Greatest State Ever

This sign in Hoboken has always struck us as a bit odd. You would have expected them to have at least matched the font.

New Jersey Transit Northeast Corridor Line timetable

Maple Shade, New Jersey

On the other side of the Assunpink Creek from downtown Trenton is a surprising site, a bit of a gentrified residential area reminiscent of Georgetown in Washington, D. C. The area, known as Mill Hill, has a history stretching back to colonial times complete with an eponymous mill.

It grew into a residential area by the late 1900s and like many similar areas, it declined as industry faltered. Its gentrification stared in 1964 when then Mayor Arthur J. Holland moved his family in to the neighborhood. The area faltered by the 1980s and then a new bunch of pioneers moved in creating the mini-Georgetown like feel to the area.

We actually stumbled onto it today and were pleasantly surprised to find this unexpected gem in Trenton. Then again, New Jersey is full of things that will surprise you!

This very day one hundred years ago, the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, now the Port Authority Trans-Hudson or the PATH train, opened and linked New Jersey with Manhattan, which was only accessible via ferry - provided the weather was good. However, this story starts even before that.

Back in 1874 when the Hudson Tunnel Railroad Company started a tunnel for steam trains in Jersey City in the hopes of tunneling under the North River to Manhattan. They were not successful, experiencing deaths and tunnel blowouts which made them decide to abandon the project in 1882.

Eight years later, a group of British contractors tried their hand at it, but they ran into financial trouble. The project foundered until 1902 when William Gibbs McAdoo and Charles Jacobs started a company to finish the existing tunnel and create a second set of tunnels to go to Lower Manhattan. They were successful and in 1908 the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad was founded to run the trains linking the various New Jersey railroad terminals to New York City.

They were successful even after the Pennsylvania Railroad opened their own North River tunnels which allowed people to ride directly into Manhattan without transferring. However, by the 1950s, like all railroads, its fortunes were failing and there were financial problems.

There were calls for a government takeover, which were eventually heeded when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey took over the railroad on September 1, 1962. When they took it over the PA, literally overnight, obliterated almost every visible trace of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad.

In the book Gotham Turnstiles, author John Henderson remembers the Port Authority takeover:

… I rode the tubes on the way to work at about 10:00 PM on August 31, 1962 as a customer of the H&M. The next morning at about 8:00 AM I went home a rider on a PATH train and I couldn’t believe what happened. Between midnight and eight and the morning 90% of all reference to the H&M had been obliterated. All the signs on the stations, the cars and even the buttons and insignia on the uniforms had been altered to read PATH. The only thing they couldn’t yet change was the embossing on the columns. That had to be the most maniacal change of identity in the annals of railroading.

They weren’t totally successful, since you can find NYC Subway tile mosaics pointing to the H&M, the ocassional manhole cover with H&MRR on it, and of course the historic and abandoned powerhouse in Jersey City (right).

If you are lucky enough to read this on February 25, 2008 you can ride the PATH train for free today until 11 p.m.!

Disused factory, Harrison, Hudson County

Erie Lackawana sign, Hoboken Terminal, Hoboken, Hudson County

This happens almost every time it snows. Fox 5 seems to include school closings for places in New Jersey that are outside its viewing area. A year or two ago we saw closings for schools in Cape May County which is over 100 miles away from New York. The one pictured above isn’t so bad, since it was one of about three or four listings for Camden County. Given that Lindenwold is about 95 miles away from midtown Manhattan and in another television market it seems like they were either padding their school closing listings or have no idea where things are in New Jersey.

We should also mention that Fox, through some backroom dealings to get around little things like the law, owns the only VHF television station licensed to New Jersey - WWOR which is licensed to Secaucus in Hudson County and has upped their New Jersey coverage in a half arsed attempt at appeasement and stuck a picture of the George Washington Bridge on its website and subway ads.

Of the New York TV stations, WNBC, seems to have the best New Jersey coverage with two reporters on the New Jersey beat - Brian Thompson, and the great Pat Battle. They have actually broken some big New Jersey stories, they cover things other than fires or crime, plus their colleague Jonathan Dienst was the one who broke the Fort Dix plot story, despite it being in the back yard of the Philadelphia stations.

Still, getting shafted when it comes to important news coverage from most of the big TV stations is par for the course for viewers in the Garden State. We are guessing the Philadelphia stations are even worse, since they have some horrid unwatchable excuses for newscasts down there.

We have already mentioned some New Jersey music. First we mentioned the classic NJN station image song “Positively New Jersey”, then we mentioned in passing Uncle Floyd’s classic ode to New Jersey “Deep in the Heart of Jersey” - a song that brings a smile to almost everyone that hears it - and yesterday the lyric from the classic Paul Simon song America - Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike. They’ve all gone to look for America..

But where do you start when talking about music in New Jersey? Frank Sinatra? Bruce Springsteen? Count Basie? Paul Robeson? George Walker? Nelson Riddle? Jon Bon Jovi? Connie Francis? The Stone Pony? Princeton Record Exchange?

Not there. Given the all of the musical talent that the Garden State has produced, there is a great irony.

New Jersey doesn’t have a state song.

Thankfully one proposed song, which has a website which bespeaks the quality of the music, called “I’m From New Jersey” written by a “Red Mascara” in the 1960s has never gotten off the ground. Basically it is a 1960s ad jingle and lacks the staying power of the suspiciously similar sounding classic “Meet the Mets“.

It shouldn’t be confused with singer-songwriter and Newark native John Gorka’s “I’m From New Jersey” that would be perfect for a state song:
I’m from New Jersey, I don’t expect too much
If the world ended today, I would adjust

I’m from New Jersey, I don’t expect too much
If the world ended today, I would adjust
I would adjust, I would adjust

If that doesn’t sum up New Jersey, we don’t know what does. Well maybe if it mentioned the Turnpike. Nah.

We recently heard the song America written by Paul Simon being talked about on WNYC’s Soundcheck and we noticed a lyric from the forty year old Simon and Garfunkel song:

It struck us that you can really find a microcosm of America in the Garden State. Urban, rural, multi-ethnic, good government, bad government, safe places to live, dangerous places to live, farms, factories, suburbs, cities, cannolis, curries, and more.

So the lyrics are probably more apropos today than forty years ago, since you can just take the Turnpike and find America - good, bad, and ugly. It is one of the things that makes the Garden State great and of course not so great, but that is what makes it the Greatest State Ever.