New Brunswick and the Street with Two Faces
Rutgers University students renting off campus housing in New Brunswick are accustomed to average rent being between $500–800 (at the time this article was written) a person for listings ranging from destitute houses to newly constructed, lavish apartment complexes.
In 2022, average rent in New Brunswick trends upward of $2,200/month, and units costing over $2,000 have eclipsed more than 50% of the market.
There are very few, if any, forms of affordable housing available to locals. Many must deal with squalor and less-than-interested slumlords who make concerted efforts not to make repairs or improve living conditions. New carpeting and appliances are a privilege.
Sketchy is a common word to describe the city sprawl of New Brunswick. Lucky for students, New Brunswick residency is temporary.
The same cannot be said for those across the divide. French St. residents living in the heart of New Brunswick face a permanent condition. These residents are mostly Latino or Black. As Rutgers blossomed around them, they watched their neighborhoods shrink and the price of living increase.
What makes the city’s current state ironic is that there are many houses falling into destitution that used to belong to a well-off white middle class. Now, the houses are often rented out by — there’s no other word to describe them — slumlords. Many buildings haven’t been updated, aside from necessary repairs, ever since the city changed color.
The old, white middle class left New Brunswick in the ’60s for roomier suburbs surrounding the city in a phenomenon commonly referred to as “white flight.” The more illustrious homes, such as the ones seen on Livingston Avenue, have been turned into professional offices.
Rent in New Brunswick is trending upward, and it can be traced back to slow and subtle patterns of gentrification that began in the 1960s.
Rise of DevCo
The rich left. The poor had no choice but to stay. Johnson and Johnson (J&J) decided to stay, too. In 1975, the company partnered with Rutgers and local government to work with the New Jersey Economic Development authority in creating the New Brunswick Development Corporation (DevCo). DevCo was meant to revitalize the city center and redevelop dangerous neighborhoods.
J&J built its new corporate headquarters close to Albany Street. Shortly after, a historic section of New Brunswick called Hiram Market, which was a Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhood at the time, was demolished to make way for the Hyatt Hotel on Neilson Street. The neighborhood may have been bought under eminent domain. That was the first project in a series of private-public partnerships funded by DevCo.
DevCo was also responsible for the New Brunswick Wellness Plaza in 2012, recent Rutgers development on College Avenue, the Vue apartment building and accompanying Rutgers Barnes & Noble, and the Heldrich hotel complex on George Street. During the time this piece was written, New Brunswick residents may have noticed that an older shopping complex across from the train station has been demolished. There are plans for a more upscale shopping center is planned to take its place. There are also plans to redesign the George Street Playhouse into a multilevel cultural arts center.
This has all been possible thanks to the tremendous value placed on New Brunswick’s potential to be a transit hub between New York–Philadelphia. Under Governor Jon Corzine, New Brunswick became one of nine New Jersey cities eligible for Urban Transit Tax Credits, essentially a handout for developers willing to invest a minimum of $50 million within a half-a-mile of the train station.
Familiar faces
Development in New Brunswick was long overdue. The city had been showing its age for decades. But, the concentration of public-private partnerships so close to the train station and Jonhson & Johnson corporate headquarters are strong indicators of gentrification. A line in the sand. Gentrification is gripping the city, camouflaged as shiny new multistory complexes filled with brand-name retailers.
New additions bring an aesthetic that is beneficial only to the privileged. Many locals that want to shop at the grocery that was built in the New Brunswick Wellness Plaza in 2012, SuperFresh, must walk upwards of several miles and then carry their groceries home.
It can be argued that New Brunswick has two downtowns: one along Easton Ave. and George st., while the other intersects at French Street and Jersey Ave. Albany St. connects the two, however, each gives an impression to passersby that is as different as the street names.
Urban transit tax credits have been a boon for the Easton Ave. and George St. downtown area. Large apartment complexes have propped themselves up, and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital has grown, too.
But, Albany St. is a funky road that eventually becomes French St. When it does, the development stops and buildings shrink. Passing under the train bridge away from the George St. intersection reveals the“sketchy” environment that Rutgers students fear.
French St.
A town clock with New Brunswick written in place of its hour numbers stands on a concrete island in the middle of the three-way intersection of French St., Handy St., and Jersey Ave.
But, its surroundings don’t really resemble a city center. There’s a Walgreens diagonal from the clock, a bar across the street and a chicken shack opposite it. Local eateries, a laundromat, and a T-Mobile store are most noticeable to passersby.
Directly opposite the clock is a grassy island surrounded by sidewalk. There are many that throng the pavilion from dawn until dusk. For some, the pain of living is written on their faces.
The French St. clock stands in stark comparison to the prominent Rutgers clock that sits above the Barnes & Noble that DevCo funded. The Barnes & Noble is a a tertiary development, really a part of the Vue apartment complex that sits on the corner of Easton Ave. and Somerset St., a stone’s throw from the train station.
All each clock is missing is an accompanying “Welcome to…” sign written before the face numbers. Two faces of the same city.
If you gave someone who never set foot in New Brunswick a city map and a pen, gave them a tour, and asked them to draw a line around what they considered to be Rutgers-New Brunswick and what they considered to be the city of New Brunswick, I bet they could draw a dividing line. Could you?
