the late night headways, which are horrible (35 minutes vs 20 minutes), and having to swipe again to transfer to the MTA lines.

As far as price is concerned, crappy frame houses with 1-hour commutes into the city in far-out Brooklyn neighborhoods like Flatbush and Kensington sell for the same prices as houses in downtown Jersey City, so there's definitely a Jersey discount related to snobbery. I always laugh when Brownstoner features some pretentious "standalone Edwardian house" in Brooklyn for $1.5 million that's indistinguishable from a shitty detached 1910's frame house in Journal Square or Union City that sells for $400k.

https://www.brownstoner.com/real-est...-mantels-deck/

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Hamilton

This might be true about the later multifamily buildings, but not true about the brownstones. The brownstones in Hoboken and Brooklyn's brownstone belt were built around the same time, with identical floor plans, targeted at similarly wealthy residents.

LOL, no. There are no blocks in Hoboken analogous to the top blocks in Park Slope. Not even one.

Again, Park Slope was the wealthiest neighborhood in the U.S. for a short time. Hoboken was always a working class town with some nicer blocks for merchants. There are no gigantic mansions built for the country's wealthiest families.

And the rest of your post is just silly. Yes, I didn't show a "typical block in Brooklyn". I never claimed that the entire borough was built for the billionaires of the time, obviously. And this is even true for Park Slope (it's more than twice the population of Hoboken).