HOW WE LIVE BLP HUDSON FLATS

As Hudson County towns evolve, you can feel like you’ve lost your bearings. Wait a second, didn’t that used to be an empty lot? A gas station? An abandoned building? Increasingly, Bayonne is following behind Hoboken and Jersey City in transforming its vacant land and old structures into upscale dwellings.
Hudson Flats went up a year ago in a space many remember as a crumbling gas station. Now its contemporary lines grace the streetscape on lower Broadway.
Last October, Brian Bennett and Nikki Swan moved into a fourth-floor rental unit. Brian grew up on 26th Street and the Boulevard, and is back in Bayonne after stints as an adult in Austin, Texas, and New Orleans. Nikki is a Jersey girl from Brick, who came to Bayonne by way of Hoboken.
Nikki works for PSE&G in Newark, and Brian is a chef at Hudson Table in Hoboken.
Their new home makes for a pretty easy commute for both of them. Hudson Flats provides parking.
The building feels spanking new. The door alarms work perfectly, there’s a tiny exercise room to the left of the front entrance, and the elevator walls are still covered in green, protective padding.
As you exit the elevator on the fourth floor, a table with a mirror above makes for a homey welcome. Doors on either side lead to the apartments.
Your first impression on entering the Bennett/Swan unit is of light. Windows on three sides of the open-plan kitchen, dining room, and living room offer views of Bayonne rooftops, and in the distance, the Bayonne Bridge and Lower Manhattan.
Nikki says these wonderful windows were a real plus when they invited friends over on New Year’s Eve, and fireworks were clearly visible. Brian cooked; Nikki “poured.”
The unit has two bedrooms, a bathroom, and storage closet. Brian and Nikki have given it a modern, slightly industrial/IKEA feel with lots of whites, grays, and browns, as well as Brian’s black leather man-couch, with some of Nikki’s softer gray chairs. She also has a prized turntable. Next to it a vintage David Bowie album.
Nikki keeps her snowboard in the guest bedroom, a signature emblem of a younger generation that’s finding its way to Bayonne.
Signs of Brian’s chosen career are evident—a knife kit on a bench in the kitchen, and a book titled “The Art of Fermentation.” But the kitchen is for regular cooks. He says he looks for counter space and a stove that “works properly. I was skeptical at first of an electric stove, but it’s nice. It boils water in two minutes.”
He thinks out-of-towners have not yet discovered Bayonne eateries. “It needs to be easier for people to get here,” he says, pointing to the bridge closures and the turnpike construction. “Ferry service would also help to bring people from out of the area.”
Though Brian acknowledges that many of Bayonne’s restaurants are Italian, he and Nikki frequent the Polish deli on 24th and Avenue C. “Bayonne people don’t like to get too far out of their comfort zone with food,” he says.
We visited in late January. Nikki says she’s looking forward to warmer weather when she can visit Bayonne’s many parks.—Kate Rounds.