Curbed Cup Elite Eight: (9) Jersey City vs. (16) South Village

Jersey City

Even if, as one commenter noted, “Jersey City is still not a NYC neighborhood,” it managed to beat its round one adversary—Greenpoint—by a wide margin, giving it a place in the Elite Eight. The development-rich waterfront city is due to get a whopping 15,000 new apartments in the next five years, and its relatively cheaper rents ($2,300 median vs. $3,300 in Manhattan) and home prices are already attracting New Yorkers in search of a better deal.

Other points in favor of JC: The commute to Manhattan is quick and easy, especially now that the WTC PATH station is part of the expanded WTC Transportation Hub; there are a plethora of good restaurants and bars serving every taste and price point; cultural amenities, like galleries and bookstores, are becoming more plentiful; and there’s even Citi Bike, which arrived in 2015. Jersey City’s “moment” has been declared more times than we can count, but perhaps now is truly its time to shine.

South Village

It was a close race, but in its first Curbed Cup match-up, the South Village managed to just squeak by Hudson Yards to advance to the Elite Eight. And perhaps there was some prescience on the part of voters: the day after polls closed, the Landmarks Preservation Commission officially voted to make the Sullivan Thompson Historic District—part of the reason we thought the area deserved recognition this year—the city’s 140th historic district.

That designation portends big things further west, since the new historic district was a bargaining chip for the redevelopment of St. John’s Terminal. But that’s not the only reason the South Village (which, despite commenters’ objections, isn’t quite a fake neighborhood) is in the spotlight: Though the area is small, it’s home to several of Manhattan’s hottest restaurants, along with some of the island’s prettiest real estate. (And its most exclusive: the hidden MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens Historic District is within the neighborhood’s boundaries.)

But does that make the South Village more worthy of moving forward than Jersey City? That’s for you to decide: Voting is open for 24 hours.