Looking at apt in Jersey City: Pearsall Ave, between Ocean Ave. and Garfield Ave. (Bayonne: appointed, apartments)

[Robustus]

I'm not from the area. My girlfriend and I are looking all around Jersey City and the surroundings.

What's the area referenced in the title like? Any gang activity, violent crime, etc? It's 3 blocks from the Danforth Ave. light-rail stop, and seems mostly like a working community, but again, I don't know the area, and we only went twice (once to look at the apt. in the day, and drove through once at night).

Any guidance would be helpful.

[fischfan13]

Stay away.
If you don't believe me then go park around there on a Friday or Saturday late night.

[smither687]

I'd say look into newport, paulus hook, hamilton park, liberty harbor areas for apartments in Jersey city. Also a nice place is hoboken, best places on the waterfront. try [url=http://www.libertyharbor.com]Condos in Jersey City, Apartments in Jersey City, Homes in Jersey City, Condominiums in Jersey City | Liberty Harbor[/url]

[Robustus]

Originally Posted by fischfan13

Stay away.
If you don't believe me then go park around there on a Friday or Saturday late night.

Yeah... We noticed it starts to get a little rougher heading West (or North) a few blocks, but the particular street the apartment is on and heading South/East (the three blocks to the light-rail stop) felt fine.

We're going to go back tonight and park and walk around a bunch, but we probably won't get a chance to observe on a fri/sat night since we'll have to make a decision on the place one way or another by tomorrow afternoon.

Do you live in the area, fischfan?

[tommyc_37]

Robustus, the only place I would live in, in Jersey City, is Downtown. This is where I live. It's 10x safer than the rest of the city. Look for apartments in Van Vorst park, Hamilton Park, Paulus Hook, Exchange Place, Harsimus Cove. These are all neighborhoods within Downtown Jersey City. All have excellent access to one of the 3 Path stations.

[fischfan13]

I used to live in Bayonne, and I found driving thru Garfield Ave during the night and OCean Avenue at anytime as not a really good drive.
I used to work near Garfield Ave and I do remember a car-jacking one night at the traffic light on the Garfield Ave exit of the Turnpike.
Look around.
I am anti-JC.
Look at Bayonne and Cliffside Park.
I wish you the best.

[Robustus]

Thanks for the info. I'm definitely open to suggestions and will check out the other neighborhoods, though I expect them to be too expensive (don't really want to pay more than $1600 for a 2-3 bedroom, etc).

If anyone has lived in or near the neighborhood that I'm talking about (ie, within a few blocks), I'd be interested in hearing their opinions. Seems like a fairly mixed, mostly working-families, neighborhood.

We'll definitely walk around a good deal late tonight to try and get a better idea, though.

(note: my viewpoint might be a little skewed, since last time I lived in the NYC area, which was 10 years ago, I lived in Brooklyn, at the corner of Grand St. and Bushwick Ave., which was *much* more run-down (at least a decade ago) than the neighborhood I'm talking about above)

[cf77]

Im familiar with the area but not that particular street and its not good what so ever. I dont know how else to put it. Honeslty theres waaaaay better places you can move too, Bayonne, Downtown JC, Harrison etc etc.

[Robustus]

Well, thought I'd provide some follow up. We *did* end up moving to that block of Pearsall Ave, and lived there happily for 2.5 years. We just moved out last month because we bought a house in Vegas.

To summarize, yes, the surrounding area is rough as several posters warned. That said, most of the stuff that went down in the area was not random. A number of gang-related shootings (three in March '09, if memory serves) and whatnot. I kept an eye on the crime reports, and it seemed like downtown was actually riskier in terms of odds of getting mugged or randomly beaten, etc.

Anyways, it was a great well-appointed apartment (1350sqft for $1500/mo) in a new building, 5min walk from the light-rail (under 30mins to downtown NYC), very convenient drive to the Turnpike, etc. Served our needs very well while we were there. Our neighbors were all very nice, and there was never any trouble on our particular street. But yeah, 3 or 4 shootings within a 3 block radius, stray bullet passed through some guy's car while he was driving down Danforth (which I drove down regularly). Meh.

I still contend that neighborhoods like that are very much street-by-street in terms of safety, and it's tough to know what's what without living there. Maybe I got lucky, but me, my girlfriend, and dozens of friends that came over regularly (walking several blocks from the light-rail) never had any issue.

A more tangible downside was that we always had to drive to do any shopping - not far, but still had to hop in the car. Shopped a lot in Bayonne. If I had the decision to do over, I'd probably look more seriously at apartments in Bayonne, though I doubt I would've been able to find as nice and as large an apartment for the price. So who knows - kind of a toss up. The living-space value was unbeatable, but the suitability of the area probably depends on personal comfort levels and preferences, etc.

In any event, my girlfriend and I are glad we lived there, but it was time to move on. We're currently enjoying the 60+deg December weather in Vegas. Definitely won't be missing Jersey City / NYC in the slush/sleet/snow.

[DarkWolf]

Well i'm glad everything kinda worked out , so its bad block by block eh?