The Daily Newarker

TDN Press Wire: Custom Bicycles Handmade in Newark

Newark, once the bicycle capitol of the world, is a breeding ground for new talent and innovation. Folk Engineered helps to bring the cycling tradition back by resurrecting an ancient trade. Custom framebuilders offer something different than bike shops and department stores. Each bike is built for a specific rider and with extreme attention to detail. “Building custom handmade bicycles is a scientific art form,” Pasquariello says. “It is geometry, physics, chemistry, visual thinking, and sculpture.”

From the same people who brought Newark the Brick City Bike Collective, Folk Engineered builds handmade bicycles right here in Newark, USA. Bonus: they also have some great photos from their shop on their website:

NY Daily News: Developer must build a bridge at Atlantic Yards

I recently sat through a jarring press conference at which officials abruptly announced that the city has run out of Section 8 vouchers. Other tax incentive programs have reached limits that may or may not be curable in the near future. And locating and implementing subsidy programs will be harder now because of unresolved animosity between Ratner and anti-project leaders.

Much of it is petty. City Councilwoman Letitia James (D, WFP-Brooklyn), who represents the people who argued for killing the project long after its inevitability was clear, says she wasn’t invited to today’s groundbreaking. That is an unnecessary slap in the face. (James told me she will remain at City Hall working on budget issues during the ceremony.)

Should they decide to continue on to the Atlantic Yards after two or three years in Newark, the New Jersey Nets get to make their new home in the midst of this kind of drama. Should they stay here, they would have an amped-up fan base, a neighborhood that would welcome their arrival, and the benefit of the Cory Booker Twitter marketing machine.

Just sayin’.

Star Ledger: Proposed Newark high-rise would become city’s tallest building

Carl Dranoff, the Philadelphia developer who unveiled plans in January 2008 for a 28-story luxury apartment high-rise across from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, now pegs his new Two Center Street at 44 stories — still far short of the state mantle but enough to overtake the circa 1931 National Newark Building at 744 Broad St. as Newark’s tallest building.

“It will become a transformational project,” Dranoff said of the $190 million project. “We expect it will have an enormous impact. We’ve seen this in other cities where we build a big anchor project. Usually, others follow. We sort of have the play-books to make it happen.”

Site plans for the milestone project note that Two Center Street’s 44 floors, topping off at 482 feet, 2 inches beats National Newark Building’s 465 feet by 17 feet, 2 inches.

“Redefining Newark’s Skyline” reads the plug on the company’s online portal, where the developer touts its location across from NJPAC and near historic Military Park and the new light-rail line.

Blue Jersey: NJSAEA: Doing the Same Thing And Expecting a Different Outcome

Indeed past governors and lawmakers have treated the authority as their toy box. Political interference has including a bloated staff of political appointees, free tickets and catered meals to favored politicians, poorly negotiated contracts with football, basketball, and hockey franchises, bad decisions regarding Xanadu, and insistence on perpetuating the money-losing race track business.

Blue Jersey levels some biting criticism about the NJ sporting organization that, of late, seems to have turned everything it’s touched into lead.

New York Times: Consequences of an Airport Kiss

“At that moment, I’m very excited with my girlfriend, and I didn’t think too much,” Mr. Jiang, 28, said Tuesday in his first interview since causing the six-hour shutdown at the airport and the five-day manhunt that followed. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble at the airport.”

On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty in Newark Municipal Court to the charge of defiant trespass, and besides the community service, he must pay a $500 fine and $158 in costs and fees.

I may have felt differently if I was stuck at that airport, but I’m glad this guy wasn’t given jail time or worse — he was hardly a national security threat.

Politicker NJ: James: ‘Booker’s an alien who needs to get back on his spaceship’

“We are not rock stars,” he says. “We are Newarkers. We stayed, we stayed, and we always survived. And we’ll keep surviving. Mr. Booker – I’m going to call him an alien – he needs to go back on his spaceship, wherever he came from. He doesn’t know how to interact with us.”

That’s just the type of practical, fact-based sloganeering that adds real credibility to a campaign.

New York Times: Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss

More than five million households are behind on their mortgages and risk foreclosure. The government’s $75 billion mortgage modification plan has helped only a small slice of them. Consumer advocates, economists and even some banking industry representatives say much more needs to be done.

For the administration, there is also the concern that millions of foreclosures could delay or even reverse the economy’s tentative recovery — the last thing it wants in an election year.

Taking effect on April 5, the program could encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.

The Times examined the impact of subprime lending in Newark back in 2007, revealing the heartbreaking impact of this long-running crisis. While the prospect of short sales were originally shunned by banks, the Obama plan introduces some hope of stemming foreclosures and preventing a slide back into economic decline.

Newark Speaks: Introducing a More Social Daily Newarker

In which your humble narrator promotes, then explains, then defends the raison d’être for the Daily Newarker:

LOL, trust me: I’m not making $$ on the Daily Newarker, from the Booker Campaign or anyone else. We’ve had fits and starts with advertising programs, and haven’t been able to generate a sustainable income from the site. I have a day job that feeds my family.

As to wishing the site shut down: I think a rising tide raises all boats. The more online discussion about our city, the better. And, whether it’s parents trying to find a space for advocacy to networking non-profits, I’d like TDN to be a resource for Newarkers, new and life-long.

NY Daily News: It’s a wonderful loft: Downtown Newark making space for lots of conversions

After Hal Laessig and his wife lost their downtown Newark art gallery and living space in an eminent-domain fight with the Newark Housing Authority over the Prudential Center, they were determined to save an old building.

Three years and $3 million later, an 1879 former button factory in the Ironbound District houses their gallery, the Sumei Multidisciplinary Art Center, and serves as their home. They developed Button Factory Lofts into 14 condo units, nine of which have sold since the building opened in October.

The couple are among a wave of preservation-minded developers turning industrial buildings into loft spaces to accommodate Newark’s growing population of artists and professionals.

“When things were booming, developers were clearing multiple blocks, so a lot of the old industrial buildings got demolished,” says Laessig, 54. “Now, with the few that are left, people are thinking, let’s save them and convert them for living, because otherwise they’ll all be gone.”

Good overview of some recent condo conversions happening in the city and the personalities behind them.

New York TImes: Nets Laud Future Newark Home as a Bridge to Brooklyn

The modern Prudential Center, in most ways the antithesis of Izod, is a better bridge to Brooklyn, Yormark said. He said that railroad access to Newark would let Brooklynites sample the Nets for a while (although the tasting might be better if LeBron James or Dwyane Wade were playing there), and that a modern facility would help Rod Thorn, the Nets’ president, recruit players.

“We’re excited about the move,” said Kris Humphries, a reserve forward whom the Nets acquired from Dallas in January. “How can we not be?”

Booker tied his city’s comeback fortunes to those of the Nets, and spoke at times as if the benefits of the Nets’ pit stop would never end. Reminded of the team’s short-term lease, he said: “You can’t discount the revenue they will bring to the city. It’ll move our city forward.”

It’s official. This isn’t so much a sports story as it is an urban renewal story: the move is temporary, and the Nets are one of the worst-performing franchises in the NBA right now. Bringing the Nets to Newark won’t solve all of their problems, but they will see an established fan base come out to see them play. The more exciting thing for this city might be that Newark will be a destination for watching some of basketball’s greats to come play (and beat the Nets).

Tritonic: 03.01.10 is HERE

And now we officially welcome our newest team member. Consisting of three floors, exposed brick, high ceilings, a tony location in the heart of downtown Newark, and weighing in at many, many tons, say hello to 239 Washington St. We’re ready to rock. Let’s formulate.

One of Newark’s hottest design firms gets a new home on Washington St. Congrats on the new space, Formulators.

Fox News: NJ Transit Fare Increase, Service Cuts

NJ Transit officials say they plan a 25 percent fare increase and service cuts to help close a $300 million budget gap. The changes would take effect May 1. … Some examples of price changes include:

• A one-zone local bus trip or one-way ticket on Newark or River Line light rail would increase from $1.35 to $1.70 per ride.
• One-way commuter rail tickets would rise to $1.50-$16.50. A trip from Metropark in Iselin, NJ to New York Penn Station would rise to $10.
• Hudson-Bergen Light Rail tickets would increase from $1.90 to $2.40 per trip.
• Off-peak roundtrip discounts would be eliminated
• 10-trip bus discounts would be capped at 15% off the full fare price

Star Ledger: N.J. businesses, developers strategize for Newark’s economic growth

Beit and Gutstadt were among a venerable who’s who of developers, and a business-card-toting army of construction managers and other enablers, gathered this morning to chart Newark’s hoped-for economic awakening.

“It starts to create a critical mass,” Wasseem Boraie of Boraie Development said of the big projects planned for Newark but are awaiting the first-shovel-in-the-ground.

American City: Advertise Like You Give A Damn

After a month of feeling sort of awkward about participating in this program, I’m left wondering why GOOD consulted on this project. I mean no harm, GOOD, I just want you guys to do what you set out to do — change the world, not change corporate advertising.

Why actively participate in complicating the advertising process? Why help blur the boundaries between an advertising campaign and philanthropic support? I can’t help think that for all the money that Pepsi is giving away, it’s just creating a new problem that GOOD should be guarding against — not the all-too-common “greenwashing”, but “goodwashing.”

Measured criticism leveled at Pepsi for the Refresh Everything program (in which Newark Now is in the top 50 to win $250k), examining the blurring lines between advertising, sponsorship, and philanthropy.

Great shot of the Passaic at sunrise.

ABC News: NJ Transit announces spending freeze, layoffs

An emergency spending freeze and the layoffs of more than 200 workers are needed to help plug a major budget gap that also is likely to result in fare hikes and service cutbacks for the commuting public, New Jersey Transit officials said Tuesday.

NY Daily News: Suggestive New Jersey billboard of Akoo jeans will be removed following complaints

Like the pair of jeans it depicts, a billboard poster in downtown Newark is coming down.

The ad for Akoo jeans shows a woman kneeling in front of a man and facing the camera. The man’s jeans are unbuckled, and the woman appears to be pulling them off.

The billboard, which hovers over a busy intersection, sparked criticism after a local columnist questioned its taste.

Funny, don’t most towns have standards to prevent these kinds of things from happening?

Update: Gothamist: NYC Billboards Too Hot for Jersey to Handle

That racy billboard in Jersey has turned off enough people that the NYC-based billboard company, CBS Outdoor, is buckling under the pressure and taking it down. … And as Eyewitness News noted yesterday, no one even seemed to notice the billboard in NJ until the press pointed it out; as one resident told NJ.com, “It’s somewhat suggestive but that’s not bad compared to what they show in New York City where they are basically nude.”

Or, say, Gothamist’s American Apparel ads.

Refresh Everything (Pepsi): Create a Social Media Video Project Around the People of Newark

The HOW I SEE IT program is a social media innovation, providing Flip Cams to Newark, NJ residents for the purpose of self-documentation. The program will initiate with 500 Flip Cams deployed in Newark through the non-profit organization Newark Now.

Make a difference with your click: vote to help Newark Now win $250,000 to produce a social media project to document the city and Newark Now’s community programs.  They’re 48th in the running, they need to be in the #1 or #2 spot to win the prize.