The aforementioned absence of parking demand serves to validate how much the downtown has declined and businesses are struggling to survive. Lack of cars = lack of customers.
While many residents do not seem concerned over the possible demise of the CBD the fact is it WILL have a negative impact the value of their homes. Houses in Ridgewood have traditionally garnered a premium over comparable houses in other towns. The question is why. The answer is quite simple. Ridgewood has a wide variety of homes at varying price points in different neighborhoods all of which share a legendary school system and offer a convenient commute to NYC.
While there are other affluent towns in Bergen County which offer similar attractions Ridgewood is unique in that has all of the foregoing PLUS it has traditionally been home to a lively and walkable downtown with a wide variety of shops and restaurants This “trilogy” has proven to be highly successful in attracting newcomers to the Village who are willing and able to pay a premium for their homes.
The question is what happens if this highly successful formula were to disappear ? It is the opinion of the writer that the premium assigned by the market to houses in Ridgewood would gradually diminish and ultimately disappear. We would be just another affluent town in Bergen County that has nice neighborhoods and good schools. I say let’s keep what makes Ridgewood special. Let’s undertake to revitalize our downtown by building a garage …..albeit one that may be a little smaller. Let’s then work together to figure out a long term strategy that builds on our strengths and augments them so as to maintain our premier status as the town that “has it all”. Just my thoughts.
Maybe we need a smaller CBD with stores that residents need.
The CBD is trying to be a dining and entertainment venu. Except for dinner (not at Fish or GTM) I do not go into town. I do not need host/hostess gifts, I do not drink and paint.
Well our town desperately needs a Master Plan of what it wants to be in the next 10, 20 years and how we will get there. Where will the open space be? how does multi-family housing intersect with garage parking and maintaining a safe “walking village”? What streets could have more parking quickly and cheaply (tree streets) and why don’t we try it first? More parking at a garage is one solution but until you lay out where everything will be it is foolish to throw in one monster garage and think problem solved.
The stores in Ridgewood that have a compelling business proposition do great and even expand: Rita’s, Hot Jewelry Box, Fox’s, Alex and Ani, Learning Express are a few examples. If you are a me too store, a la the GAP or Gymboree I can find you in the mall. There are a few business I will go to if I can find a spot out front (Dunkin, nail salons etc) but if there is not a close spot, I will visit Midland Park as it is just as close to my house. I will not park in the garage for those businesses. On a special Saturday night out in town, I can park by NY sports on the street for free or drive farther from the restaurants and always parking. I am of the opinion that the garage will not be that impactful for businesses, more so for commuters. If the businesses really had a push NOW for their employees to park elsewhere (graydon in winter, school in summer) and did some sort of COC busing for them that might help the store front parking.
Now a business such as Roots failing because of parking is NOT OUR PROBLEM. While it is a beautiful space, it is way too large and the owners were mistaken to think the client base in Ridgewood is the same as Summit. And I really hope the new council gets rid of that gift of a zillion spots to valet outside…Why doesn’t every business – regardless of what type of business – get the same valet treatment? Would be much more fair to have the small commuter lot set up as a valet depot for all businesses…could even add a second level on Hudson or Cottage for that purpose and be done with it. Again, if we had proper planning not patchwork planning.
Never drink and paint! Or text and paint.
This is a thoughtful post. Missing is the fact that for years, retail has been in decline, it is not localized, it is global. The reasons are obvious, at home we can shop in ways we could never imagine. Drive through the village on recycling day, see the the Amazon boxes, and many other more specialized outlets who bring infinite choice through your phone and deliver it to your door the next day. No amount of parking can solve that in the tiny and compressed Ridgewood CBD. We do not have a parking shortage as the village has finally admitted, we can’t fill the spots we have. We have a parking proximity issue, not enough spots at the single most crowded intersections starting with Broad and Ridgewood Ave. Why should we spend $11,000,000 to have a garage that will be half empty at best? It is a Trojan Horse for the over-developers who want to build massive apartment buildings, that’s it.
The reader does a pretty good job describing the factors that make Ridgewood desirable. Then he says to keep the downtown area vibrant, we need a parking garage. This is not exactly a non-sequitur, but the connection is far from clear and needs elaboration. If no elaboration is forthcoming, the parking garage proposition falls apart. Circular reasoning, i.e., begging the question, will not suffice. At some point the decision to build a parking garage at all will need to be revisited and possibly reversed by the new council. Remember, the vote by residents in favor of building a garage was NON-BINDING. It was also arguably based on a false premise offered by the outgoing Village Council majority that the contemplated structure would fit the confines of the neighborhood and not be an eyesore or a magnet for trouble.
we don’t have anything for teens to do.
Bill M. Is right. On top of that you are in competition with malls that are bucking the trend (global decline) simply because of the density of the population in Bergen/Passaic County, not to mention those folks who like to shop in N.J from the rest of the metro area. And you can only go out to eat just so much.
Bill M. is correct. On top of that you are in the middle of the one area that is bucking the trend regarding the “decline” of malls. If you want to go to a mall for whatever reason, it’s there. Spend a quarter of the 11 mil. on a deck across from the Post Office. This probably won’t make the Fish,Greek to Me, and Roots people ecstatic, but so what.
10.40 Is. right. We need to cut our taxpayer losses and abandon the massive non confirming garage .IT IS a neighborhood destroyer.financial and zoning disaster..build it and the massive Apartments & condos shall follow.
I think making the downtown more user friendly, perhaps one way on ” Main Street “, free parking ( it costs a lot to manage the meters). Mike Sedon!’s plan of realigning existing parking spaces and the surrounding lots would increase parking options at a very low cost. More sidewalk sale days and promotional activity ( music in at Van Nest Park by local , student groups,etc.) Any thing that gets people out and walking through town.
garage death was suicide
Don Lehman dlehman@poststar.com
Oct 22, 2015
GLENS FALLS
Glens Falls Police have concluded that the man who was found dead at the base of a parking garage on Wednesday morning likely committed suicide.
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After interviews with his family and analysis of the circumstances of his death, Glens Falls Police believe the man intentionally took his own life by jumping from the third story of the four story garage.
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He suffered a severe head injury when he fell to the pavement below the Monument Square parking garage, a passerby finding him unconscious on the Bay Street side of the garage about 5:40 a.m. Wednesday.
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Police did not release his name, saying the department does not release the names of people believed to have committed suicide. He was identified as a 36-year-old Glens Falls resident.
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The man had a history of emotional problems and prior suicide attempts, police said. No suicide note or other correspondence from him had been found as of Thursday morning.
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Glens Falls Police Detective Lt. Peter Casertino said the man had moved to Glens Falls in recent months from another state, and had family in the region with whom he kept in touch.
Would I die from falling off a four story parking garage and landing on my head?
Would it hurt
4 answers · Mental Health
Answers
It would painful… And there is high chance of it not working, then you could end up with lifelong injuries or disabilities.. Suicide isn’t worth it……
Gem · 2 months ago
Comment 0 0
No, that’s not enough height. And you can’t control which part of your body you fall on. You would be way too alarmed and panicky while falling.
Anonymous · 2 months ago
Comment 1 0
yes you would probably immediately
kelvin · 2 months ago
Comment 0 0
Yes…..? But don’t do it
Orion · 2 months ago
Interesting because whenever there are street fairs, old-car shows, etc., in town, that’s when I make a note not to go there.
tosaygoodbye.com
Dawn
AZ USA
35-44
Female
Where do you begin with a story so dark a part of so many lives? ‘My’ suicide attempt was not really mine, as it has altered so many lives, both back then, and to this very day. The four children born out of my son’s recovery from what I attempted to do to myself, are all living reminders of how what I intended to do to only myself, rewrote the futures of so many others. Those were such awful, dark days, after my divorce in April of 1996…so many excruiating memories, so much bitterness and rage at being tossed aside, like garbage, after enduring through 16 years of every sort of abuse there is, from the husband of my impetuous youth. After he was through with me, I had ‘no identity left’, ‘no friends left’, I ‘didn’t even have the company of my only child to comfort me’ in my aloneness. He had succeeded in ripping everything away from me, just like he’d predicted years earlier he would do to me. So, I spent every day wishing I could die, just to escape the agony I was left with as my only companion. And, oh, I was so angry! The day of my attempt on my life was a ‘black rage’ day, in my memory…as black and dark as death itself. I wanted to make him pay, to make him as miserable as he had made me. And in my sick, delusional state of mind, making him listen to me as I plummeted to my death, and to have to be the one to identify my bloody, broken, body and explain to our son why I did it, was the’perfect punishment’ for the likes of him! That dreadful night, the Gilbert AZ Police still talk about, as the wierdest, london-pea-soup fog, descended upon the city, a fog like no one had ever seen in the area, before or since. My plan was to drive to a location where I could jump to my death from the outside stairwell of a four story parking garage, while the man I used think of as ‘my protector’, would be listening to me hit the pavement below, from a cell phone. But that night, a miraculous, wierd fog completely prevented me from finding my way to this location. Finally, after hours of driving around in circles, and downing a couple bottles of medication I had with me all at once, I gave up, as I was feeling too weak and ill to continue. I let a friend talk me into checking myself into the hospital. As soon as I agreed to do this, that blessed fog lifted, and I was able to drive myself to the hospital. There, I was promptly arrested at my ex’s insistance, and after 3 days in Sherriff Joe’s hell-hole of a jail, I was sentenced to being barred from returning to Arizona for 2 years. This very odd sentence, by a City Court Judge, also was instrumental in saving my life, as it took yet another 3 suicide attempts over the next 2.5 years before I fully stopped wanting to die. Today, I am fully recovered. I now have so much to live and be thankful for, that it seems like someone else’s story, a very long time ago, when I remember those terrible, black days so long ago. I can only pray that my story will aid someone else who is in that same horrible place of wanting to die, because of the abuse of someone they loved and trusted. I hope my words here will help you to realize that ‘THEY’ aren’t worth your precious life, nor one more minute of your thoughts or time! For what it matters, I have now been blessed to still be alive to witness my ex’s utter destruction, financially and spiritually, by no less than the malignant woman he married after he dumped me! So, my friend, take it from me, there IS justice, there IS a God, and if you will just Get Out of His way…He is more than Good and more than Capable of avenging all our wrongs, and far, FAR better than we ever could ever dream of doing ourselves! So then, Go ON…forget them, and LIVE a happy life…All my love!
Internet search terms: “four story”+”parking garage”+suicide
Magnet for trouble.
Frankly speaking, for most motorists entering the Ridgewood central business district, access to the contemplated parking garage structure at Broad and Hudson will be a royal pain in the arse. Then there is the problem of how to handle the stream of traffic attempting to exit the same structure and go off to all points of the compass. Based on these considerations alone, to propose anything larger or more substantial than a two-story parking deck at this location, if not crazy, would at least seem wrong-headed.
we need to build rest rooms in the c b d,
I’ll never use that garage since street parking is not that hard to find.
I’ve never not gotten a spot. I might have had to walk a few extra blocks at times…..so what.
Get real people, Ridgewood stopped being a premiere town 20+ years ago. Our schools are not even in the top ten in the state, no evolution at all. Other towns have caught and passed us, we’re living off reputation and toxic fumes from a CBD in desperate need of a facelift.
“a CBD in need of a facelift.” What constitutes a CBD facelift, 8:15am?