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6-minute read
NJ has had an image problem for 250 years. We love it anyway
New Jersey has always had an image problem. Its residents have access to two world-class cities, mountains, beaches. But the punchlines remain.
New Jersey has always had an image problem.
The state was central to the nation’s founding. Its residents have access to two world-class cities, mountains, beaches, suburbs and farms. And yet, for outsiders, the punchlines often ring loudest.
The malls. The Turnpike. “What exit are you from?”
We know the jokes. The big hair, the attitudes and property taxes.
And yet we defend the Garden State.
“I can talk about my state, but you can’t,” said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University.
Its 2015 poll found more than 75% of New Jerseyans took pride in the state, even as 57% said New Jersey had a negative image.
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Residents polled most often pointed to location, convenience and overall quality of life as reasons New Jersey is a good place to live.
We have a complicated relationship with our state. We’re not blind to its problems, like the cost of living. But we also see its quality of life.
“New Jerseyans have such a wealth of pride,” Koning said. “We’re not afraid to say what we think is wrong with the state and say where we want to see the state improve — but I think we’re also the first ones to defend our state.”
That pride comes with an edge. Jokes about “The Sopranos” still land, but New Jerseyans get the last laugh.
“New Jersey is often a butt of jokes across the country, but I think the real joke is that people don’t get to experience the beauty that is New Jersey,” Koning said. “And I feel like New Jerseyans know that very well.”
That tension may be the best way to understand the state as America approaches its 250th anniversary of independence.
Would Founding Fathers recognize today’s New Jersey?
Would a New Jerseyan from 1776 recognize this place?
“In terms of technology, airplanes, cars, obviously there’s just so much that would be different,” said Maxine Lurie, professor emerita of history at Seton Hall University and chair of the New Jersey Historical Commission.
In the 18th century, a letter crossing the Atlantic could take months.
A person in 1776 might have thought of themselves as a New Jerseyan, but not in the modern sense. They were part of the New Jersey colony, and British subjects.
Local identity was common in the colonies, said Melissa Kozlowski, director of curatorial affairs at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University and director of public history.
“All of the colonies had a very unique identity in the colonial era,” Kozlowski said. “They didn’t feel as if they were one country. That’s why the revolution was such an audacious concept.”
For New Jersey, that local-first identity shows up everywhere today.
The state is built from smaller identities: towns, counties, regions. Whether someone faces New York or Philadelphia affects whether they say Taylor ham or pork roll and what they mean when they say “the city.”
North Jersey vs. South Jersey? Try East Jersey vs. West
That sets up a familiar debate: North Jersey versus South Jersey.
Long before North and South became the dividing line, there was East Jersey and West Jersey.
They were separate colonies before uniting in 1702. The dividing line ran diagonally across the state. People in West Jersey were closer to what we call South Jersey and looked toward Philadelphia. They read Philadelphia newspapers and had business and family connections in Pennsylvania. People in East Jersey looked toward New York.
“So as we look for television stations or for sports teams, we look in those two different directions. In a sense, they did then too,” Lurie said.
Being caught in the shadows of New York and Philadelphia can be a source of pride and irritation at the same time.
“We are caught between two of the most well-known cities in the world,” Koning said.
Rutgers-Eagleton’s polling grew partly out of that problem.
“The Rutgers-Eagleton Poll was meant to bring a voice to the people of New Jersey,” Koning said. “New Jersey feels this identity crisis that that voice often will get lost.”
Central Jersey? For real?
And what about Central Jersey? To northerners and southerners, its very existence is up for debate.
“As a Central Jersey girl, it definitely does exist,” said Koning, who grew up in the region.
Central Jersey generally includes places around Somerset, Middlesex and Mercer counties, with New Brunswick as a kind of middle point, she said. The area has “a little bit of everything,” while also sharing pieces of North Jersey, South Jersey and the Shore.
Identity crisis is nothing new for the Garden State. That nickname, by the way, is credited to Abraham Browning, who coined it in 1876, according to the state library. Browning had been the state attorney general from 1845 to 1850.
During the Revolution, New Jersey produced food both armies needed, and its position between two great cities made it attractive to the British, who — if they could have controlled it — would have divided the colonies, north and south.
They overran the state, but they couldn’t hold it, Lurie said.
British forces held New York for much of the war and they held Philadelphia for about a year. They held New Brunswick for seven months. But the state remained contested thanks to the toughness of New Jerseyans.
600 NJ battles and skirmishes during Revolution
Anytime British and Hessian forces moved into New Jersey, local militias attacked them as they searched for food.
“They couldn’t hold on to it because they were just being picked off,” Lurie said.
There were more than 600 battles and skirmishes in New Jersey during the Revolution, Lurie said. “I’ve always told my students you would not want to have lived here during the Revolution.”
For everyday people, the Revolution was not only about ideals. It was about danger, inflation, raids and not knowing who might appear at the door.
“It affected almost everybody, everywhere in one way or another,” Lurie said.
Well before the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, New Jersey was already defined by movement. The roads were rougher, but rivers like the Raritan and Passaic helped move goods to hubs like New Brunswick and Newark.
By the 1830s, the Morris Canal helped moved goods east and west across the state between the Delaware River and New York Harbor — an early, watery version of Route 80.
The speed has changed since then. But the state’s role is familiar.
“We are a transitory state,” Koning said.
From taverns to roadside diners
Constant movement helps explain another piece of the identity. A New Jerseyan from 1776 wouldn’t know what to make of a modern roadside diner with its chrome and disco fries. But a roadside stop where people eat and talk would make sense.
“Taverns were really important because that’s where they got news, that’s where they talked to each other,” Lurie said.
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In a largely agricultural colony with few large buildings, taverns and churches served as gathering places. Elizabethtown, now Elizabeth, was the largest town in the colony, said Lurie. It had about 350 houses.
New Jerseyans still need places to sit and argue about what’s going on. While Lurie thinks the modern idea of an in-your-face New Jersey personality may be more of a 20th-century idea tied to media, Koning sees pushback as part of the culture.
New Jerseyans are fierce defenders of the state because it’s often underestimated.
“Our importance is so undervalued and so understated,” Koning said.
She pointed to New Jersey’s role in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, invention and entertainment as examples of how much the state has contributed.
New Jersey has produced some of the country’s most famous entertainers. But no single one of them can represent such a diverse state. Bruce Springsteen stands for working class culture. Jon Bon Jovi gives another impression and so did Frank Sinatra.
“You can say Bruce signifies and is emblematic of the hard-working lives within New Jersey and that working culture,” Koning said. “But then at the very same time, in contrast, if we look at Sinatra, this is the smoothness of city-adjacent living and Hoboken.”
No single New Jerseyan
Outsiders may picture “The Sopranos,” “Jersey Shore,” malls and big hair. But New Jersey is too varied to be captured that way, Koning said. “Our uniqueness becomes the stereotype.”
So there’s no single New Jerseyan.
“I think that’s the beauty of our state, much like it’s the beauty of our country and what our country should be about,” Koning said. “The thing that unifies us is our differences bring us together.”
The New Jerseyan of the Revolution would probably flee from the sound of the E Street Band, but they might recognize the geography, the waterways, the pull of the cities and that New Jersey is central to the national story — and still fighting to be seen clearly, and appreciated.
“The historical connections are all around us,” Koning said, “even when we don’t recognize it.”
3-minute read
See video of tall ships in Sandy Hook Bay for America’s 250th birthday
Tall ships anchor in Sandy Hook Bay before joining the Parade of Ships July 4 on the Hudson River in NYC, celebrating America’s 250th birthday.
As the nation celebrates its 250 anniversary, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill welcomed tall ships that will enter New York Harbor for an International Parade of Sail. This fleet of giant sailboats will sail around New York this weekend, including a pass by to salute the Statue of Liberty.
But before departing for New York, Sherrill greated the ships and their captains at Sandy Hook.
As temperatures approached 100 degrees, Sherrill was joined in admiring the flotialla by her husband, Jason Hedberg; Rep. Frank Pallone, the Democrat who represents the 9th Congressional District; and ship captains from 20 different countries.
Sherrill summons New Jersey’s role in the Revolution
Sherrill noted that Sandy Hook played a storied role in America’s fight for independence as it was the spot where then General George Washington’s army drove the British back for the final time.
“It’s this harbor that has been the gateway to America ever since. A beacon for freedom, welcoming immigrants, a channel for commerce, building a strong middle class, a stronghold for the military, defending our nation,” she said. “New Jersey has been the backdrop for it all.
The governor took pride in highlighted the cultural and technological advances that have taken place in the Garden State from the laser to the lightbulb and noted that the eyes of the world are on the state more than ever as the World Cup takes place in East Rutherford.
Sherrill a Navy veteran herself was in awe of the tall ships that came from “places as far away as Italy and India, Peru and Poland, Spain and Sweden” representing an “enduring symbol of friendship and cooperation.”
“It’s a joy to be here to celebrate with all of our allies and friends,” she said. “This week, millions will turn out again for another massive vote parade, united by a shared love of country, pride in our history and hope for the future.”
What did Rep. Frank Pallone say?
Pallone said that viewing the vessels reminded him of the voyages of discovery from centuries ago and how difficult it had to be especially without the navigational tools modern vessels use.
The congressman said that when speaking to the captain of a ship from India he found out they took more than 20 days to get here and that is a sign of the respect America’s allies and friends have for this event.
This isn’t the first time the region has played host to such a spectacle. There were similar sailing parades for the bicentennial in 1976, the centennial for the Statue of Liberty in 1986 and the millennium celebration in 2000.
Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com
Four-minute read
The legend of the Jersey Shore 4th of July lobster
William Sharp caught the mother of all New Jersey lobsters on July 4th, 2003.
While you’re sitting around the grill this July 4 holiday, raise a glass to William Sharp, who caught the mother of all New Jersey lobsters on this day in 2003.
He was diving on the sunken remains of the Almirante, an old banana boat that everyone knows as the “flour wreck,” which is a story unto itself. The 378-foot freighter belonged to the United Fruit Co. and was steaming from New York City to Colon, Panama, with a full cargo hold.
At 2 a.m., Sept. 6, 1918, a Navy tanker slammed into the ship in rough seas and heavy fog off the South Jersey coast. The Almirante went down in four minutes; five of its 105 crewmembers and passengers didn’t make it out and its entire cargo load was lost. For days after the wreck, a white frothy foam washed up onto the shore, leading people to falsely believe the ship was carrying flour to the banana plantations. Its manifold said it was carrying produce.
As if that’s not enough, during a submarine patrol in July 1942 in the early days of World War II, a blimp spotted the shape of the wreck from the air and reported it as a possible German U-boat. A Coast Guard cutter dropped five depth charges on the wreck, blowing it to pieces. It now lays in scattered pieces of steel in 70 feet of water, nine miles outside Absecon Inlet.
It was under one of those twisted, steel plates that Sharp, a retired Navy shipyard worker, had his standoff with what would turn out to be a New Jersey state record lobster.
“It’s so confusing down there. You can only see 15 feet, 30 feet in front of you on a good day,” said Sharp, who’s 71 today and living where he always has, on a lagoon in the Mystic Islands section of Little Egg Harbor, or “the end of the world,” as he puts it.
Sharp spotted the lobster in its hiding spot with a flashlight. But he was out of air. So he cut the rope to his dive reel, and tied it off at the lobster’s location. He then followed his anchor rope back to his boat called Kitchen Table, aptly named because that’s where his friends all sat around in the winter, planning their dives and fishing trips.
Forty minutes later and with a fresh tank of air, Sharp went back down, following the line on his dive reel. The lobster was still there. He turned the light off, because a bright light can spook the crustacean. Then he reached in with his hand and grabbed hold of the giant lobster, trying not to get pinched by one of its massive claws.
“The lobster will stand up in defense and just get itself stuck in there,” Sharp said. “You have to dig the sand out from under it.”
With the water cloudy with floating sand particles, Sharp won his tug of water and surfaced with the biggest lobster ever caught by a diver in New Jersey waters since the state started keeping records.
The lobster weighed 15 pounds, 3 ounces; it’s carapace, or body, measured 7½ inches. The state’s Fish & Wildlife sent a marine scientist to Scott’s Bait & Tackle, where the lobster was certified, to investigate. A month later, Sharp’s find was anointed king of the lobsters.
Ok, maybe not king of all the lobsters, but his catch became the official state record lobster landed by a recreational fisherman or diver. The record may never be broken either. New Jersey’s Fish & Wildlife retired the lobster category because lobsters that size are illegal to catch recreationally these days. The carapace can’t be bigger than 5¼ inches.
While Sharp’s 15 pounder is the biggest ever recorded by the state for a diver, American lobsters can get bigger, though it’s not common. The largest American lobster was 44 pounds and captured off Nova Scotia in 1977. There is also a Maine legend of a 51.5-pound lobster caught in 1926, but the mount was lost after it got smashed during transportation.
There are New Jersey divers too, that have claimed bigger lobsters, but they just never got them certified. Retired diver Mike Schwartz of Millville said the late Tom Conley caught a 20.4-pound lobster on the wreck Morand, which he said is 30 miles in the ocean from Cape May.
The year was 2001. Schwartz and Conley were diving off of the late Capt. Sam Still’s boat Samar III. Schwartz, who is 77 today, said it never dawned on them to certify the lobster for a record.
“We caught so many big lobsters back then, I don’t think we even thought about records,” Schwartz said.
As far as the fate of the Sharp’s lobster goes, he ate it. But it was too big to cook all at once. It took him and a friend a week to finish it off.
“I didn’t have a pot big enough. I had to eat it one claw at a time. I saved the parts,” Sharp said.
He had the lobster’s carapace, head and claws mounted. He keeps it on shelf with other nautical items. It’s red color long faded out, the lobster mount is now beige.
When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com.
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