There is a movement afoot in Jersey City to turn the Pennsylvania Railroad Harsimus Stem Embankment into a park. Neon green "Make My Park!" flyers handed out by the folks at embankment.org can be seen in windows around town. A real estaste investor recently bought the embankment and intends to build homes on the site.

The embankment is a beautiful and historic landmark, and I do think a section of it should be preserved. But turn the whole thing into a park? Jersey City already has nearly 70 parks and playgrounds! I'm not sure why another one is needed. I find it interesting that most of the flyers are in windows of homes that abut the embankment. Who wants a four story park in their backyard? God knows what kinds of crazies or accidents would find their way onto your property, not to mention the noise it would bring. Right now you can hear a pin drop out there and it's wonderful (yes, I live behind the embankment).

How about maintaining and improving the parks and playgrounds that already exist? Every day on my way to work I walk past one of the most disgraceful excuses for a park I've ever seen, Fitzgerald Hotola Triangle Park. It's tiny - probably only takes one minute to walk the perimeter. And granted the Grove Street PATH station is in the middle of it, but this is no excuse for the state of utter disrepair this park is in: a giant patch of upheaved bricks, constantly garbage strewn and littered, homeless people and flocks of pigeons milling about, old shopping carts pushed into dead bushes. It's revolting to see a piece of land that's given park status neglected like this. Maybe Trumpsy will sell a pair of his wife's shoes to raise some fixer-upper money for FHTP.

I think a grocery store that doesn't smell like a chicken coop would be good use of the land. Plus it would help offset some of the traffic at the unbearable Shoprite. I'd rather puncture a lung than try shopping there on a Sunday.

Nix the park idea and instead preserve a section as a historical marker, build a decent grocery store and make the rest single-family homes as the developer intends to do. Home-ownership can improve a neighborhood just as much as a park can.