The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-03-15

- NOW GIdb bt0 ICtdLL VI bAS
town is having an awakening, we
have some hopes of a shaking up 10
the real estate business before long.
Doubtless some of our real estate
dealers and owners think they know
it ALL" but in reality they are ages be-
hind the times. They have had a
great opportunity this spring and
they have made nothing of it. As
usual, Brooklyn is prospecting through
Jersey City's state Of unreadiness and
Incidence.
Seasons of retrenchment like the
present are always good for the sub
urbs, when the suburbs are ready to
take advantage of them. The people
who generally live in expensive fats
in New York are glad to economic
by moving to a pretty house in New
ark or Jersey City or Brooklyn. They
do SO move, and when money is tight
the real estate operators of wide
awake places whoop things up in the
advertising line in the New York
papers, and generally make the in
vestment pay very well. In this city,
there is very much to advertise, and,
we believe, no advertising has been
done. The dealers and owners have
Just taken chances on such people as
might drift over this way in the
natural course of events. This is now
and always has been the bane Of the
place. Nobody seems to have the
enterprise to look ahead and push the
town ahead.
Even on the Hill, the prevailing
school of architecture in houses for
sale or rent is criminally hideous.
The atrocious rows of red brick afro
cities that disgrace SO many of u
streets are the relics of an era from
which Brooklyn and Newark long ago
emerged, and through which Yonkers,
New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon, Paterson
and Hackensack new passed. The
construction is not economical; 1t is
only cheap. 1t Is not suited to the
market; it is calculated to repel, not
to attract tenants. To be sure, the
houses do fill UP by degrees, but only
because some people are obliged to
live here. They lever attracted any
body. No mortal yer was led by the
attractions of such a house to settle
in this city, SO long as it was optional
with him to go elsewhere. or late
there has been an effort to improve
ON this ancient school of unredeemed
ugliness, and one or two patches of
"Queen Anne cottages have appeared
upon the surface of the Hill. These
have run to the opposite extreme.
They sacrifice everything in the way
of convenience and commodiousness
to an inane and conventional dec
orativeness, which when spread out
over the face of an entire block be-
comes almost as offensive as the red
brick itself. Rooms are chopped up
into pigeon-holes; windows are re-
duced to peepholes; overhanging cor
ners, projecting rooms over silly
verandahs, and fimsy bay windows
guarantee an extensive coal consump-
ton; gas jets are deliberately locatedin
the most inconvenient positions, and
stairways are SO contrived as to make
the Introduction of heavy furniture as
nearly impossible as may be. Take
them as you find them, and you would
think the architects and builders re-
sponsible for these dens of despond
had never lived In a house themselves,
and had no clear notions Of the uses
of such a structure. They are mere
products of ir%rationality and incompe-
tence, and they tend to keep new resi-
dents out of the city and not to bring
them in. When contrasted with the
excellent houses in point both of APP
pearance and design which can be OBJ
tanned in any part of Newark and in
many parts of Brooklyn for the same
rents, they simply fill the observer
with a great big overwhe lining con-
viction of the total unitness of those
who control the real estate prospects
of this city, Every other city except
this has brick houses which are not
ugly and frame ones which are habit
able: in pretty nearly every place
about New York, land sells higher
than it does here. and yet it is a fact,
which anyone can verify for himself,
that at any figure from $500 to 5000 a
year a person desiring to rent a house
can do fifty per cent. better in almost
other place outside Manhattan
Island.
But our dealers make no reasonable
effort to draw attention to the Heights
as q pleasant and convenient place OF
residence for New York business men.
OF course in these remarks, we are not
speaking in the interest of THE NEWS
or any other local paper. We are
speaking Of the lack of enterprise in
our operators in the matter OF adver
Using the town abroad. The real es-
tate columns of the New York Sunday
papers are filled with the bids OF other
places for new population, but Jersey
City is neve heard Of. There are
houses for sale, lots for sale. houses TO