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Hoboken Real Estate
Not sure if I would buy a place in Hoboken again, given I don’t think I can afford a decent sized placed with parking included. But Hoboken411 has an update on the market. This seems consistent with what I have seen, tons of places for sale. It is encouraging though for buyers hoping for some price softening.
Rutgers Football
I’m still in shock that Rutgers beat Louisville 28-25 last night to be 9-0. It will be interesting to see how the last three games end up. But at least I can be happy with Rutgers, given that my undergrad Colorado Buffalo’s are 1-9 so far.
But espn did have some nice details of Rutgers (and reminds me of CU of years before and after my time there).
Between then and now, history had essentially ceased when it came to Rutgers football. The Scarlet Knights have played in two bowl games and were largely considered one of the worst teams in the country. For longer than anyone in the New York metropolitan area can remember, Rutgers set the standard for football futility, going 0-11 in 1997, 1-10 in 1999 and 1-11 as recently as 2002.
I also find it interesting that Rutgers had the first college football game played, which Hoboken had the first professional baseball game. Lots of sports history in these parts.
Trulia Real Estate
I have been a big fan of Zillow since a grad school friend mentioned it to me, and liked their Zestimate™ feature and summarizing of purchases. But for the past few weeks I have been using Trulia to follow the housing deflation around the NYC area. They just added some nice features:
- As you can see in the image above, they added heatmaps showing popular hoods.
- They also added Neighborhood + City Guides that highlight the popularity, number of listings, as well as the asking prices of the area.
- Recently Sold Homes have been added to the maps.
So I was a bit surprised to see parts of Denver as more overpriced and hot than parts of Jersey, I was thinking it had cooled more back home, but it doesn’t look like that yet.
You can check out a video demo of the new features or the Truliablog.
Hoboken Sushi – Uptown Sushi House & Teak
Looks like more sushi is coming to Hoboken. Teak looks to open later this month, and is looking very Manhattan loungy (check out more photos at Hoboken411). My favorite place, Sushi House, is opening an uptown location where the Jefferson used to be. I’m hoping they have a Best Customer event when they open.
Teak Hoboken
16 Hudson Place
Hoboken, NJ 07030
Sushi House Hoboken Uptown
1319 Washington St
Hoboken, NJ 07030
Midtown Robotic Parking Garage
Hoboken makes the news again, this time for the high-tech Midtown Parking Garage on Garden.
Wired of course had a nice title, Giant Robot Imprisons Parked Cars:
In the days that followed, both sides dragged each other into court. Robotic accused Hoboken of violating its copyright. “This case is about them using software without a license,” said Dennis Clarke, chief operating officer of Robotic Parking, in a telephone interview last week.
I had read about the contract ending for the current vendor, who owns the software, and that the garage might close down. Makes me think of cutting edge baggage system at DIA in Denver that was scapped. But Hoboken has settled with them to keep the garage open.
[Update Aug-14]
Listen to the Cnet Buzz Out Loud Podcast on the “robot-human war”.
Hoboken Looking to Run St Mary’s Hospital
As an update to my last Saint Mary’s Hospital in Hoboken post, it looks like the City of Hoboken is looking to buy the hospital from Bon Secours. According to the Hoboken Reporter, the NJ state legislature is looking to pass a bill that will allow the city to create a Hospital Authority, similar to the Hoboken Parking Authority, with its own budget and spending, otherwise the city would not be able to increase its spending to afford the hospital.
Hoboken Mayor Roberts said the hospital made a profit of $175,000 last month (June, 2006), and is being run by a turn-around expert Harvey A. Holzberg. This is in comparison of the previous financial losses of the hospital.
… lost $23.7 million in 2002, $10.8 million in 2003 and posted an operating loss of $18.6 million in 2004 …
… Bon Secours reported its first loss in 10 years-$20.4 million on $2.25 billion in revenue-largely because of its split from Christ Hospital, Jersey City…
And of course this all ties back to the three-hospital drama in Hoboken and Jersey City:
The original plan for St. Francis was to turn into a nursing home, but those plans were scrapped when the partnership between Bon Secours and Canterbury Health, the company that owns Christ Hospital in Jersey City, dissolved on Dec. 31.
The reason for the breakup was, according to Canterbury, that Bon Secours did not disclose the fiscal health of St. Francis and St. Mary.
The same Northwestern article quoted above also talks about other Bon Secours financial problems:
In early 2004, Bon Secours said it would restate two years of profits after discovering an executive manipulated seven years’ worth of operating income, assets and liabilities at a handful of Michigan operations, including Cottage Health Services.
Unraveling the scheme wiped $64.9 million in improperly or nonexistent assets from the system’s books.
So I honestly don’t trust the losses attributed to St. Mary’s till I see some specific financial statements, but I also can’t trust what a politician says about profits.
Hoboken Parking Permits
When I moved back to Hoboken a few months ago, I had to go through the hassle of getting an updated permit. It was actually much easier than I thought, and took all of 15 minutes at the Hoboken Parking Utility in the City Hall basement, who even have late hours. I only needed to update my insurance and drivers license to my Hoboken address.
But instead of the usual sticker for the back window that changes every year, there is a single sticker for the front window that stays with the car, and no need to change every year. It has a bar code and I was interested as to how the Enforcement cops would scan each car to see if they had paid up? It didn’t seem that efficient.
And now it makes sense, it seems the stickers have passive UHF [ultra high frequency] RFID chips in the sticker to track and monitor cars in the Mile Square city. eWeek has an article on Hoboken’s RFID parking permits.
A parking enforcement officer equipped with a RFID-enabled laptop can point at an RFID parking sticker and get a read out on a host of information: the owner’s name, address, registration number, phone number and permit specifications, as well as the location of the car and whether it’s supposed to be where it is.
“Absolutely every car that walks in we know where they go, where they’ve been—you have a full history across the board,” said [John Corea, director of parking for the city of Hoboken].
“There’s a lot of advantages. We never knew who our customers were, now you know. In a minute, you have everything—driving history, everything.”
So I like the aspect of easy renewal and taking advantage of technology. I am skeptical of the local government abusing the information and being a Big Brother, which of course will happen at some point to some degree, or they will lose the information to a disgruntled employee. In all honesty it already happens this just makes it a bit easier. Now I just need to scrap off the two previous stickers and the two Rutgers ones from my car. Hands down this is better than the horrible and lame policies of Bayonne, which wouldn’t even give me a permit as a resident.
Movies Under the Stars
Summertime in the city brings one of the nicest things in Hoboken, the Movies Under the Stars on Pier A. August is all about the kids, but June and July have some nice options. Movies start at 9:00 PM except in August when they start at 8:15 PM.
June 7 The Squid & the Whale
June 14 Good Night & Good Luck
June 21 Crash
FRIDAY: June 23 – Pier A Park – special guests
Special Premiere Screening:
Brooklyn Lobster – starring Danny Aiello & Jane Curtin
Brooklyn Lobster’s gentle humour articulates the bittersweet nature of change as it recounts the challenges of living a small-town life in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in multi-cultural New York City.
June 28 The Producers
July 12 Brokeback Mountain
July 19 Walk the Line
July 26 RentAug 2 March of the Penguins
Aug 9 Curious George
Aug 16 Wallace & Grommit
Aug 23 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Aug 30 King Kong
Lists
As a follow-up to a a few posts I have made regarding Lower Manhattan and Hoboken, I created a few Lisable list for each. sort of turns the post into a more community resource and you can add your own or vote each up or down.
- Best Sushi in Lower Manhattan (My post)
- Best Sushi in Hoboken (My post)
- Best coffee in Hoboken (My post)
Kiko and Google Calendar Oh My »« Basecamp Project Management
Accoona Search
There is another search company on the block, and this one is from Jersey City. What sets Accoona apart is that they use artificial intelligence to find results that the others miss.
Accoona says its search engine is different from others on the market. When users type “Oscar winners” into the search box, for instance, Accoona delivers stories about Academy Award winners, whether or not the stories mention the word Oscar…
Furthermore, users can refine the search results using a short list of scroll-down menus, including “people mentioned” and “publisher,” among others. Each menu offers a maximum of 50 choices, and denotes the number of times each choice is mentioned in the results.
But another interesting aspect is their advertising model:
Accoona’s version looks like this: if a user searches for plumbers or airline tickets, the search results will include a line of text asking if the user would like to be contacted by three companies selling services related to the query. If the answer is yes, the user is prompted to enter contact information, and is told to stand by for either a call or an e-mail message from a company.
Anyone else find the layout and logo looking familiar? Imitation is the highest form of flattery?
And since I did just post on my Google ranking… as a comparison, I show up at #15 here (and #7 with quotes).
