Reader says she moved to Ridgewood 35 years ago, because I wanted a quiet pretty village with a sand bottom pool
Sorry, buddy, I moved to Ridgewood 35 years ago, because I wanted a quiet pretty village with a sand bottom pool.
It had become too congested with traffic NOW, with all the restaurants and businesses.
I don’t want a city , I want a small village atmosphere.
You don’t care. I do. I love Ridgewood and it is no longer Ridgewood; it is Crowdedwood.
You want to destroy what is wonderful about this village. What an insensitive expletive deleted you are.
This just in: old person feels threatened by change, lashes out. More at 11.
1 Come on, Mr. Deputy Mayor, don’t you have some developers to meet with instead of posting on the blog incessantly?
You sound like another ‘newbie’ temporary resident who blesses us with your presence for 10 years, then leaves after your last offspring graduates RHS,, while leaving us with:
Higher taxes
Fewer ratables (more nonsense land purchases for sports fields)
Never ending bills to fix your turf fields
Neighborhood acrimony since you lost out on your concrete graydon water park. (if you can’t afford a beach house don’t expect us to build you a summer theme park)
Ridgewood was better before your arrival and will be better after your departure.
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way back to NYC.
Interesting how people come here for everything Ridgewood has to offer only to immediately make changes so that it can resemble everything that they have left behind.
Now we’re lashing out with…ageism?
I don’t want any more traffic or congestion either and am against overbuilding but can you find any town that is the same as 35 years ago, particularly one in Bergen County, New Jersey? We have probably not done enough to update the CBD (and surrounding areas, school zones, etc) and are left with an infrastructure that does not work today. That should come before we add any residences…
This is always a problem with anonymous.
We don’t need an “updated” CBD. It’s already horrifiying with all those greasy restaurants.
Leave well enough alone.
Let the deer and the antelope play.
New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town.
And Ridgewood should be the little , quiet town in the country. Backwoods, instead of Ridgewood, if you will.
Aside from lots of bitching and moaning about the number of banks, restaurants and nail salons, have we even agreed on what the statement “an infrastructure that does not work today” means? Before we start making random changes, it would make sense to agree on what’s required. The discussions led by Puccarelli make sense from a general perspective, but without careful leadership to solicit all inputs, they are likely to, as usual, lead to an outcome only the special interests (developers, incumbent businesses) are looking for.
The CBD tenants (of current buildings) change due to markets and the residents can piss and moan all they want, but the reality is, the businesses that are able to pay the rent and succeed will determine what you see in the storefronts.
In my 45 years living in town, I have seen a few changes in ‘retail’.
No more Drapkins, no more Winchells, no more Al & Harrys, no more Sealfons, no more MacHughes, all of which were great stores and fell victim to the malls.
We used to have a liquor store on many corners.
Every corner on franklin had multiple gas stations (Phillips 66, Amoco, Texaco, arco, Texaco, mobil(2), exxon, Sinclair, etc, all of which are gone. (a few gone from godwin as well)
Who was foolish enough to pay the going rate for rent? Banks, nail salons, restaurants, or wives of rich residents who wanted to ‘play store’.
Its an ever evolving mix, and the market will determine things, not those who choose to opine on ‘what kind of stores are good for the CBD”.
Nadler Chevrolet, brogan Cadillac, ken smith Lincoln, and the buick dealer, all gone. (this IS one are that resident input should be welcomed if the property owners request zoning changes)
If I owned a retail store, I’d take advantage of the foot traffic generated by the restaurant trade at nite. Unfortunately, most of these dummies are closed!
#1. Dismissing someone as “old” is foolish. You need to develop your arguments and stay away from name calling. I hope that one day you are “old”.
Stores fail because people do not shop there. There was a glut of banks and yoghurt stores and now some have closed. Maybe the product failed and not the town. If there is something that I want in town I will shop there. There is nothing stopping me.
#10 you miss the point. Of course the market determines who can succeed and pay the rents. But the infrastructure that supports the CBD is what we as a village can influence. Do we know what we want and is there anything we can do to get a better mix? If we don’t, let’s stop wasting time. If we do, then we can plan and zone, but I don’t see any evidence that we know what the goal is.
Exactly # 12. And as it stands now our downtown can’t support more traffic, though obviously any store needs that to thrive. The underpass situation is another example of aimless projects that don’t further any stated goal.
Brian Abdoo will fix everything.
Its a free market and that will determine the ‘mix’.
You cannot say ‘no more restaurants’ or ‘no more nail salons’.
Its illegal, and passing an ordinance that would be deemed to be trying to ‘grandfather’ those current businesses, while preventing new ones, would be challenged successfully in court, and cost the Village a bundle.
The landlord just wants the rent. They do not care about any ‘mix’.
If the tenant pays the market price, then that will dictate what tenant gets the lease.
If you want to somehow ‘shape’ the type of stores, then you should get the ear of some of the major landlords in town and convince them to attract certain types of tenants.
Landlords all have different ideas about whats good-the only thing they agree on is $$$$. If there was a synergy between tenants, where one tenant would increase foot traffic to another, that’s great. but these are not big players here, so they won’t get it .
Even large mall operators, who used to ‘protect’ tenants against competitors next to each other have just grabbed the rent.
The only thing that will survive in the CBD is a store that sells what can’t be ordered on Amazon.
E.g.: Manicures, burritos, scotch and soda. It is s local service economy. You’re not going to pay the rent in the CBD selling junk jewelery or clothes on consignment.
And yes #3, I am buying a beach house, because the thought of swimming in goose shit repulses me.
#13. Where are you storing all the goose shit that plagues you?
The ocean beaches have problems with runoff to the extent that they need to be closed on occasion. That is a lot of “runoff”. You can run but you can’t hide.
The water at Graydon is tested daily. Stop perpetuating rumors that it is not clean.
Watch out for rip tides.