Two Percent Nation

NY Times on Edgewater Square project

Last Wednesday, the New York Times published an article about the Edgewater Square development project in the New Jersey town where I currently live ("Shops Claim a Once-Gritty Waterfront"). The article discusses the other major retail shopping centers in Edgewater so I thought it would be useful to create a map indicating where these centers are in town and in relation to each other.

The article focuses on the positive aspects of the growth of Edgewater in the last 10 years and how it has created a market for new and upscale retail shopping areas.  An entirely separate article could be written about the explosion in residential development that has been seen over that time with even greater intensity in the last 5 years. Numerous condominiums were still being completed as the bottom of the real estate market fell out. It will be interesting to see how once these are completed if there will be empty units. If so this could put further downward pressure on the local housing market.

The main downside of both the retail and residential surge is traffic. Edgewater has just one thoroughfare, River Road, along which all condos and shopping centers lie. On Saturdays the traffic is already painful. There's little that can be done to alleviate this as Edgewater and River Rd are bound tightly by the Palisade cliffs and the Hudson River. I shudder to think what the Edgewater Square will do to worsen traffic.

Though it clearly focused only on the positive, I was glad to see such a nice piece about where I live in the Times. Not all my neighbors agree, as you can read in the local online message board, 07020.com. It has this thread about the article, where there is some frustration about the exclusion of the "costs of development" in the article.

Is OpenTable working on its own review database?

Last Saturday night, my wife and I had the (increasingly rare) opportunity to go out for a nice dinner and we stayed fairly local choosing Frank's Waterside in North Bergen, NJ.  Having made this and many other dinner reservations through OpenTable, I was surprised to get an email from them two days later entitled, "How was Frank's Waterside?".  I'd never received a follow-up email like this and when I clicked on the link in the email I was taken to this "feedback form":

The stated purpose of the form is to "create Top 10 Lists for the OpenTable website and to provide feedback to restaurants." I find this to be a very interesting move on OpenTable's part and I have to wonder if they have grander ambitions than they let on.  OpenTable is in an incredibly unique and desirable position when it comes to restaurant reviews: they actually know where and when you ate.

Currently OpenTable links out to its partner websites (e.g. Zagat, Citysearch, Time Out) for reviews for its restaurants. I could see OpenTable replacing these review links or giving priority to its own reviews once they have critical mass. It seems like they're in the early stages of this program - I only found one other blogger who mentioned getting a similar email and it was also in the last few weeks.

Update (4/14/08): This post is an edited version of the original published on April 4, 2008.

Thoughts on the New Jersey Presidential Primary

The New Jersey Presidential primary election is just two days a way and I still have not decided which Democratic candidate I will vote for.  I've come across some interesting media in the last few days about the Obama vs. Clinton decision that I wanted to share.

The first is "The Test", a phenomenal article by John Heilemann and the cover story in the latest issue of New York Magazine. The piece does a great job of profiling the two candidates and boiling down the decision that Democrats are faced with to its essence:

If you find yourself drawn to the Clinton candidacy, you likely believe that politics is politics, that partisanship isn’t transmutable, that Republicans are for the most part irredeemable. You suspect that talk of transcendence amounts to humming “Kumbaya” past the graveyard. You believe that progress comes only with a fight, and that Clinton is better equipped than Obama (or maybe anyone) to succeed in the poisonous, fractious environment that Washington is now and ever shall be. You ponder the image of Bill as First Laddie and find yourself smiling, not sighing or shrieking.

If you find yourself swept up in Obamamania, on the other hand, you regard this assessment as sad, defeatist, as a kind of capitulation. You’re perfectly aware that politics is often a dirty business. But you believe it could be a bit cleaner, a bit nobler, a bit more sustaining. You think that paradigm shifts can happen, that the system can be rebooted. Most of all, an attraction to Obama indicates you are, on some level, a romantic. You never had your JFK, your MLK, and you desperately crave one: What you want is to fall in love.

A vote for Clinton, in other words, is a wager rooted in hard-eyed realism. Her upside may be limited, but so is her downside, because although the ceiling on her putative presidency might be low, the floor beneath it is fairly high. A vote for Obama, as the Big Dog said, is indeed a role of the dice. The risks of his hypothetical presidency are higher, but the potential payoff is greater: He could be the next Jack Kennedy—or the next Jimmy Carter. The gamble here entails both the thrill and the terror of letting yourself dream again.

The other piece is a video interview with an average New Yorker who was planning on voting for John Edwards but is now left deciding between Obama and Clinton: Undecided in New York

I still haven't come to a final decision, but I now may be leaning in one direction.

I also wanted to share that I recently found out that independent or unaffiliated voters can vote in the Presidential primary election in New Jersey by declaring a party affiliation at the polling place (this is not the case in New York). So if you're one of those people there's no excuse not to vote on Tuesday.

NY Waterway raising fares by 25%

NY Waterway, a company that provides ferry shuttles from Northern New Jersey coastal towns to Manhattan, has announced a fare increase of 25% for the Edgewater ferry. Citing rising fuel costs the fare increase will go into effect January 1, 2008 raising one-way tickets from $8 to $10. Other ferry routes will see similar increases. Commuting by NY Waterway is already significantly more expensive than commuting by NJ Transit bus, which serves nearly all the same towns. This increase will make taking the ferry even more of a luxury.

Vote today

It's the first Tuesday in November so it's time to get out and vote. I did my part in Edgewater/Bergen County NJ. Local elections are often overlooked by those who vote in federal elections but are vitally important. Hopefully the rain in the Northeast won't keep people away from the polls.

Edgewater Trader Joe's opens; Hollywood Video closes

The specialty food store Trader Joe's finally opened its Edgewater NJ location on Friday (11/2). When I was there the store seemed fairly busy for a Saturday evening though I imagine it will get busier as word of its opening gets around. I'd never been to a Trader Joe's and now tha I have I can't say I get the cult following, though we did pick up a few interesting items.


In other Edgewater retail news, the local Hollywood Video outlet closed its doors last month. My theory is that this was partially caused by the DVDExpress machine I previously blogged about, as well as the general obviation of physical video stores by digital options. Amazingly, though, this leaves Edgewater without a video rental store.

Edgewater Trader Joe's: opening early November

The highly anticipated arrival of Trade Joe's in Edgewater, NJ is almost here. The addition of the store to the Binghamtons shopping center on River Rd has brought about a much-needed revovation for the entire complex. Typically I take my son for a walk down the Hudson Riverfront Walkway every week and lately we'll head in that direction and peek into the Trader Joe's storefront construction to see how it's going. Yesterday I saw this sign in the window announcing an early November opening and the accepting of applications for employment.

Hudson Restaurant Week: July 23 - August 3, 2007

Hudson Restaurant Week is back this year and partially overlaps with NYC's summer Restaurant Week. HRW offers special dining deals at select restaurants in Hoboken, Jersey City and Union City.  Over at ZAGAT.com we're making the Zagat ratings and reviews available for free for participating restaurants that are Zagat-rated. Enjoy.

www.zagat.com/restaurantweek

www.hudsonrestaurantweek.com

Goodbye Hollywood Video, Hello DVDXpress

In my house we've been making fewer and fewer trips to the video store ever since video on-demand became available. Time Warner Cable's VOD works very well and the cost is the same as a video store rental minus the hassle of getting off your couch. But VOD's main shortcoming is its selection of new releases. VOD has to wait until the video stores have the first crack at the latest releases.
Enter the DVD vending machine. Fast, cheap and convenient with no membership required. I had tried one of these from Moviebank which was housed in the Duane Reade at 58th & 8th Ave. It required a membersip card and a PIN that I could never remember and the user interface of the machine was pretty terrible. There's still an unmanned Moviebank cubicle/store on 9th Ave in Hell's Kitchen but no longer in that Duane Reade.
After passing it a dozen times I finally decided to try the new DVDXpress machine at our local Pathmark in Edgewater NJ. What a pleasure! Browsing the available titles was a breeze (plenty of new releases in stock). Purchasing required just one swipe of a credit card. First I rented the Adam Sandler movie Click which was just $1.49 for 24 hours. I was able to easily type in my email address on screen and have a receipt emailed to me. When I got home - no scratches on the CD, what a treat! Last neat trick was when I came back to rent again and swiped the same card it remembered me and my email address.
We'll still probably turn first to VOD for future rentals but if there's nothing good available I doubt we'll be heading to Hollywood Video any time soon.
For locations near you check: http://www.mydvdxpress.net/

FreshDirect comes to New Jersey

On Saturday I went to Bagels N More, our favorite bagel place in Edgewater, to pick up some bagels and I noticed a flyer for FreshDirect on their counter.  It seems that Fresh Direct has expanded to New Jersey and is covering the "Gold Coast" towns of Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg and Edgewater.  Makes sense given these towns proximity to NYC - they're fairly close to FreshDirect's Queens headquarters and many residents work in NYC so are probably familiar with the service.  Kind of odd, though, that the bagel place would help promote Fresh Direct since they're sort of a competitor.

Then yesterday on my way home I saw a FreshDirect truck across from our apartment - looks like some neighbors are already trying it out.  The free $50 introductory offer ($25 off the first two orders) is pretty enticing and we'll likely give it a whirl.  Plus friends of ours who still live in Manhattan (we moved out before FreshDirect took off) say it's great.  Hopefully delivering into our gated community won't be an issue.