It gives us a great image, but glosses over the controversy around the TC purchase of the Women's Club
In September Amy Hughes, 38 years old,
needed help opening her new home-furniture store, Salvage Style, in
Maplewood, N.J. She contacted old friends living in New York City and
new friends she had met in Maplewood.
No city friends showed up.
"We
were on our hands and knees scraping carpet glue," said Ms. Hughes, who
moved from Washington Heights to Maplewood a year ago with her husband
and young daughter. "Here's this friend who I've known for a month
helping me every day for a week—it's amazing."
Young
families and professionals from the city continue to follow a well-worn
migration trail to Maplewood, a leafy suburb with a population of
24,000 and half-hour commute to Manhattan's Penn Station on express
trains.
While not without shortcomings—it
lacks a downtown pharmacy or a hardware store anywhere in town—it is
working to add to its appeal. In January, it paid $1 million for the
Woman's Club of Maplewood—a white Colonial-style building that dates to
1930 with front doors the color of a robin's egg—which it is planning to
turn into a cultural center.
Officials
are reviewing proposals from local nonprofits to manage the downtown
building and its programs, said Mayor Victor DeLuca.
In
the town's industrial section, efforts are under way to open a
co-working office called Lunkeyworks Labs that would cater to
Maplewood's estimated 800-plus freelancers, the bulk of whom work in
creative fields.
"This is the kind of
space we feel would be really great for the community," said Laura
McCann-Ramsey, who plans to live in the building, a former car-seat
factory, with her husband. "It would give them the kind of space they'd
get in the city at New Jersey prices."
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