Hall adjusting to Jersey

[DevsMan84]

35 minutes ago, Devils Pride 26 said:

Totally disagree. You can't harp on the culture of Monmouth County and then say with a straight face Bloomfield and Washington township in Warren country have the same culture. NW Jersey is more "southern" than South Jersey for crying out loud.

No it's not.  NW jersey is like West Virginia and South Jersey (especially around Salem County) is like Alabama.  Monmouth county is like Virginia.  A nice mix of people and places, but still a "southern" county:)

[Chuck the Duck]

There is a central Jersey.  I always considered it's geography being the approximate area between Rt. 78 and Rt. 195.  Monmouth and Ocean County are the outliers there, as they technically would be considered south jersey but more identify with central.  However, the shore areas basically become north jersey from the end of June through labor day every year.

[DevsMan84]

1 hour ago, Chuck the Duck said:

There is a central Jersey.  I always considered it's geography being the approximate area between Rt. 78 and Rt. 195.  Monmouth and Ocean County are the outliers there, as they technically would be considered south jersey but more identify with central.  However, the shore areas basically become north jersey from the end of June through labor day every year.

So what do people in Asbury Park have in common with those in Bridgewater?

[pattyelias]

15 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

So what do people in Asbury Park have in common with those in Bridgewater?

Nothing.   Asbury English and Bridgewater English are mutually unintelligible.   I'm pretty sure people from Monmouth eat their children and worship Baal.

[pattyelias]

2 hours ago, DevsMan84 said:

Geographic location and culture puts it North.  So since they are Flyers country are you contending then Trenton is South Jersey?:)

No.   The fact that its a mixed bag makes it central Jersey.

[DevsMan84]

8 minutes ago, pattyelias said:

No.   The fact that its a mixed bag makes it central Jersey.

Or the fact that no one can properly articulate what makes Central NJ different than the rest of the state and that no two people can really agree where it is makes it an imaginary place.

[pattyelias]

1 hour ago, DevsMan84 said:

Or the fact that no one can properly articulate what makes Central NJ different than the rest of the state and that no two people can really agree where it is makes it an imaginary place.

I enjoy this argument so I'll continue to play along.   No two people can properly agree on where North Jersey ends and South Jersey starts.   You have your own definition but that just like you see from this thread, there is anything but universal agreement.

[Devils Pride 26]

4 hours ago, DevsMan84 said:

No it's not.  NW jersey is like West Virginia and South Jersey (especially around Salem County) is like Alabama.  Monmouth county is like Virginia.  A nice mix of people and places, but still a "southern" county:)

You know what, I disagree with you and still think you're wrong about there being no central Jersey but I do enjoy the  comparison to Virginia and Alabama. First time I've come across someone making the comparison based on varying degrees of "southerness". 

[pattyelias]

1 hour ago, Devils Pride 26 said:

You know what, I disagree with you and still think you're wrong about there being no central Jersey but I do enjoy the  comparison to Virginia and Alabama. First time I've come across someone making the comparison based on varying degrees of "southerness". 

Monmouth County is filled with ex-New Yorkers.   I don't get the Virginia analogy.

[DevsMan84]

27 minutes ago, pattyelias said:

Monmouth County is filled with ex-New Yorkers.   I don't get the Virginia analogy.

So it's like Florida then?:)

[mfitz804]

If it's like Florida, then it's definitely South...

[Jerzey]

I was at a Jersey Mikes in downtown Orlando today and they had a Pork Roll, Egg, and Cheese sandwich on the menu. It was weird because I've never seen it on a menu anywhere outside of NJ and because I had to stop myself from telling them they should change it to Taylor, Egg, and Cheese if they wanted to really be authentic New Jersey. 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Jerzey

[mfitz804]

36 minutes ago, Jerzey said:

I was at a Jersey Mikes in downtown Orlando today and they had a Pork Roll, Egg, and Cheese sandwich on the menu. It was weird because I've never seen it on a menu anywhere outside of NJ and because I had to stop myself from telling them they should change it to Taylor, Egg, and Cheese if they wanted to really be authentic New Jersey. 

Well, that's the Jersey part of Jersey Mike's.

[point]

33 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

Well, that's the Jersey part of Jersey Mike's.

Pete Cancro, the guy behind Jersey Mikes, is from Point Pleasant Beach. I used to live a block from the original store.

[point]

As far as Central Jersey is concerned, it ain't what it used to be. I grew up in Jamesburg in the 50s and 60s. We lived around the block from my great grandmother, who got her house from her father. 

So I've sèen a lot of changes. Exit 8A used to be a potato farm.  Eastern Monmouth County was still truck farms, not mcmansions. I grew up in the Bruce Springsteen Central Jersey. My mother's uncle worked in the Freehold rug mill.

But things change, even as they remain the same. Sure, I went to  grammar school in South River which was Polish, there were Italian, Irish, Hungarian, German, and Dutch, and more churches in New Brunswick even then.

It wasn't  until I moved to Point Pleasant that I learned the difference between Hudson County accents and Essex County's. Then my Uncle Sam assigned me to an Army Reserve unit in Trenton. I discovered  the South Jersey accents. Even though the 609 area code was a mile from my home.

So, what does all this mean?  The rail lines, the Turnpike,  and Parkway have reshaped Central Jersey, but it has always been an eclectic mix of ethnicity, farmers and manufacturers. Oddly, it was home for many munitions factories. Construction at Middlesex County College still turns up munitions fron the former occupant, Raritan Arsenal.

So, Central Jersey has been a transition from the NYC sphere of influence to the Philadelphia sphere. Just don't tell anyone from Allentown (Monmouth) or New Egypt (Ocean ), They are at the shore.

I still get a kick out of driving route 27 from New Brunswick to Woodbridge. You go from still Jewish Highland Park (my father graduated from St Paul's grammar school there), to Korean to Updcalet Metuchen to Indian. Amazing!  Funny,  when I took the bus from Jamesburg to South River it was marked by smell. In Helmetta was the snuff mill, Spotswood had another factory, Anheuser Busch had a yeast plant in Old Bridge. You didn't need to look out the window, just take a breath.

Anyway Central Jersey does exist, not the Central Jersey I grew up in, but I still love it.

[AEWHistory]

On October 1, 2016 at 5:10 PM, WaffleFries said:

I'm sorry but its Pork Roll. Even Trenton, home of the pork roll, agrees.

Trenton Makes and the World Takes baby!!!!  Whooooo.....

so I'm guessing there's not a lot of kosher food at this festival?

[AEWHistory]

On October 4, 2016 at 10:49 PM, point said:

As far as Central Jersey is concerned, it ain't what it used to be. I grew up in Jamesburg in the 50s and 60s. We lived around the block from my great grandmother, who got her house from her father. 

So I've sèen a lot of changes. Exit 8A used to be a potato farm.  Eastern Monmouth County was still truck farms, not mcmansions. I grew up in the Bruce Springsteen Central Jersey. My mother's uncle worked in the Freehold rug mill.

But things change, even as they remain the same. Sure, I went to  grammar school in South River which was Polish, there were Italian, Irish, Hungarian, German, and Dutch, and more churches in New Brunswick even then.

It wasn't  until I moved to Point Pleasant that I learned the difference between Hudson County accents and Essex County's. Then my Uncle Sam assigned me to an Army Reserve unit in Trenton. I discovered  the South Jersey accents. Even though the 609 area code was a mile from my home.

So, what does all this mean?  The rail lines, the Turnpike,  and Parkway have reshaped Central Jersey, but it has always been an eclectic mix of ethnicity, farmers and manufacturers. Oddly, it was home for many munitions factories. Construction at Middlesex County College still turns up munitions fron the former occupant, Raritan Arsenal.

So, Central Jersey has been a transition from the NYC sphere of influence to the Philadelphia sphere. Just don't tell anyone from Allentown (Monmouth) or New Egypt (Ocean ), They are at the shore.

I still get a kick out of driving route 27 from New Brunswick to Woodbridge. You go from still Jewish Highland Park (my father graduated from St Paul's grammar school there), to Korean to Updcalet Metuchen to Indian. Amazing!  Funny,  when I took the bus from Jamesburg to South River it was marked by smell. In Helmetta was the snuff mill, Spotswood had another factory, Anheuser Busch had a yeast plant in Old Bridge. You didn't need to look out the window, just take a breath.

Anyway Central Jersey does exist, not the Central Jersey I grew up in, but I still love it.

I cannot agree with this more.  The Trenton I grew up with and loved is all but a memory.  The era of the great Chambersburg restaurants is over.  Almost all have moved out of Trenton save for a handful.  The remaining few are struggling and those that have fled are mostly pale imitations of their former selves.  Trenton once had some of the best pizza in the nation but now there is hardly a single pizza place inside the city limits and all the best have left.  Soon my wife and I will have to move because both of our kids have special needs for when they begin school and the Trenton school district cannot even begin to meet those needs.  I hate leaving, but I cannot afford to stay.  If things continue this way we will be reduced to being a glorified ghetto in short order. The sad part is that Trenton's position between NY and Philadelphia makes it a great location to live, do business, etc, but the city govt has done a poor job exploiting what resources we have and has lost many of the assets we once possessed.

I dare say, however, that this is typical of NJ.  As much as I love this state, we have mismanaged our cities for decades and it is biting us in the arse.  But that's just my $.02.

oh, we call it "pork roll" here.  Never heard anyone say anything else.

[AEWHistory]

On October 4, 2016 at 9:58 AM, DevsMan84 said:

No it's not.  NW jersey is like West Virginia and South Jersey (especially around Salem County) is like Alabama.  Monmouth county is like Virginia.  A nice mix of people and places, but still a "southern" county:)

I lived in Salem County for 2 years and I totally agree; it is just like Alabama.  People forget that Salem is below the Mason-Dixon Line (just a wee bit)c so it is theoretically "southern".  I never saw so much nothing in NJ as when I lived in Salem and I literally sang out of sheer joy when my car crossed the county line leaving Salem for the last time.  You could say I didn't much care for the place.

[Derlique]

7 hours ago, AEWHistory said:

I lived in Salem County for 2 years and I totally agree; it is just like Alabama.  People forget that Salem is below the Mason-Dixon Line (just a wee bit)c so it is theoretically "southern".  I never saw so much nothing in NJ as when I lived in Salem and I literally sang out of sheer joy when my car crossed the county line leaving Salem for the last time.  You could say I didn't much care for the place.

Once you get south of Deptford on 295 it has that Southern feeling

[thecoffeecake]

On 10/03/2016 at 9:48 AM, DevsMan84 said:

Central Jersey doesn't exist.  It is made up by people living in the northern reaches of South Jersey who cannot live with the fact that they still live in South Jersey.

We disagree constantly, but this really takes it I think. You are objectively wrong.

Let me start by saying people from North Jersey don't get to tell people who identify as being from Central Jersey that Central Jersey doesn't exist. If locals identify it as a certain place, that place exists. End of story.

I think New Jersey is so diverse that trying to compartmentalize it into the traditional thirds is incredibly difficult. Coming from Ocean County, people generally identified themselves as being from Central Jersey or the Shore, but no matter how you see the state Ocean County is definitely a transitional area. We all considered the town south of us (Bayville/Berkeley Township) to be South Jersey. There is a definite culture shift when you go around the Toms River and down Route 9. Push past Lacey, Barnegat, and Manahawkin into places like Eagleswood and Bass River, you don't find stronger country culture anywhere, forget just New Jersey.

I've always felt the heart of Central Jersey to be Monmouth County/New Brunswick/Princeton, and I don't really identify with that culture necessarily, at least in a narrow sense. I've always thought of myself as being from the Shore, but that doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. When I worked in the seafood industry in the most traditional "Shore" capacity, others I worked with or for would often say such outrageously racist things that I'd be speechless. There wasn't a negligible amount of racism on the side of town I grew up on.  The point there is that I might have more in common with someone from the other side of the country, but that doesn't define the geography you identify as coming from. Someone from Deptford might have more in common with someone from Montvale than say Shamong, but Deptford and Shamong are pretty much indesputably South Jersey.

I love this kind of thing and can and do go on for literally days, so I'll stop there for now before I get too far ahead of myself.

[DevsMan84]

5 minutes ago, thecoffeecake said:

We disagree constantly, but this really takes it I think. You are objectively wrong.

Let me start by saying people from North Jersey don't get to tell people who identify as being from Central Jersey that Central Jersey doesn't exist. If locals identify it as a certain place, that place exists. End of story.

I think New Jersey is so diverse that trying to compartmentalize it into the traditional thirds is incredibly difficult. Coming from Ocean County, people generally identified themselves as being from Central Jersey or the Shore, but no matter how you see the state Ocean County is definitely a transitional area. We all considered the town south of us (Bayville/Berkeley Township) to be South Jersey. There is a definite culture shift when you go around the Toms River and down Route 9. Push past Lacey, Barnegat, and Manahawkin into places like Eagleswood and Bass River, you don't find stronger country culture anywhere, forget just New Jersey.

I've always felt the heart of Central Jersey to be Monmouth County/New Brunswick/Princeton, and I don't really identify with that culture necessarily, at least in a narrow sense. I've always thought of myself as being from the Shore, but that doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. When I worked in the seafood industry in the most traditional "Shore" capacity, others I worked with or for would often say such outrageously racist things that I'd be speechless. There wasn't a negligible amount of racism on the side of town I grew up on.  The point there is that I might have more in common with someone from the other side of the country, but that doesn't define the geography you identify as coming from. Someone from Deptford might have more in common with someone from Montvale than say Shamong, but Deptford and Shamong are pretty much indesputably South Jersey.

I love this kind of thing and can and do go on for literally days, so I'll stop there for now before I get too far ahead of myself.

That's not how the world works though.  When you ask two people who claim they are from Central Jersey where Central Jersey is and they cannot agree where it begins and ends, then that is a problem.  A place that is "kind-of, somewhere around here" doesn't cut it.  Also using your logic I could make up whatever I want as my location but as long as I say that is where I am from it exists?  Alright, I am from Blisstonia then.  It exists, just very small and hard to find:)

[pattyelias]

3 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

That's not how the world works though.  When you ask two people who claim they are from Central Jersey where Central Jersey is and they cannot agree where it begins and ends, then that is a problem.  A place that is "kind-of, somewhere around here" doesn't cut it.  Also using your logic I could make up whatever I want as my location but as long as I say that is where I am from it exists?  Alright, I am from Blisstonia then.  It exists, just very small and hard to find:)

According to your logic, North and South Jersey don't exist.

[thecoffeecake]

8 hours ago, AEWHistory said:

I cannot agree with this more.  The Trenton I grew up with and loved is all but a memory.  The era of the great Chambersburg restaurants is over.  Almost all have moved out of Trenton save for a handful.  The remaining few are struggling and those that have fled are mostly pale imitations of their former selves.  Trenton once had some of the best pizza in the nation but now there is hardly a single pizza place inside the city limits and all the best have left.  Soon my wife and I will have to move because both of our kids have special needs for when they begin school and the Trenton school district cannot even begin to meet those needs.  I hate leaving, but I cannot afford to stay.  If things continue this way we will be reduced to being a glorified ghetto in short order. The sad part is that Trenton's position between NY and Philadelphia makes it a great location to live, do business, etc, but the city govt has done a poor job exploiting what resources we have and has lost many of the assets we once possessed.

I dare say, however, that this is typical of NJ.  As much as I love this state, we have mismanaged our cities for decades and it is biting us in the arse.  But that's just my $.02.

oh, we call it "pork roll" here.  Never heard anyone say anything else.

You are absolutely right about the fact that we've mismanaged our cities. And I don't want to say it is by design, but our state and county governments aren't blind to the things that have helped bring other Rust Belt cities back from the dead. I think the primary problem is that suburbanization, what really put our cities on the track to where they ended up by the time Reagan finally gutted them altogether, is what made New Jersey a prosperous state. Democrat or Republican, diverting funding to our inner cities would be unpopular. Camden, Newark, Atlantic City, and Trenton were the life blood of this state before World War II. There are definitely major challenges in the prospect of revitalizing these towns (it's hard to attract millennials who are going back to the city with Philadelphia and New York in such proximity), but the state has to do WAY more. It's not that the Christie administration would have any interest in that, and he's been around for much of the urban boom. I think the hope from here is that there's still time to capture some of that momentum when policies shift at the state level.

[thecoffeecake]

12 minutes ago, DevsMan84 said:

That's not how the world works though.  When you ask two people who claim they are from Central Jersey where Central Jersey is and they cannot agree where it begins and ends, then that is a problem.  A place that is "kind-of, somewhere around here" doesn't cut it.  Also using your logic I could make up whatever I want as my location but as long as I say that is where I am from it exists?  Alright, I am from Blisstonia then.  It exists, just very small and hard to find:)

People don't agree about the exact existence of almost anywhere. The US and Canada don't agree where either of their countries begin and end, I suppose they don't exist.

[DevsMan84]

6 minutes ago, thecoffeecake said:

People don't agree about the exact existence of almost anywhere. The US and Canada don't agree where either of their countries begin and end, I suppose they don't exist.

Are you seriously going to try to argue that point?  That is the most insanely idiotic thing I have read in some time.