I was able to keep my balance and didn’t fall to the ground but it was pretty close. It was the only time I can remember being so angry with the poor upkeep of the property that, had I gotten hurt, I would have sued the condo association in charge of the walkway.

Recent court rulings have said that a property owner doesn’t have to shovel their sidewalk in the winter. I wonder if someone could make the case that fixing sidewalks if in disrepair isn’t required either.

I suppose owners could also just spray paint the word “Caution” and outline the elevated concrete like the city did near their entrance between 1st and Washington St. :-/

But it seems to me that there are quite a few sidewalks that need repair and I wonder if I really do need to fall and get hurt to convince someone that their property is risky. I’m going to take a picture of where I tripped on my way home tonight and update this post with the offending sidewalk.

If I remember correctly, I took this from the roof of my building using a ridiculously long lens I rented for a vacation last year. I think it was a 500mm or 600mm lens to capture wildlife but took some urban jungle test shots to try it out.

Anyway, I’ve added this picture to the rotating images that are randomly chosen when the blog loads. I’m thinking of adding user submitted pictures of Hoboken; if you’re interested in letting me have your images of Hoboken rotate on the blog, let me know. Of course, every image that I add will receive its own post with proper credit and any images used will also get a visible watermark denoting who’s image it is.

So I woke up this morning to a tweet from a band called The Scarlet Ending. They’re playing at Maxwell’s tonight at 8pm. I don’t have any affiliation with them whatsoever but since they’re in an active tour of the NYC area right now – and they sent that tweet – I’d thought I’d help them out. I’d embed images or videos of their band but they didn’t make it possible (from what I can tell). UPDATE: They sent me a link to a great picture of the band. Thanks!

I like their sound although I can’t seem to figure out how to describe it. From my untrained ears, they sound a little country/folksy, a little dark, a little jazzy. a little angst filled, and a little sad. The lead singer’s voice is amazing, really. She sounds like Tori Amos & Evanescence’s lead singer Amy Lee. In fact, if you crossed the two, you might be able to describe the entire sound of the band. Again, I’m not a music expert so I recommend you listen to them yourself.

They seem to be a very mature group, though, and I hope it translates into some wider success for them. If you have time tonight, go check them out. And while you’re at it, check out the other shows at Maxwell’s – its one of my most favorite restaurants in all of Hoboken and New York City.

For older Hobokenites, this might not be necessary. But those who belong to the “new Hoboken” and want to get in touch with the “old” just might want to give talking like Sinatra a try. And while New York and Las Vegas gave him fame, fortune, and “chicks”, our town can lay claim to his birth place. The building he was born and raised in burned down some years ago, Sinatra’s legacy (IMHO) won’t be going away ever.

Talk like Frank Sinatra – The Art of Manliness [via Boing Boing]

Princeton University just announced it completed a digitization project with old New Jersey Maps. I’m not much of a cartographer but I do like looking at historical maps and photos – I like imagining what it was like 50, 70, 100 years ago. Because New York City has all the cool museums, I’ve only seen old maps of famous neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and the Financial District. But with Princeton’s project compete, it gave me the opportunity to look at what Hoboken was like over 100 years ago.

I haven’t even gone through all the maps yet but there’s some cool stuff there. It’s pretty well organized, too. You can select by county and then by city. The years they have for each city does vary so, in some towns, you’ll be able to see how things changed and progressed over the years whereas you can’t for some like Hoboken.

If you want to access the maps, click on the link below.

The Historic Maps Collection – via Princeton University

Becuse I normally stay away, I never noticed the number of families that walk their children around town on this day. They even dress then up in green shirts. I can’t, for the life of me, see why anyone would expose their child to the drunken antics that go on. But I suppose there is something to be said for teaching them what not to do.

What do you do during this day? Would you leave town (like I normally do)? Do you join the crowds? Go into New York?

Did anyone tweet any interesting pics? I’d love to see if the “no tolerance” policy the city enacted did anything to stop the mayhem. Leave links in the comments.

I had no idea the city charged so much for a hack license; it seems a bit much if you ask me. I thought NYC’s rate was high. At last glance, I thought it was over $400k. But, let’s face it, NYC cabbies can make a lot more on one fare than one from Hoboken. At $5 in town, a Hoboken cab driver can even afford the coffee they drink. Granted, the weekly costs for a hack from New York are greater but, still.

But I wonder how many of these licenses the city is printing. It’s probably how they fund some of their operations. Given the rate is fixed, I wonder how high it can go with a $5 fare. And if they raise the per ride fee, will the costs of a license go up? And does anyone know if that cost is per year or a one time fee? Can they be bought and sold on te open market?

I know the city needs all the money it can get but at $5 a ride, a cabbie would need to take 140 people to their destination just to cover the cost of the car (if my math is right). When you figure in the cost of gas, insurance (if they require it), and other items, it could be 200 fares or more needed to break even. Is that even possible to do in a week? I know tips and fares outside the city are more but is that the only profit these guys get? I guess if there wasn’t any way to make money, they wouldn’t do it.

I love my $5 ride but I feel bad for them.

Obviously, the worst of it is were there is major construction going on – lots of development (sigh, another sore spot) in the north west section of town. I can understand and even forgive the bad conditions around there because there is much to be completed. Although, I wonder if they are ever going to finish given the sad real estate market right now. But still, I can accept the fact that construction equipment damages vehicular infrastructures and can wait for construction to finish before taking things too seriously.

But in other sections of town, there is no excuse – especially on Washington Street!. By Sky Club, if your car doesn’t have a lift suspension or can’t take a 45 degree incline like a Jeep or Hummer, you scrape the bottom of your car as you drive around it. There’s a guy/girl who owns a Ferrari in the Sky Club Garage… I don’t even know how he can get his car in the garage let alone drive around in Hoboken with it. Washington Street, while busy, is never flat. Sure, its hard to perform maintenance on it but, come on!!! It’s like driving off-road!!

I can’t wait until the city repaves everything. Until it does, I’m parking my car somewhere else. Maybe that’s the mayor’s answer to the parking problem – make the roads so piss poor that you wreck all the cars that park on the streets forcing owners to live park somewhere else.

Today’s rant is brought to you by the makers of Hoboken411. Hoboken411 is one of – if not THE premiere website for all things Hoboken. Although I haven’t met the person(s) who run the site, I get the sense that he really cares about the community – or at least enough to make a living off of it by promoting the things that go on in it or are important to it. I normally scan the articles for anything major and stay away from the comments. But that’s changed recently and I’m actually sad to report that not all Hobokenites are who I thought they were. Many (but not all) of the commenters I find on 411 are, in my opinion, not the nicest of people – some, I feel, are downright racist and bigoted.

In the article on the new NJ Transit Bridge, someone called the Newport Center Mall area Hinduport – an obvious and (I’d say) derogatory reference to the Americans of Indian decent that live there. Forgetting the fact that ethnicity had nothing to do with the conversation at all, I found this to be done in more than just bad taste. Other people made references to the people who shopped at the Mall believing they bred homelessness which would spill into our “gentrified” town. I distinctly remember seeing a comment on how this new bridge would let people from Jersey City come to Hoboken and “rob us” more easily. And while cooler heads called many of these classless people out for their appalling comments, very few did. Even more troubling is how rudely people are treated in other conversations.

In the Russo endorses Obama article, the conversation easily led to hate speak posted in the comments; it became a race to see who was the first to say something politically incorrect. And when Hoboken was in the middle of its own election fiasco, all the wild, wild, wests came out and said some heated words that were rude (at best) and derogatory, disparaging, and (perhaps) defamatory (at worst). It was clear that the commentors were engaged in an all out war.

Regardless of one political officiation, it doesn’t take much to be polite to someone who you disagree with; its called respect for one’s opinions. And for as “monied” as Hoboken can be – with its 500k to 3m condos and luxury cars everywhere – there isn’t a lot of class in this town. There is just no reason why someone has to belittle an ethnicity or bigoted in any way in a an urban environment such as this. If you don’t like your neighbors’ heritage, I’d say you’re better off moving the segregated south of 40 years ago.

That kind of hate speak is something I don’t want in Hoboken and I hope that the comments left by a few classless individuals is not indicative of the population. But there is a reason the saying “One bad apple spoils the bunch” exists…

It’s true.

As you can see, the car is parked illegally. The spot is clearly marked with yellow paint denoting the space as one that is not for cars. I even think there were signs up saying ‘No Parking’ right next to where the car was placed. They obviously knew they weren’t supposed to park there because they had their hazard lights on blinking as if to say, “Its OK that I’m parking here, I’ll only be a few minutes.” You’ll notice that they are from out of state – Massachusetts (so you know they are a bad driver, too) – but had a parking permit on their dashboard; I’m sure that blocking emergency vehicles from responding to an alarm was not allowed when they paid the $5.

It says something, though, about our town where the parking is SO BAD that, to find a spot, you have to block intersections and prevent firefighters from saving lives. It also says something about our enforcement (or lack thereof) when people know they can get away with park illegally.I don’t know if there was a big fire that minute. But if there were, I know that the truck got their late because this arrogant jerk blocked the turning radius. Someone could have died because of a poor response time or the fire could have spread to adjacent buildings all because the rescue personnel couldn’t get there on time.It’s about time the city of Hoboken crack down on these illegal parkers. Fine them, ticket them, tow them. Do whatever it takes to get these cars off our streets so that people can live safer. And forget about the damage that could have been cause if the two vehicles hit! The guy is lucky his Pathfinder is in one piece. Other cars, haven’t been so lucky.