In-a-New-Jersey-State-of-Mind

In a New Jersey State of Mind

In one of my pathetic attempts to clean up and get organized I came across some old newspaper articles and saw in the Wall Street Journal something about the state image battle faced at the time by New Jer'sey's Director of Travel and Tourism. It seems a Letterman show-sponsored billboard had made this announcement to highway motorists: "New Jersey is Closed."

So I wondered. Why would denizens of the great New York City, so sophisticated and cultivated (one assumes), feel a need to humble New Jersey? One notes that Connecticut isn't made the butt of jokes, even though it is now full of towns that, economically speaking, used to exist. But there is a difference. Except as a relatively hilly Westchester that happens to be across a state line, Connecticut doesn't do much for New York City. New Jersey does, and therein lies the clue to orgins of abuse by an admittedly awesome city with a historical difficulty countenancing that other places might possess something besides the sadness of not being New York. New Yorkers are only manifesting the human nature to resent something upon which one is dependent ("my boss is a jerk" would be a more universal example of this tendency).

Everybody knows that New York is one of the few states whose annihilation would be crippling to the rest of the country. Unfortunately for New York's ego, so is New Jersey. Consider the city of Bayonne, terminus of pipelines originating in Texas and refiner of more than enough oil to heat millions of homes and power millions of the country's cars. This paradise of Jersey industrial poison could certainly be labeled an epitome of the nation's armpit, but to what sovereign study in superiority does Bayonne Bridge connect? New York City, whose glittering noctural panorama would appear to derive from some energy sources other than Manhattan magic. How about those better known links between the Big Apple and the lowly Garden State -- the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and George Washington Bridge. "Closing" New Jersey would be quite a stunt.

Speaking of getting places, the prohibition on pumping one's own gas in New Jersey endears the state to my heart and caters to my feminine preference for the aroma of hand cream over gasoline on my person. Letterman may not have appreciated the nicety of real grease monkeys (a mere memory, if that, in most states) unless he pumps his own gas, which is unlikely. I always used to make a point of gassing up in New Jersey on my trips between Washington, DC, and Westchester. Until I switched to the Garden State Parkway in Woodbridge, I used that pewy Jersey Turnpike, which stinks about as much as highways do anywhere else.

What more does New York need New Jersey for? Well, the Meadowlands managed to continue giving a home to the "New York" Giants and Jets without the field getting too fogged over by New Jersey hairspray. No doubt an attempt was made to house the gridiron greats in New York itself, but the thought of doing so in the South Bronx or Lower East Side gave people pause. Upstate? Maybe the prisons were unwilling to merge in order to make room for Giants Stadium. Major League Soccer calls its MetroStars "NY/NJ" but they play, of course, in New Jersey.

How about the New York Shore? 60 miles of great beach and a host of other oceanside day and night attractions. Ah, but I have such trouble with names. It's the New Jersey Shore, isn't it. Perhaps together with rolling farmland still existant and viewable for many miles along Route 78, the Jersey Shore inspired the state's name. Jersey (for the benefit of Americans whose minimal prowess in geography is exposed in those embarrassing magazine surveys that place America below every European country bigger than Liechtenstein) is an island in the English Channel. A supplier of fruits and vegetables to mother country Britain, it also has long been a coastal vacation playground for nearby non-Jerseyans. Any parallels here?

If the state governor wishes to add his own spin to the old New Jersey tourism slogan, "New Jersey and You: Perfect Together," allow me to suggest "New Jersey and Ethan Allen: Perfect Together." Why him? He was the Revolutionary War hero whose Green Mountain Boys saved Vermont from becoming part of New York.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I wrote most of this piece years ago and submitted it to some NJ papers. Since I never heard anything from them, I trust I am safe in assuming that it has never appeared anywhere but this site.)