Excuse the recent hiatus, there have been a few things going on, between a side project, computer issues and fighting crime. It’s officially summer too, so it’s been a little slow, but there should be some new posts this week — stay tuned.
For some photos, you’ll see work progressing on Riverview Manor, the 13-unit townhomes on Lennington Street (above). The project broke ground about 14 months ago and here’s what it looked like about four months ago.
In other news, the plot on Central Avenue across from Berzenic Park will not be a petting zoo or pony rides (a good guess from readers though!), but a community garden. You can find some details in this press release from the city or this report last week.
Also, Rahway gets mentioned in this New York Times piece about the “roadblocks” faced by New Jersey’s 20 Transit Villages, and the fact that some projects have stalled as a result of bank financing drying up (i.e., The Savoy).
Despite the worldwide slowdown, I still think Rahway is a great value with terrific upside compared to nearby towns. Hang in there Spanktown!!
I had friends come to town to look around to move out of Manhattan. Sky View, they left- completely shotty workmanship. Park Square, looked at plans and saw rents listed and chuckled at the surrounding supporting businesses to warrant such a move. The townhouses across the river, his wife said she wouldn't walk home from the train in the dark, it was ''creepy''. Funny, I've been here 20 years and have heard the exact same complaints: no support system for ''city life'', over charged rents, safety issues. What exactly is the RCP for anymore? A few events per year? For how much in tax dollars to property owners? I had nothing to say to them except, I've been safe, although I knew what she meant. The towns lighting is still an issue, there's no supermarket, and the craftsmanship at SkyView is laughable. Spanktown indeed. The ''new Hoboken'', hardly; Hoboken has 24/7 access to Manhattan, Rahway: last train outta the city to come home is 132..yeah, there's incentive.
Who said Rahway is Hoboken? Hoboken is more like Manhattan and I wouldn't consider any town in NJ to be like Manhattan. The fact that people are even looking at Rahway as an option to live is great. This place was a serious graveyard 5 years ago and anyone not seeing the positive things that have happened here is naive. We even have this great blog devoted to the town now!! Not sure why you would even compare the trains given hoboken is across the river from the city and Rahway is like 30 miles away! I hope you are not a real doctor because that ranting of a posting makes me question your intelligence.
Anonymous,For the past few years local Realtors used the "Rahway is the next Hoboken" idea to entice buyers and bid up prices to insane levels. Scaring buyers into thinking they'll miss out on a great boom if they don't pay asking plus ten grand is a great way to get them to the closing table and build up comps for the next sale. It worked for a few years. To be fair, you can take out "Rahway" and substitute any one of several NJ towns in possession of a train station and a couple of alkie bars that fancied themselves the next downtown rebirth success story. For a while I almost drank the kool-aid, but when I started to think that I was priced out of Rahway I had an ephiphany: if I'm using the phrase "priced out of Rahway" something is not right with the world. Regarding the trains Silicon Group and other developers pitched Rahway as minutes from Manhattan which I guess is true since it's about 55 to 60 of them on a good day, including your wait at Mr. G's but not including your subway ride to your office. Dr. J was just telling like it is.
Realtors are just try to earn a living and use some hype for their sales pitch by saying its the next Hoboken. Just like most sales people use hype to sell things like cars, ect. If someone bought thinking this was Hoboken then the buyer is an idiot. But trashing the town based on that idea is wrong giving all the progress the town has made and I'd like to believe that most people bought because of the latter reasoning and are satisified. If someone truly bought in because they thought it would be Hoboken then please get in touch with me cause I have a bridge to sell you.Same goes for the train times. Are they streching times a bit for sales, yeah def. But anyone can look up the train schedules so I don't think there is much deception there. And while the morning trains suck and do take up to an hour sometimes, I find that evening trains generally run much better with average times around 35mins if you catch the right trains, which is pretty nice.So is this town perfect? Far from it. Is it Hoboken? Far from it. Is it dramatically better than 5 yrs. ago? Absolutley Will it be dramatically better 5 years from today? Absolutley. Will it be Hoboken in 5 yrs? Far from it.
Anon – I don't think anyone expected Rahway to become the place to be for frat boys and sorority chicks three semesters after getting BAs from Penn State. But Hoboken-like appreciation was being pitched left and right to would-be buyers. I looked at an apartment in the Campbell Street building (converted school) listed for $259k in early 07 where the selling agent tried to get me to think it would be worth $350k in a 3-4 years because of all the NYC money coming in. I eventually bought somewhere else but who knows how many people fell for the hype of the next Hoboken. Is the city dramatically better than it was 5 years ago? Slightly better, yes, dramatically better, I think not. Will it be dramatically better when Obama starts his second term? Again, slightly better, probably, but dramatically better, not likely now that the housing bubble has burst. "Rahway: Not As Bad as It Used to Be" isn't the ideal marketing phrase to use but that's the reality.
To really be honest Rahway is a good town just like any other up and coming town there are going to be some ups and down. I actually love this town I have lived here for four years and i'm raising 4 kids age 10,8,6,4.There is plenty for my kids to do an great deal of parks a up to date rec center community pool in Rahway park also ymca state of the art library. I walk home from the train station every night on the last west bound train from NYC which arrives at 2:20a i walk home safely and if the weather is bad a $4 cab ride home . Yes there are things that need improving the list can go on for years but let the town take it's time and get it right. Look at downtown Linden it's a hot mess from rushing to fill spaces with stores people don't need or are interested in! Let's support the town not knockit down with bad comments! Please