How did WCBS salute New Jersey in 1981?
With about ten seconds of film - a plane landing at Newark Airport, what we think may be the State House in Trenton, and a highway bridge!
Yeah, that really sums up New Jersey!
We heard Living on the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take On the Garden State being talked about on WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show last summer and finally picked up a copy. It is a collection of essays about New Jersey. Instead of chapters, there are exits. You should really give the show a listen to get an idea about the book.
There are some omissions of locales, and that is actually mentioned in the introduction, but it is a quick read and is going to have us looking for the other works of these New Jersey writers.
We got this when we were a little kid and have hung onto it ever since. It is a General Electric manual for of all things New Jersey Department of Transportation trains. It is from the 1970s and is filled with all that great sort of 1960s-1970s industrial typography, plus it has the Star Trek like NJDOT logo on the front.
Hoboken PATH, 1998
New Jersey Transit Northeast Corridor Line timetable
Maple Shade, New Jersey
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, No I don’t talk that way
I watched too much TV, When I was young
I’m from New Jersey, My mom’s Italian
I’ve read those mafia books, We don’t belong
There are girls from New Jersey, Who have that great big hair
They’re found in shopping malls, I will take you there
I’m from New Jersey, It’s not like Texas
There is no mystery, I can’t pretend
I’m from New Jersey, It’s like Ohio
But even more so, Imagine that
I know which exit. And where I’m bound
The tolls on the parkway, They will slow you down
New Jersey people, They will suprise you
Cause they’re not expected, To do too much
They will try harder, They may go further
Cause they never think. That they are good enough
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.