This is a very valid criticism. I’ve been living here for about a year, and I still feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I realize I have to get in the car and drive. The roads are a complete mess (there are some areas close to here where a left turn requires a right turn loop-de-loop which splits into another right-turn loop-de-loop which then splits into yet another…) There are friggin’ YEILD signs on highway merges, for example. Do you know how annoying it is to be at a dead stop ten feet from the fuckin’ highway with four people honking behind you because your car god-forbid sat in a stationary position for more than two seconds? If you’re not willing to jump onto a packed highway at 20mph speeds, then be prepared for road rage! The best theory I have to explain why the driving is so awful is because the design of the roads are so awful. It’s a self-perpetuating process.
That said, I’ve been living here about a year, and I love it. I know that Newark and Trenton are hellish pits, but every state has these places–back home we call ours Jackson, Flint, and Detroit (Just kidding Detroit, you know I love you baby.)
Among the pros of living in New Jersey:
–beautiful parks and recreation
–excellent medical care
–well-funded public services, including a reliable public transit system
–friendly, down-to-earth, pragmatic people who are neither overly nosy or socially distant
–plenty of liberals, if you’re into that sort of thing
–a refreshing amount of ethnic diversity
–easy access to New York or Philly
I currently live on the ‘‘New York’’ end (in New Brunswick, it’s about an hour into NY Penn), but in a month I’m moving to South Jersey. While Camden is admittedly terrifying, just across the river there are some absolutely beautiful, safe, well-kept towns… I’ll be living in Maple Shade which is one of them. Their town motto, emblazoned on a wood-blasted sign, is, ‘‘Nice town, Friendly People.’’ That whole region is made of quiet, safe suburban towns with pretty landscaping and excellent school systems. On top of that, it’s fifteen minutes to the Ben Franklin bridge into Philadelphia.
Best as I can tell, New Jersey’s reputation comes from those who believe the sun rises and sets on New York and New York alone. I’d frankly rather live in Jersey.
I know that area pretty well, I use to live in Howell. I would be shocked if they had self serve gas. That law, love it or hate it is from the 40s and very definitely enforced still.
Welcome to New Jersey. Come for the jobs, stay for the beaches and access to NYC, Philly and the DC/Baltimore area.
It is true the Pulaski Skyway is truly one of the worst looking, worst driving, ugliest highways in the US. It also has the bizarre central drop down exit lanes.
About three weeks ago I was driving up to Maple Shade (Laurel Lanes) and had to get from Rt. 73 N to Rt. 73 S. Here are the directions to make this U-turn (it requires taking 3 exits), but the first two attempts failed miserably as I would miss an exit. The third try almost failed as well when I missed the final exit, but due to some excellent directions from a passenger I managed to take some back streets and end up at our desired location, where we proceeded to bowl horribly.
Of course, that’s not always the case (not that you said it was). In my own case, NJ’s reputation (deserved, IMO) comes from my having lived there for about 20 years. With $DEITY’s good grace, I’ll never have to set foot in the state again…although that’s unlikely, as I have family there. But even so, I would choose (most of) NJ over NYC (assuming you meant NYC when saying “New York”).
Yes, at that spot, there is no good way to do this. The confluence of Rt. 73, Rt. 38 and Kings Highway is a confusing mess of ramps. And God forbid you have to find anything on Old Kings Highway!
When olivesmarch4th moves to Maple Shade she’ll probably become all too familiar with it. It’s a nice little town though.
I just got back from vacationing in New Jersey and it wasn’t the first or last time I will do so.
My husbands old Navy buddy was born & raised in Rahway NJ and still lives there. It’s my absolute number one choice when we take a trip. A twenty minute train trip and you’re in Manhattan. A one hour drive west and we’re at their cabin in the Pocono’s. An hour drive south and we’re at the seaside on the boardwalk.
I love how it’s like visiting another planet compared to my simple slow paced midwestern life. I can’t imagine waking up every day and having all those choices of where to go or what to do.
Yes I saw the refineries, the turnpike, Pulaski Skyway and many other ugly sites, but name a state who doesn’t have it’s share of great vs. not-so-great areas.
Bwuh? Newark is a hellish pit? You must be talking about Newark, Delaware or something. Newark, NJ may have a horrible reputation and more than its fair share of problems, but it is also a wonderful city that’s just chock-full of beautiful places and really interesting and fun things to do. And I’m not talking about any of the new stuff like NJPAC or the Prudential Center. I’m talking about stuff that’s been there all along.
I hereby volunteer to do a Tour de Newark and prove to you (and anybody else who may be interested) that Newark is anything but a hellish pit.
But thanks for that lovely list of things that are great about New Jersey. I heartily agree on all points. Well, except for the “reliable” part of the public transportation. You’re sitting pretty on the Northeast Corridor line. If you lived on the Raritan Valley line, you’d be singing a different tune.
But hey, at least we have trains. I could even take the train to work if it was absolutely necessary. It would be a royal pain in the ass and I’ve have to switch at least 2 times, but I could do it if I had to.
Aaauuuggghhh…the center exits!! I had put those out of my mind. :: shudder ::
My mom, who lives on Long Island and has a bit of anxiety problem, thinks the Cross Bronx would be the worst possible place on earth to have a breakdown or flat. She worries so much whenever I drive on it. I don’t have the heart to tell her about the Pulaski Skyway. She’d probably go catatonic or something. At least the Cross Bronx has some sort of shoulder. The Pulaski Skyway…look, just promise me you won’t tell my mom about it, okay?
Yeah, it is pretty great. Unfortuately, the answer usually is “go to work.” (I live maybe 5-6 miles from Rahway, btw.)
It looks like the chief engineer asked about getting a roundabout and his assistant thought he said “roustabout” and got drunk before drawing up the plans.
Well sure you go to work as needed, but our friends out there spend most weekends at the cabin or the seashore. We may have cabins in Indiana, but a weekend at the ocean or rambling around Manhattan is out of the question
Oh and I might add, having a 70 mile round trip commute every day I would LOVE to have a train system available
As much as I don’t like to admit it, Newark Delaware is my hometown. It is an entire order of magnitude better than Newark, NJ. I’m not fond of NJ at all I’ll admit, and i’ll refrain from going into in order to avoid bursting this thread into flames. But seriously…Newark, NJ can’t even come close to being as nice as Newark, DE.
IU always have to say “Newark, Delaware” when people ask where I’m from. If I just say “Newark” they assume I’m from New Jersey. Even though in NJ they pronounce it “Newerk”, but in Delaware in is pronounced “New-Ark”.
Thoughts on New Jersey: [ul][li]Wierdest recruiting call was from a farm equipment dealer looking for a UNIX admin, constantly telling me how rural it was (I don’t do well in rural areas)[/li][li]Wierdest dining experince: Needed to grab lunch after getting a customer to fix an internal problem and having driven overnight from Boston to Trenton. We found this place, looked like an ordainary diner, had to be better than random chain crap, right? All of the exployees had a cigarette dangling from their lower lips, all of the women had beehives. None of this was theme based, just how they were. Food was…edible, if you’d been awake for 30 hours, and hadn’t eaten for 12.[/li][li]Best tomato-mozzeralla salad: Some place in Jeresy City. Nice town, really, and had some unexpectedly good food within walking distance of my hotel. We had pasta with vodka sauce one day for lunch too. Almost made up for spending a week locked in a datacenter 11 hours a day.[/li][li]Princeton. Still one of the most gorgeous towns I’ve ever been to. [/li][li]Niceness: I grew up in Minnesota, and, excluding Trenton, which is a hole, everyone I met in the state could out nice me :).[/ul][/li]
Overall impression: Burn Trenton, and you’d have a state that’s just about as good as MA.
Holy crap. My big secret, I thought I was so special back around 88-92. Damned internet. If the wind blows just right you can smell the crayon factory in Easton while you’re crossing.
Lived in Stroudsburg PA + friends in Hackettstown NJ + constantly broke = Rt. 46. Hot Dog Johnny’s was our marker for the half way point. A lot more fun than Rt. 80.
My Easton anecdote: You think you’re right here on the river how different can it be? I ordered an egg cream at a diner in downtown Easton and they actually put an egg in it. I shit you not.
For those of you who say you don’t have an accent I hate to break it to you but you probably do. Especially if you’re from the north. This might be fading with time but if you were born in NJ over 30 years ago you probably still have it a little bit. I still pick on my wife (born on Manhattan at the New York Infirmary, raised in Hackettstown) whenever she says the word coffee. We’ve been mid westerners for over 15 years but she still has the accent. People from NJ tend to talk louder than folks in other parts of the country as well. I think it’s cute how when my wife is talking to her family on the phone or one of our acquaintances from NJ the volume creeps up.
I think a lot of the ribbing NJ gets is caused by its misguided efforts to hold its own against NYC many years ago. I remember claims that the statue of liberty was actually in NJ, X number of NYC workers lived in NJ, etc. Anyone else remember Gov. Kean “New Jersey and you, puwfect together”
“Darleen, I thought you said that the plans for the Broad St. intersection had been picked up?”
“Right, they came by and grabbed them while you were at lunch.”
“Then why are they still here? Wait, did they take papers that were on top of the file cabinet?”
“. . . Yeah.”
“Darleen! Those were the joke plans I was going to show at the Christmas party!”
“Oh. Wow.”
“Ok, this is alright. Maybe no one will notice. . .”
Oh god, tomatoes. Had to mention tomatoes, didn’t you?
Those tomatoes you get at the produce stands just along the side of the highway. We’d stop all the time as a kid, coming back either from Medford or the shore (Sea Isle City, usually). You pull over and you buy some tomatoes, nice big ones, and they are the most perfectly red and ripe and delicious tomatoes in the world. And while you’re there you pick up some blueberries (which are the biggest, ripest, bluest blueberries) and some corn and maybe some peaches, and then you go home and fire up the grill, and eat burgers with the best damn corn on the cob in the world and watch the fireflies, and then there’s blueberry pie of course…
Man. I really have no desire to live in NJ again, but it really does have it’s charms. (And now I really want some blueberries, but goddamn are they expensive - and mediocre - out here.)
And no matter how hard other places try, New Jersey diners will always reign supreme. If it’s a good place you can go out with friends and between you get waffles, meatloaf, and something Greek* - plus a bottomless cup of incredibly strong coffee, of course - served to you at 2 AM by a woman straight from the year 1982. The decor of the diner will predate that and ‘feel’ it, even if the place just opened up.
*I have no idea why, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a diner that doesn’t have Greek food on their menu.
(I live maybe 5-6 miles from Rahway, btw.)
