Issue 139: The endless hamster wheel of JC
Plus: fiber art! Liberty State Park! A lengthy ICYMI! And more.
Good morning! Sorry for the lateness of today’s newsletter — I woke up with a cold and feeling very sorry for myself. Let’s get into it! — Amy
Fiber art mania!
In two weeks, there will be a couple of pretty cool projects involving fiber art and local artists. First up, there will be a group show at SMUSH Gallery, which I’m a part of:
Of Our Being: Fiber Art in the Immediate
March 8 - April 21
Opening Reception: March 8, 6-9p
Gallery Hours 3-6p | March 9, 10, 17, 23, 24 & April 7, 13, 14, 20, 21Art by Harri Bailey, Jobell, Kate Eggleston, Benedicto Figueroa, Katelyn Halpern, HAMEWS, Caroline Parks, Aria Thach, Bleriot Thompson, Amy Wilson, Meagan Woods + Backstitch Gatherings’ Community Quilt. Curated by Katelyn Halpern & Benedicto Figueroa.
SMUSH gallery is located at 340 Summit Ave, near Journal Square. For more info on the show, check out this link.
Meanwhile, on March 10th from 10am to 3pm, a local artist who goes by Woolpunk is organizing this project at the CRRNJ Terminal at 1 Audrey Zapp Drive:
“Gimme Shelter” [is] a “stitch-in” for artists and the community to create blankets for the unhoused and upcycle used clothing with textiles and embroidery. The event will be held at the CRRNJ Terminal from 10am to 3pm on the 10th and work in partnership with Art Fair 14C, Liberty State Park, York Street Project and Garden State Community Development Corp. "This project will support and inspire the young children and 175 families in our care. We are proud to be the recipients of this creative community event." Susane Byrne, York Street Project Executive Director.
This is the 10th anniversary of the first Woolpunk® Stitch-In, which reached community members statewide, and more than 20 hand-crafted recycled blankets were donated to the Palisades Emergency Residence Shelter in Union City, New Jersey.
Gently used clothing and textiles may be donated at either the Liberty State Park Office, located at 200 Morris Pesin Drive, open 7 days a week 8am-4pm, or the CRRNJ Terminal, located at 1 Audrey Zapp Drive, open Mon- Fri, 8am-4pm starting on Monday, January 22, 2024. Artists and community members who are interested in participating in the Stitch-In should contact Woolpunk® at woolpunkstudios@gmail.com.
There’s a little more info available at the artist’s IG linked here. At the same time as this event, there will be a “zero waste educational program” happening, hosted by Ray Baylon, but I didn’t have details about that in time to really include it.
Hoping to update all of the events above next week once everyone has more info available, but I just wanted to put all this on your radar because it sounds like fun!
The endless hamster wheel of Jersey City
Meanwhile, you know what’s not fun?
There are times when my mind drifts to a place where I start totaling up the hours/days/weeks/more? I have spent chasing after one issue or another in Jersey City, and I get bitter. There are certain fights that never seem to end; as a neighborhood activist (I hate that term), there are issues that seem to never get resolved and that you always have to fight, like a perpetual game of wack-a-mole in hell. You knock down one mole and feel the tiniest bit of relief, and the suddenly 500 more moles show up and you have have to let go of that sense of peace and get back to the work of knocking them all down, knowing there are somehow more behind them.
Sometimes — often — caring about this city can feel like falling into the deepest, darkest black hole in the world. Oh you’d like to improve your neighborhood somewhat? Well, you’d better come to our meeting, where really important things will be decided. It’s deathly important you come to this meeting. I mean, it’s clear across town and starts half an hour before your workday ends and it will last at least five hours, but you’d better be there or god knows what might happen, because it won’t be good. At the end of that meeting there will be another meeting — that meeting won’t happen because they won’t have a quorum but then in a few days there will be another meeting at another location even further away and they’ll discuss maybe doing a study, but that’s going to be decided at the next meeting which will be in the middle of the day so you’d better take off work. Ok at that meeting — that’s the one that’s really important because the press will be there — you’ve really got to show up and bring lots of people but first you have to spend your entire lunch break calling all your representatives and then that meeting will get get canceled last minute and then there’s the next meeting…
How can this be? How are there some battles that never seem to end? How many of the best years of my life have been spent — wasted? maybe? — fighting the good fight in Jersey City? Human beings only have so many hours in a day to spend going to meetings/writing letters/calling representatives/signing petitions before they lose their minds. Most people are smart enough to run away before this happens, but that leaves a tiny group of us who feel even more pressure to show up. This is a losing venture, and eventually, it takes away from other things you want to do — it becomes all you can talk about and you bore your more normal friends; you leave work early to go to your umpteenth meeting, which doesn’t ingratiate your with your boss at all; or you cut time short with your kids to Zoom in and listen to a bunch of talking heads ramble on and on about some issue that’s suddenly devouring your life. What’s more, you’re missing out on going to yet other meetings — other issues you care about wind up falling by the waste side, forgotten. Soon, you start to realize your friends have all abandoned you, your job has given that promotion to someone else, and (presumably) your kids hate you. You maybe score a tiny win and you feel on top of the world, only to immediately be hit with a dozen tiny, ominous losses that fill you with dread and paranoia, causing you to come crashing down harder than you ever realized you could. It takes over your dreams at night. It never ends.
It is in this vein that I have long been of the opinion that the residents of Jersey City deserve to have a class action lawsuit against Paul Fireman, aka the guy who keeps trying to change Liberty State Park. This isn’t even a fight I’ve been especially that involved in and I feel exhausted and just annoyed for all the time that’s been wasted on it. There is one rich guy who is pouring money and resources into funding this fight over the park, and as a result of this the people of Jersey City have to rehash this issue over and over, showing up once again for what will probably not be the last time. They — we — will show up to marches and sign petitions and call their reps, as we’ve all done before so many times. And yet, here we are — it’s all happening again this week, so clear your schedule on March 2nd and get ready to boycott Reebok sneakers forever. From an email from the Friends of Liberty State Park:
It's crucial to speak out again to again SAVE LSP at Saturday March 2nd Task Force 10am to Noon Terminal meeting with public speaking at 12:30pm! Billionaire Paul Fireman and hugely funded front group is again pushing the destructive Sports and Entertainment Complex with a 5000 seat football stadium and 7000 seat commercial concert venue.
It's important to have a large turnout and Public Comments, but if you can't attend in person, you can submit one comment through Zoom to DEP on Fireman-created/stacked Task Force to oppose their plans, support a Central Park type vision, and express your LSP improvements ideas.
The zoom registration link is bit.ly/lsp-taskforce-march We urge those planning to attend in person to also register for Zoom, so you’d have the option to write an online Comment on Zoom in case you need to leave before the Terminal public speaking starts at 12:30. Hopefully, you'll be able to stay to speak, and we suggest your bringing a lunch or snacks.
Fireman's bought-off gang is using lies to eliminate the spectacular Interior creation of habitats, open space and miles of paths (20 years in-the-works, funded and fully planned) and is ignoring the DEP's plan for the huge amount of 60 acres of free structured active recreation (but Fireman wants 85 acres!). It's Jersey City's primary responsibility to renovate and create sports facilities and not LSP's job to solve JC's recreational needs.
Fireman wanted his task force puppets to be the only source of proposals for public input and to ramrod stadiums/commercial venues.The Friends’ Revitalization news webpage is here and includes great editorials, news stories and the DEP's refuting Fireman's interior lies.
The 2/23 Jersey Journal, editorial, "Redouble efforts to save LSP from billionaire’s vision" is here. For those with nj. com subscriptions, it's here.excerpts: "The true defenders of LSP cannot let down their guard.The sad reality is that deep pockets are funding Hurley's charade - pockets large enough to purchase high-paid lobbyists whose job it is to play the long game, do an end run around the wishes of the public, and convince people in power to do the wrong thing".
We will persevere to guide the consultants revisions of Phase 1B and whatever they propose for the rest of the park Hopefully this Spring, the DEP will have an Open House and seek input for the new proposals.
So, show up for LSP on Saturday if you can, and show up next time too. I mean, Fireman’s folks will be there because they get paid to be there; we just have to show up because we care about the park. And we’ll just keep showing up, because that’s what you do in Jersey City when you care about where this city is going. But man, there is something deeply unfair and deeply undemocratic about all of this, and about all the time we’re being forced to piss away, just to make the same point over and over and over to someone who has the resources to never give in. If our elected officials actually cared about us, they’d find a way to keep this from happening over and over, but — call me crazy — I’m starting to get the feeling that they really don’t, so uh, see you at the meeting next weekend.
ICYMI
Iconic West Side establishment Moore’s Lounge is having a GoFundMe to survive. They now join at least two other well-loved local businesses — Koro Koro and Vegan AF — who have found that running a business in JC has become so prohibitively expensive that they have to reach out to the community for a fundraiser. What, we have $16million for the Pompidou and no money to bail out a small business that’s been in the community for years like Moore’s? Seems weird. And yet, here we are.
Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, announced he’s running for governor this week. This puts him in direct competition with our mayor, Steve Fulop, for the progressive wing of the primary vote for the race that doesn’t happen til 2025, and finally I have some reason to even pay the slightest bit of attention to the whole thing. This could get really interesting for anyone looking to get a bead on what progressives really care about in this state, especially considering Black progressives and white progressives tend to be in very different ecosystems both in terms of issues that are of importance to them and media they consume; at least, that’s been the case in Hudson and Essex counties, and I suspect much of the state is similar. Baraka is unlikely to advance too far in this race, dogged both by anti-semitic comments his firebrand, poet father made decades ago and white suburbanites’ fear/dislike of Newark, but he is well-positioned to poke a lot of holes in the case Fulop has been making for himself as the left alternative to the machine. If there’s any way someone can get the guy to even utter the word “ceasefire,” things could get really interesting. No other candidate either currently declared or (reasonably) speculated to run will; if progressives want someone who supports a ceasefire in the race, he could be their only choice. And then what happens after that — well, I’m curious.
Lord knows I try to stay as far away from Hoboken politics as possible, but this week Hoboken council member Tiffanie Fisher sent out an email to her constituents regarding a long-held rumor about Mayor Ravi Bhalla, and since I don’t want to get sued over something having to do with Hoboken for god’s sake, here is a link to an article by Caren Lissner about the situation. Hey, listen, back in my day when council members wanted to confirm or deny a rumor, they didn’t put it out there and sign their name on it; they made a burner account and posted it on JClist or Reddit and just let the thing come to life with plausible deniability. I mean, just saying.
Mayoral candidate Jim McGreevey came out against the Pompidou in a new editorial that was published this morning. If that’s paywalled for you, here is another story in Hudson County View.
Lastly, my neighbors made a snowman last week that terrified my dog and I need to share it with you:
Another fantastic post — thank you, Amy! BTW, I don’t think I would have even been able to walk Butterbean past that snowman without having to pick her up and console her. Poor Oscar 😅❤️
Ty for this post. So many institutions have pushed the work of follow up and caring back to the few. For what I’m not sure, well I mean it’s a lot easier for them. But it is amazing to sit back and look at all the energy spent because someone else won’t follow through. And I don’t mean it to be fist shaking. The more people saying not cool about this the better. Not just about LSP but that energy must be used to fight something the community has already said no to rather than forward planning