6-minute read

• New Jersey’s identity has long been split by its proximity to New York City and Philadelphia.
• The state’s role as a “transitory state” dates back to the Revolutionary War era.
• New Jersey’s diverse regions and cultures make it difficult to define by a single stereotype.

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.

3-minute read

• A parade of tall ships will enter New York Harbor to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
• New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill welcomed the ships and their captains at Sandy Hook before they departed for New York.

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.

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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.

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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

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.  

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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.