the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Village of Ridgewood Mayor Ramon M Hache , “During last night’s Village Council meeting, I provided some details regarding the planning underway for the reopening of our downtown. While the reopening of businesses in NJ will be gradual, and we still do not have set dates and guidance from the Governor, it is safe to expect that there will be restrictions regarding the number of customers allowed at each business. That means businesses will not be able to fully utilize the interior square footage of their locations. Together with all the Village department heads, the Chamber of Commerce, the Ridgewood Guild, commercial landlords, retailers and restauranteurs, we are working on a reopening plan. That plan will, first and foremost, aim to ensure the safety of our residents and patrons while helping our businesses to have the necessary tools to thrive. With the understanding that the downtown that will reopen will be very different from the one that closed in March, we have to embrace some outside-the-box ideas that probably could have never been considered previously. For example, closing a significant portion of our downtown to vehicles, thereby creating an outdoor pedestrian mall on Saturdays and Sundays. It is the best way to ensure proper social distancing while allowing businesses to make up for the lost indoor square footage. While we encourage residents to walk to the downtown if possible, patrons will still be able to park on some streets as well as Walnut Street Lot, Bus Station Lot, Cottage Place Lot and the soon to open Hudson Street Parking Garage. As you can imagine, this will require a lot of coordination between NJ Transit, Ridgewood Police, Signal Department, commercial landlords, businesses, volunteers and most importantly you the public. We will continue to provide more information. In the meantime, if you have any feedback or suggestions, please email them to: reopen@ridgewoodnj.net.”
With all due respect to the businesses that have been suffering through this crisis, you can’t close a public road to give that space to a private business.
Until there is a vaccine I will not go out to a restaurant, mall, shoppe, movie theater. I can order in – groceries and dinner, bike around the neighborhood, binge tv. Not interested in sitting at a table on E. Ridgewood Avenue.
don’t
The CBD looks like crap. The Village Council and their favored Village Manager (who makes $70,000 more per year than her predecessor) isn’t doing their job. Scandalous when they want to WASTE $50,000+ of Village funds (“best case” scenario) to open Graydon for only 60-100 residents per day. Scam alert!
“Until there is a vaccine I will not go out to a restaurant, mall, shoppe, movie theater. I can order in – groceries and dinner, bike around the neighborhood, binge tv. Not interested in sitting at a table on E. Ridgewood Avenue.”
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Then you will be sitting in your house for a long time… there may never be an effective vaccine or any vaccine for that matter.
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What’s this rumor about closing down Ridgewood Avenue on Friday nights, Saturday night, Sunday night, for the restaurants. I came up with this idea two years ago and people laughed at me. It’s funny now all the sudden someone must’ve read my post. Great ideas in it.
That’s all well and good about reopening the CBD how about sending out the street sweepers throughout the CBD. My restaurant has been open through all this for takeout only. But all kidding aside the street in front of my restaurant is filthy and I’m not picking any litter up. I remember the sweeper used to go past my restaurant a few times a week .Maybe somebody from the political council group and find out what’s going on because this is not a villager Ridgewood that I used to know.
Supposedly that was brought up at the council meeting. Is it going to happen don’t know. I’m sure the Chamber of Commerce May know something. They should be doing that all summer long. No excuse New York City’s doing it Ridgewood should be doing it. But and we do mean but, they’re going to really clean up the central business district for this. You’re gonna need a way to control litter .
1 out of 4 people in NJ are out of work collecting unemployment. While the resturants are suffering so are many of us. I don’t see how we can afford $34 for scallops and $60 for Chinese food or $75 for a take tin of lasagna. Without tourists I don’t see how their model will be sustainable. With outsiders the risk of CV19 is even higher. It will get worse before it gets better. Good news, we will have a garage that won’t be used
I like the idea of closing the streets for the restaurants to use some nights. Could do ridgewood ave from oak to broad, broad st. From Sook to Steel Wheel and Chestnut between Franklin and Ridgewood ave