It would be helpful if Jersey City looked at what other cities have done to facilitate tourist movement around the city, such as the signs that Philadelphia uses to mark self-tours, brochures that you could pick up in the beautiful City Hall (or your hotel lobby) outlining the routes of self-tours, and shuttle buses that might drive you around the city on tour routes. These services would pay for themselves in increased business for area businesses and in increased appreciation of the city by hotel users who are too timid to venture out in an unknown smaller city. If we are going to compete with NYC for tourist dollars, it’s got to be easy, fast and cheap to get around.
WILLIAM CREAMER
The “Jersey City Construction Boom” is, in my opinion, useless. It serves only to line the pockets of builders and developers (including some politicians). Many thousands of new high-rise housing units have only increased congestion, made greater demands on public schools, city personnel and services, and taken away large amounts of open space. All this while the average homeowner’s taxes continue to rise!
These new homes receive an overly generous tax abatement that is unnecessary to begin with, since there is more than enough profit involved for the developers to continue their construction and sale.
The bottom line: our property taxes continue to rise despite all this expansion. I have been in Jersey City 60 years now but realize that I should have gotten out long ago, perhaps to some quiet Bergen County town where the property taxes are approximately the same but one can enjoy much more open space and cleaner air. I might still do that.
ARMAND LUCCHESI
Thank you for your wonderful article on Jersey City’s open-mic scene. Since 2001, Art House Productions has had the honor of welcoming a diverse array of poets, musicians, performance artists, comics and actors to our stage. We’ve had Def Poetry Jam poets, Pushcart Prize winners, National Slam Team competitors and internationally recognized musicians. We’ve had wrestler-poets in spandex, angry comics reading the labels off of snack foods, covers of Madonna songs on the ukulele, music-paint-word-dance jam sessions and more.
But the true beauty of our series – and the true beauty of all the amazing open-mic events happening in our city – is that first-time readers get to share the stage with such incredible guest performers. The result is a surprising mix of styles, ages, disciplines, influences and deliveries and, if one comes often enough, the chance to witness the artistic process unfold in front of your eyes. These emerging performers blossom on our stages as they connect, collaborate, question and shape their voices. It’s beautiful. It’s humbling. It’s better than TV.
Art House Productions is thrilled to be able to continue creating these kinds of programs in our new space, made possible by Exeter Properties, to whom we are truly grateful for their support of the arts in Jersey City.
So please come check us out at 1 McWilliams Place, Roof, on the southeast corner of Hamilton Park, near Erie and Eighth streets, where we will reside for the next year. Until then…
Keep on creating.
CHRISTINE GOODMAN
Founder/Artistic Director, Art House Productions
Let us know what you think: jcmag@hudsonreporter.com.