History UsefulNotes / NewJersey

* '''[=ShopRite=]:''' A cooperative chain started in the late '40s, and who have since grown to encompass stores from as far north as Connecticut and Upstate New York, as far west as the Poconos, and as far south as Baltimore, though New Jersey is their headquarters and contains the largest amount of stores. Due to the aforementioned co-op structure, [=ShopRites=] tend to not look alike and can be tiny and old, or huge and new. A large number of them have Jewish owners and concomitantly large kosher-goods sections (up to and including full on-site kosher butcher's counters separate from the "standard" butcher and closed on Saturdays). They're fairly common and their famous for their twice-a-year ''Can Can'' sales (where all canned products are on sale).

* '''[=ShopRite=]:''' A cooperative chain started in the late '40s, and who have since grown to encompass stores from as far north as Connecticut and Upstate New York, as far west as the Poconos, and as far south as Baltimore, though New Jersey is their headquarters and contains the largest amount of stores. Due to the aforementioned co-op structure, [=ShopRites=] tend to not look alike and can be tiny and old, or huge and new. A large number of them have Jewish owners and concomitantly large kosher-goods sections. They're fairly common and their famous for their twice-a-year ''Can Can'' sales (where all canned products are on sale).

Each half of the state has their own funnily-named 7-Eleven equivalent. As a general rule, the north has [=QuickChek=] and the south has Wawa. The former is Jersey-born (with its first store in Dunellen and current HQ in Whitehouse Station); the latter began in Philadelphia's southwestern suburbs in Delaware County, PA,[[note]]Though interestingly, George Wood, who founded the Wawa Dairy Farm that later became the convenience store chain, was originally from New Jersey[[/note]] the immediate predecessor but quickly crossed the river and became deeply entrenched in South Jersey. One popular definition of Central Jersey is that it's the part of the state where the two stores compete, with the southernmost [=QuickCheks=] being in Toms River and Trenton and Wawas commonly found as far north as Woodbridge and Bridgewater (though isolated Wawas can be spotted all the way in Lodi and Parsippany). And if you can't find either of them, you'll go to a Krauszer's (a Middlesex County-based chain, but with stores from Trenton up through to Paterson), a Heritage's (a Gloucester County chain, with some stores in Camden, Salem, and Cumberland), a 7-Eleven (although compared to other places, they're somewhat uncommon), a local store/deli/bodega (particularly common in the cities; Newark and Jersey City particularly have a lot of them), or a gas station mini-mart (and again, depending on where you are, it might be an Amoco-turned-BP, or a Texaco-turned-Shell). Also, the Maryland-based Royal Farms has begun invading South Jersey, encroaching on Wawa's turf (attracting the fascination of NJ.com).\\

* Creator/MichaelCudlitz (born in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Long Island]], but grew up in Lakewood Township)

* Creator/TayeDiggs (born in Newark, but raised in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState Rochester, New York]])
* Creator/JohnDiMaggio (Morristown; later moved to [[UsefulNotes/{{California}} Los Angeles]])

* Creator/EthanHawke (born in [[UsefulNotes/{{Texas}} Austin]], but spent his teenage years in West Windsor Township)

* Creator/FrankieMuniz (Ridgewood, then Wood-Ridge, then moved to North Carolina at the age of eight)

* William J. Brennan, Jr.: Appointed by UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower even though he was a Democrat. Retired under UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush. Hyper-liberal Irish Catholic. Best friends with Thurgood Marshall. Bane of first-year law students across the country for his perpetual dissents on civil procedure. Newark born and bred. Still [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Philadelphia_v._New_Jersey refused to back New Jersey when it tried to do something about the stench]].

* Samuel Alito: Also a conservative[=/=]"originalist" Italian Catholic from Trenton (well, Hamilton Township, but who's counting?). He and Scalia are sometimes nicknamed "[[FanNickname Scalito]]", though Alito's shown a bit more of a libertarian streak on the bench (unsurprising for those who know about his support for constitutionally-based gay rights while at Princeton). Appointed by UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush.

* Music/FountainsOfWayne (bassist Adam Schlessinger is from Montclair; the band gets its name from a lawn ornament store in Wayne)

* Music/IceT (born in Newmark, but moved to UsefulNotes/{{California}} after his parents' deaths)

* Music/PaulSimon of Music/SimonAndGarfunkel (Born in Newark, but raised in New York City)

* Cory Booker (born in D.C., raised in Harrington Park; Mayor of Newark 2006-2013; U.S. Senator from N.J. 2013-present; running for President in 2020)

* Tom Kean, Jr. (born in Livingston, resides in Westfield). Son of the aforementioned Thomas Kean, he serves as the Senate Minority Leader.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Ivey Phil Ivey]] (born in Riverside, CA, but raised in Roselle)

* Cherry (Morristown)

This suburban trend has long colored New Jersey's politics. In TheSeventies and TheEighties, New Jersey was a solidly Republican state, with the large and growing numbers of suburbanites voting against the largely Democratic cities that they had moved out of. UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan won New Jersey by a greater margin than he had won nationally during both of his [[LandslideElection electoral landslides]], taking 60% of the vote in 1984. In TheNineties, though, the state began to swing to the left, the pivotal year being 1992 when New Jersey served as a key swing state that ultimately went to the Democrats. Much of this has been attributed to the rise of the fiscally moderate, socially liberal "New Democrats" ''a la'' UsefulNotes/BillClinton within the Democratic Party, and to the growing dominance of the Christian Right within the Republican Party; New Jersey's conservatives had long been of the more center-right, business-oriented, "Rockefeller Republican" variety rather than the "movement conservatism" of the post-Reagan Republican Party.[[note]]An early sign of this was in 1980, when independent candidate John B. Anderson, running as [[TakeAThirdOption a moderate alternative]] to both the unpopular UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and to the arch-conservative Reagan, won 7.9% of the vote in New Jersey, a fair bit more than the 6.6% he had won nationally. Today, this can be seen in the governorship of Chris Christie, who was in his time a leading moderate figure within the Republican Party, whose career was defined by compromise with the state's Democratic legislature (most observers regard instances of conflict between Christie and the Legislature to be essentially ego clashes with Democratic leadership, particularly Senate President Steve Sweeney; the only place observers saw the conflict as policy-based was over police pensions, and even Republican lawmakers opposed him on that). A good analogy to UsefulNotes/{{British politic|alSystem}}s would be that New Jersey would probably vote for the Lib Dems or New Labour if it were British.[[/note]] Today, New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold, especially in Presidential elections and in the "belt" running between UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, though the northwest and the Shore (outside Atlantic City and Asbury Park) vote reliably Republican, and the state overall is willing to elect center-right moderates as their governor (two recent examples being Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie--although Christie's name has become mud even in Republican circles on account of his hard fiscal line on police pensions, the abuse-of-office scandals associated with his 2013 reelection campaign, and his willingness to carry water for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump). Speaking of the Donald, New Jersey Republicans tend to look warily on him, tending to be moderate suburbanites who mostly care about tax rates and don’t really support his reactionary social cultural views (though the western areas of the state are filled with rednecks who definitely fit the Trump supporter stereotype). South Jersey Republicans generally like him better than their northern counterparts, but they also tend to be cautious towards him because of his numerous misadventures in the Atlantic City casino industry. Trump’s presidency proved to be a disaster for the New Jersey GOP, as all but one of their twelve congressional seats voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, and their Democratic senator Bob Menendez cruised towards re-election despite his own corruption scandals.\\

New Jersey is one of only two states (the other being [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest Oregon]]) where it is illegal to pump your own fuel at the gas station, having banned it in 1949 due to safety concerns and to protect jobs. While in most of the country, gas station attendants have been relegated to the realm of nostalgia, in Jersey full-service gas stations are still a fact of life. Most New Jerseyans take this as a point of pride, with bumper stickers bearing the above slogan being a common sight on women's cars. This can occasionally lead to snickers from New Jerseyans when movies and shows (such as the ''Film/FridayThe13th2009'' remake) portray characters from New Jersey pumping their own gas.

Very large tracts of New Jersey consist of [[{{Suburbia}} suburban development]]. For a state of nearly nine million people that stands as the most densely populated state in the nation, the fact that no one city holds more than 300,000 people, and only one city, Newark, has more than 250,000[[note]]Though Jersey City, with 247,000 people and rising, is closing in fast on becoming the second city on that list, and some estimates suggest that it already reached that threshold in 2011.[[/note]], is indicative of the state's patterns of development. It's not unrealistic to say that most of modern New Jersey is an entire state built out of {{suburbia}}.

In other words, New Jersey is home to the second-largest and third-densest city on the East Coast, it's just that it's divided into five counties and 141 separate municipalities... because Jersey likes "towns" and "local rule". This tradition goes back to the TheGayNineties, when the arrival of commuter rail led to the development of northern New Jersey's first suburbs, and conflict between new suburbanites and the "old guard" of farmers in the region (short version: the suburbanites wanted schools and infrastructure in their bedroom communities and local control over them, and the farmers didn't want to spend the tax dollars for it) led to the passage of new laws in 1894 that made it much easier for small communities to break away from townships and form "boroughs". Bergen County alone (where this trend was most concentrated) has seventy separate municipalities as a result of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boroughitis "boroughitis"]] that swept the state in 1894 and '95, and throughout the state, there exist many towns formed under the borough system that are completely surrounded by the townships they seceded from. This in turn made it hard for New Jersey's major urban centers to do what most other cities in the U.S. did: annex territory into the cities. This created problems for N.J.'s cities down the road (as it left them particularly vulnerable to white flight and other problems that caused narrowing of the tax base). Add this to the fact that New Jersey municipalities are forbidden from raising revenue through any means other than property taxes[[note]]With one very narrow exception that allows Newark and ''maybe'' Jersey City to levy a payroll tax, but that's it[[/note]] and you have a recipe for urban decline.

Despite all that fancy chat, ''this'' is the stereotype that's most common among people who are actually from the state. New Jersey suburbs are often viewed as being particularly wealthy (four of the top 20 highest-median-income US counties are in New Jersey), possessing good schools (or at least, good-looking schools with impressive athletics departments), covered in [[TheMall shopping malls]], and being inhabited by mobsters (there's a reason ''Series/TheSopranos'' took place here). Also, there is an under-reported problem with gangs and drug dealing in schools, particularly in Bergen County. Make no mistake -- no matter what [[Film/TheViewAskewniverse Jay and Silent Bob]] may suggest, GangBangers and drug dealers are not to be scoffed at even if they're {{white|GangBangers}}.

This suburban trend has long colored New Jersey's politics. In TheSeventies and TheEighties, New Jersey was a solidly Republican state, with the large and growing numbers of suburbanites voting against the largely Democratic cities that they had moved out of. UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan won New Jersey by a greater margin than he had won nationally during both of his [[LandslideElection electoral landslides]], taking 60% of the vote in 1984. In TheNineties, though, the state began to swing to the left, the pivotal year being 1992 when New Jersey served as a key swing state that ultimately went to the Democrats. Much of this has been attributed to the rise of the fiscally moderate, socially liberal "New Democrats" ''a la'' UsefulNotes/BillClinton within the Democratic Party, and to the growing dominance of the Christian Right within the Republican Party; New Jersey's conservatives had long been of the more center-right, business-oriented, "Rockefeller Republican" variety rather than the "movement conservatism" of the post-Reagan Republican Party.[[note]]An early sign of this was in 1980, when independent candidate John B. Anderson, running as [[TakeAThirdOption a moderate alternative]] to both the unpopular UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and to the arch-conservative Reagan, won 7.9% of the vote in New Jersey, a fair bit more than the 6.6% he had won nationally. Today, this can be seen in the governorship of Chris Christie, who was in his time a leading moderate figure within the Republican Party, whose career was defined by compromise with the state's Democratic legislature (most observers regard instances of conflict between Christie and the Legislature to be essentially ego clashes with Democratic leadership, particularly Senate President Steve Sweeney; the only place observers saw the conflict as policy-based was over police pensions, and even Republican lawmakers opposed him on that). A good analogy to UsefulNotes/{{British politic|alSystem}}s would be that New Jersey would probably vote for the Lib Dems or New Labour if it were British.[[/note]] Today, New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold, especially in Presidential elections and in the "belt" running between UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, though the northwest and the Shore (outside Atlantic City and Asbury Park) vote reliably Republican, and the state overall is willing to elect center-right moderates as their governor (two recent examples being Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie--although Christie's name has become mud even in Republican circles on account of his hard fiscal line on police pensions, the abuse-of-office scandals associated with his 2013 reelection campaign, and his willingness to carry water for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump). Speaking of the Donald, New Jersey Republicans tend to look warily on him, tending to be moderate suburbanites who mostly care about tax rates and don’t really support his reactionary social cultural views (though the western areas of the state are filled with rednecks who definitely fit the Trump supporter stereotype). South Jersey Republicans generally like him better than their northern counterparts, but they also tend to be cautious towards him because of his numerous misadventures in the Atlantic City casino industry. Trump’s presidency proved to be a disaster for the New Jersey GOP, as all but one of their twelve congressional seats voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, and their Democratic senator Bob Menendez cruised towards re-election despite his own corruption scandals.

The (in)famous "Jersey stench" has been [[http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-02-05/local/17916726_1_smell-new-jersey-turnpike-garbage-bags described]] by different people as smelling like burning rubber, rotten eggs, burnt coffee and "something that I don't know what it is, but it just stinks!" In reality, it isn't nearly as bad as New Yorkers like to pretend it is, especially after the Clean Air Act was passed and the capping of landfills became common practice. It's primarily found in one area of northeastern New Jersey where most of the state's industry is concentrated... which just so happens to be the part of the state that New Yorkers go through on their way in. It also doesn't help that [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts the Supreme Court]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Philadelphia_v._New_Jersey literally forbade New Jersey from doing anything about other states using it as a landfill]].[[note]]To add insult to injury, New Jersey's most prolific Supreme Court Justice and the only New Jerseyan on the Court at the time, Newarker William Brennan, was part of the majority. Ouch. The only two justices to oppose it? Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist--both from the Upper Midwest, funnily enough.[[/note]] West of the Watchung Mountains or south of Elizabeth, the only nasty thing you might smell on the road is dead skunk. Still, the smell of the Turnpike is well-known enough that an insurance company has launched a [[http://www.jerseydoesntstink.com/ "Jersey Doesn't Stink"]] campaign dedicated to combating negative stereotypes of the state.

At least one part of the stereotype is somewhat TruthInTelevision: New Jersey has the dubious distinction of being home to more Superfund sites (sites that are contaminated with radioactive or otherwise chemically toxic hazardous materials in need of cleanup) than any other state. Keep in mind that New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state by land area. The reason, basically, is that New Jersey is the state that has been heavily industrialized for the longest amount of time; being between New York and Philadelphia put it smack in the middle of a perfect corridor for rail transportation, plus there's the sea access up by Newark, and therefore factories and other industrial facilities--often very dirty ones--sprouted up in that line, and have been for nearly 200 years.

This leads to a famous joke:

Yes, diners. The Great American GreasySpoon is [[SeriousBusiness practically a religion]] in New Jersey. No, seriously, you go to eat at a diner "after church" on Sundays, even if you aren't religious (or even Christian) and for you "church" consists of "sleeping off a hangover." Each town--remember that business about New Jersey liking towns?--has at least one diner; in "large cities," it's every neighborhood, but that's the same idea. If you value your life (or at least your hearing or the absence of boots from your rectum) don't tell a native New Jerseyan that Denny's, IHOP, or (God forbid) Waffle House is a diner -- a diner must be a small, independent business, owned and operated by an immigrant, his son, his grandson, or his great-grandson.[[note]]Presumably in a little while we'll be adding in "great-great grandson" and so on, and of course daughters, granddaughters, great-grand-daughters, etc., also count, but you get the gist.[[/note]] Said immigrant is preferably Greek, although a Russian or an Ashkenazi Jew will do in a pinch. If the owner is Greek, there should be some element of Greek kitsch in the decor; all-out faux-marble columns and pediments aren't necessary, but at least put a meandering border or some olive branches somewhere. Furthermore, it must generally be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ready to serve customers whether they're heading to work or school in the morning, coming home from such in the late afternoon, or heading to and from the club late at night.[[note]]Short closing hours--closing from around midnight or 2:00 until 6AM--on weekdays are acceptable in some areas with lower population densities, like much of South Jersey.[[/note]]

The menu must be diverse. Classic Americana like burgers and fries are standard ([[http://bestfoodchallenges.com/clinton-station-diner-5-different-burger-challenges/ sometimes in epic proportions]]), as well as some dishes regarded as classic "diner food" (for instance, French onion soup is all but ubiquitous). Also critical are breakfast dishes like pancakes, waffles, French toast, bacon, and eggs, served at all hours of the day. Foods unique to Jersey diners include creamed chipped beef on toast and something including [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_roll pork roll]]. We should note here that pork roll may also be known as Taylor Ham after [[BrandNameTakeover one particular brand]] (specifically of the originators Taylor Provisions, of Trenton); generally speaking, "pork roll" is the term used in South Jersey, while North Jersey calls it Taylor Ham and Central Jersey is, as usual, a mixed bag.[[note]]In finer detail, Mercer County opts for "pork roll", possibly because virtually all the companies that make the stuff are based around Trenton, and there's a desire not to favor one side over the other. Most of Middlesex and Monmouth Counties also go for "pork roll," while Hunterdon and Somerset are split and Union is basically Taylor Ham territory.[[/note]] Finally, the place must serve some obscure ethnic food of whatever ethnicity the owner is; gyros and souvlaki are common at Greek-run diners, while matzo ball soup and bagels with cream cheese and lox are common at historically Jewish-run ones.

Each half of the state has their own funnily-named 7-Eleven equivalent. As a general rule, the north has [=QuickChek=] and the south has Wawa. The former is Jersey-born (with its first store in Dunellen and current HQ in Whitehouse Station); the latter began in Philadelphia's southwestern suburbs in Delaware County, PA,[[note]]Though interestingly, George Wood, who founded the Wawa Dairy Farm that later became the convenience store chain, was originally from New Jersey[[/note]] the immediate predecessor but quickly crossed the river and became deeply entrenched in South Jersey. One popular definition of Central Jersey is that it's the part of the state where the two stores compete, with the southernmost [=QuickCheks=] being in Toms River and Trenton and Wawas commonly found as far north as Woodbridge and Bridgewater (though isolated Wawas can be spotted all the way in Lodi and Parsippany). And if you can't find either of them, you'll go to a Krauszer's (a Middlesex County-based chain, but with stores from Trenton up through to Paterson), a Heritage's (a Gloucester County chain, with some stores in Camden, Salem, and Cumberland), a 7-Eleven (although compared to other places, they're somewhat uncommon), a local store/deli/bodega (particularly common in the cities; Newark and Jersey City particularly have a lot of them), or a gas station mini-mart (and again, depending on where you are, it might be an Amoco-turned-BP, or a Texaco-turned-Shell). Also, the Maryland-based Royal Farms has begun invading South Jersey, encroaching on Wawa's turf (attracting the fascination of NJ.com).

Also in play are various chains that target the affluent or organic crowds, including Kings, Whole Foods, and Wegmans (which originated in UsefulNotes/{{Rochester}}, NY, and have a massive following of loyal customers).

* William J. Brennan, Jr.: Appointed by UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower even though he was a Democrat. Retired under UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush. Hyper-liberal Irish Catholic. Best friends with Thurgood Marshall. Bane of first-year law students across the country for his perpetual dissents on civil procedure. Newark born and bred. Still refused to back New Jersey when it tried to do something about the stench.

** '''Jersey City:''' New Jersey's second-largest city (although some estimates suggest it could possibly overtake Newark as the largest city after the results of the 2020 census are in). The city is very, ''very'' [[UsefulNotes/MeltingPot ethnically diverse]], and hosts many ethnocultural parades and events. Consists largely of working-class neighborhoods, although the downtown/waterfront area has been gentrified into an affluent yuppie- and hipster-magnet in the past decade as Manhattan became too expensive (its location next to yuppie Hoboken furthers this stereotype), while the Greenville neighborhood could be best described as [[{{Gangsterland}} a chunk of Newark that broke off]]. The City is currently trying to figure out ways to encourage development outside the Waterfront, particularly in the Journal Square area (which is, at least until these plans are put in motion, roughly what NYC's Times Square was before Giuliani turned it into Disneyland), and while these plans are moving forward, they are meeting some unexpected problems (ranging from questioning of the City's priorities and methods to inquiries about whether the City's proposed policy for encouraging this development is legally OK under New Jersey's incredibly arcane laws regulating municipal government).\\

** '''Atlantic City:''' The East Coast's UsefulNotes/LasVegas. Atlantic City was recognized as a prime spot for a tourist town as early as the 1850s; the extension of the railroads from Philadelphia turned it into a playground for any Philadelphian who had even a little bit of disposable income. (British people: it may help to think of AC in this period as being rather like what [[UsefulNotes/HomeCounties Brighton]] was to London in the same period--the town by the sea easily accessible by rail from the metropolis on an estuary about 50 miles away.) By the turn of the 20th century, the rest of the East Coast had gotten in on the fun. The Miss America BeautyContest was held here from 1920 until 2005. AC was also a major hub of TheMafia during [[TheRoaringTwenties the Prohibition era]], as seen in ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire''. Like many old resort towns, it was gutted by the rise of the automobile, cheap air travel, and {{suburbia}}, a situation that came to a head in 1964 when it hosted the Democratic National Convention. While the convention was a success, the nation got to see just how rotten Atlantic City had become, with many of its once-renowned hotels being converted into cheap apartments and nursing homes in order to stay afloat. The New Jersey state government attempted to rectify this in 1976 by legalizing casino gambling in the city; while this has undoubtedly led to the restoration of the boardwalk and the seaside, the rest of the city continues to decay as it had before. Even then, the opening of competing casinos in Connecticut and Pennsylvania has begun to cut in on this; four out of the city's twelve casinos closed during 2014. On a lighter note, it's the birthplace of the sweet confection known as saltwater taffy. Locals here call tourists "shoobies".

[[caption-width-right:349:21 counties, three (no two!) regions, two toll roads, one heart]]

** '''Atlantic City:''' The East Coast's UsefulNotes/LasVegas. Atlantic City was recognized as a prime spot for a tourist town as early as the 1850s; the extension of the railroads from Philadelphia turned it into a playground for any Philadelphian who had even a little bit of disposable income. (British people: it may help to think of AC in this period as being rather like what [[UsefulNotes/HomeCounties Brighton]] was to London in the same period--the town by the sea easily accessible by rail from the metropolis on an estuary about 50 miles away.) By the turn of the 20th century, the rest of the East Coast had gotten in on the fun. The Miss America BeautyContest was held here from 1920 until 2005. AC was also a major hub of TheMafia during [[TheRoaringTwenties the Prohibition era]], as seen in ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire''. Like many old resort towns, it was gutted by the rise of the automobile, cheap air travel, and {{suburbia}}, a situation that came to a head in 1964 when it hosted the Democratic National Convention. While the convention was a success, the nation got to see just how rotten Atlantic City had become, with many of its once-renowned hotels being converted into cheap apartments and nursing homes in order to stay afloat. The New Jersey state government attempted to rectify this in 1976 by legalizing gambling in the city; while this has undoubtedly led to the restoration of the boardwalk and the seaside, the rest of the city continues to decay as it had before. Even then, the opening of competing casinos in Connecticut and Pennsylvania has begun to cut in on this; four out of the city's twelve casinos closed during 2014. On a lighter note, it's the birthplace of the sweet confection known as saltwater taffy. Locals here call tourists "shoobies".

** '''Jackson:''' Mainly famous for NJ (and the NYC metro area)'s premier theme park, Ride/SixFlags Great Adventure, which has set a few world records for tallest and longest coasters (most famously their ''Kingda Ka'' coaster), and has a wild animal preserve on the ground open for tourists. Also has your standard array of Six Flags stuff: DC Comics themed rides, Looney Tunes themed play area, Hurricane Harbor water park, etc. A famous bit of Jersey trivia holds that Jackson Township contains the geographic center of New Jersey, which is more or less true (there's some argument based on how you make your measurements, but every proposed center is, if not in Jackson Township, then very nearby).

[[AC:Jersey Girls Don't Pump Gas]]

[[AC:The White Picket Fence State]]

[[AC:It Doesn't Smell Like a Garden]]

[[AC:Diners]]

[[AC:New Jersey has a lot of unique, often weirdly-named chains of grocery and convenience stores]]

[[AC:New Jersey IS a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Mos Eisley]]

* [[Series/GoodTimes John Amos]] (born in Newark, raised in East Orange)
* [[Series/TheWalkingDead Emma Bell]] (Union Township)
* Creator/XanderBerkley (born in [[BigApplesauce Brooklyn]], but lived most of his life in Mendham Township)
* [[Film/AmericanPie Jason Biggs]] (Pompton Plains)

* [[Series/ThirdWatch Bobby Cannavale]] (Union City)

* [[Series/TheSopranos Vincent Curatola]] (Englewood)

* Creator/EmbethDavidtz (born in UsefulNotes/{{Indiana|polis}}, her family moved to Trenton until they relocated again when she was nine)

* [[Theatre/{{Rent}} Taye Diggs]] (born in Newark, but raised in [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkState Rochester, New York]])

* [[Film/MenInBlack Linda Fiorentino]] (born in UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, but raised in South Jersey)

* [[Series/TheSopranos James Gandolfini]] (born in Westwood, raised in Park Ridge)

* [[Series/ThirtyRock Jane Krakowski]] (Parsippany-Troy Hills)

* [[Series/{{House}} Robert Sean Leonard]] (born in Westwood, raised in Ridgewood)

* [[Film/TheViewAskewniverse Jason Mewes]] (Highlands)

* [[Film/AmericanPie Tara Reid]] (Wyckoff)

* [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Armin]] [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Shimer]][[WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy man]] (Lakewood)
* [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture Elisabeth Shue]] (born in Wilmington, Delaware, but raised in Bergen and Essex Counties)

* [[Series/TheDailyShow Jon Stewart]] (born in New York, but raised in Lawrenceville). For a long time, he amusingly lived in New York City while his protege Creator/StephenColbert, born in Washington, DC and raised in South Carolina, lived in Montclair. Colbert is still in Montclair, but Stewart has since moved back to Jersey, settling on a large property in Middletown (not far from his idol Bruce Springsteen's horse farm in Colts Neck).

* [[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros James Urbaniak]] (Bayonne)

* [[Series/TheSopranos Frank Vincent]]

* Creator/DanikaYarosh (Morristown; moved to [[UsefulNotes/{{California}} Los Angeles]] when she was twelve)

* Creator/ZachBraff and John C. [=McGinley=]]], who grew up in adjacent towns (Braff in South Orange, [=McGinley=] in Millburn)

* [[Series/RealTimeWithBillMaher Bill Maher]] (born in New York, but raised in River Vale and Montvale)

* Akon (born in St. Louis, Missouri, but raised in Union City, Newark and Jersey City)
* Blues Traveler (Princeton)

* Lesley Gore ("the sweetie pie from Tenafly"; born in Brooklyn, New York, but raised in Tenafly)

* Debbie Harry of Music/{{Blondie}} (born in Miami, Florida, but raised in Hawthorne; attended Centennial College in Hackettstown)

* Yo La Tengo (Hoboken)

* Creator/EthanHawke (born in [[EverythingIsBigInTexas Austin]], but spent his teenage years in West Windsor Township)

* [[Series/ThirtyRock Katrina Bowden]] (Wyckoff)

This suburban trend has long colored New Jersey's politics. In TheSeventies and TheEighties, New Jersey was a solidly Republican state, with the large and growing numbers of suburbanites voting against the largely Democratic cities that they had moved out of. UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan won New Jersey by a greater margin than he had won nationally during both of his [[LandslideElection electoral landslides]], taking 60% of the vote in 1984. In TheNineties, though, the state began to swing to the left, the pivotal year being 1992 when New Jersey served as a key swing state that ultimately went to the Democrats. Much of this has been attributed to the rise of the fiscally moderate, socially liberal "New Democrats" ''a la'' UsefulNotes/BillClinton within the Democratic Party, and to the growing dominance of the Christian Right within the Republican Party; New Jersey's conservatives had long been of the more center-right, business-oriented, "Rockefeller Republican" variety rather than the "movement conservatism" of the post-Reagan Republican Party.[[note]]An early sign of this was in 1980, when independent candidate John B. Anderson, running as [[TakeAThirdOption a moderate alternative]] to both the unpopular UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter and to the arch-conservative Reagan, won 7.9% of the vote in New Jersey, a fair bit more than the 6.6% he had won nationally. Today, this can be seen in the governorship of Chris Christie, who was in his time a leading moderate figure within the Republican Party, whose career was defined by compromise with the state's Democratic legislature (most observers regard instances of conflict between Christie and the Legislature to be essentially ego clashes with Democratic leadership, particularly Senate President Steve Sweeney; the only place observers saw the conflict as policy-based was over police pensions, and even Republican lawmakers opposed him on that). A good analogy to UsefulNotes/{{British politic|alSystem}}s would be that New Jersey would probably vote for the Lib Dems or New Labour if it were British.[[/note]] Today, New Jersey is a Democratic stronghold, especially in Presidential elections and in the "belt" running between UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}, though the northwest and the Shore (outside Atlantic City and Asbury Park) vote reliably Republican, and the state overall is willing to elect center-right moderates as their governor (two recent examples being Christine Todd Whitman and Chris Christie--although Christie's name has become mud even in Republican circles on account of his hard fiscal line on police pensions, the abuse-of-office scandals associated with his 2013 reelection campaign, and his willingness to carry water for UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump. Speaking of the Donald, New Jersey Republicans tend to look warily on him, tending to be moderate suburbanites who mostly care about tax rates and don’t really support his reactionary social cultural views (though the western areas of the state are filled with rednecks who definitely fit the Trump supporter stereotype). South Jersey Republicans generally like him better than their northern counterparts, but they also tend to be cautious towards him because of his numerous misadventures in the Atlantic City casino industry. Trump’s presidency proved to be a disaster for the New Jersey GOP, as all but one of their twelve congressional seats voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, and their Democratic senator Bob Menendez cruised towards re-election despite his own corruption scandals.

** '''Ocean Grove:''' Directly south of Asbury Park, Ocean Grove was developed as a religious seaside resort in 1869. By the early 20th century, Ocean Grove became known as the "Queen of Religious Resorts." The neighborhood is also known for its large quantities of Victorian architecture. The most famous landmark in Ocean Grove is the historic Great Auditorium. Built in 1894, it has become famous for hosting concerts from such acts as Music/RayCharles, Music/TonyBennett, and Music/TheBeachBoys. Although the town began to decline in the 1960s, Ocean Grove has recently had a resurgence due to the restoration of old hotels and rising property values, alongside an increasingly prominent gay community (we can only imagine that the founders of the resort are turning in their graves). In 1977 a Supreme Court case arose as to the constitutionality of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association acting as the local government as it is a religious group of the United Methodist Church and was preventing vehicles being driven and parked within Ocean Grove on Sundays. When it was revealed that you had to be a good and upstanding member of the UMC in order to be a voting member of the OGCMA, which was deemed unconstitutional, the Sunday blue law was no longer allowed to be enforced.[[https://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/supreme-court/1977/72-n-j-237-0.html]] Eventually Ocean Grove's municipal powers, police and court was dissolved and the area became an unincorporated community located within Neptune Township though the property, except for the streets, is still owned by the OGCMA. Locals here call tourists "bennies".

** '''Trenton''': As noted in other places, the state capital, and also the seat of Mercer County. Situated directly on the Delaware immediately across from Morrisville, Pennsylvania (making Trenton one of only two state capitals directly on a state border--the other is Carson City, Nevada, which borders California--and also one of the few cases where the city in New Jersey is bigger than the one outside it). Almost exactly halfway between New York and Philadelphia, it is a prime example of the confusion of Central Jersey, being one of the few places with essentially equal numbers of New York and Philadelphia sports fans (beware the day the Giants play the Eagles!). It's also a fine example of the New Jersey melting pot, with a large Black community, as well as many Hispanics (especially Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Guatemalans) and a sizeable community of Haitians (the courts even have a number of Haitian Creole interpreters on retainer), and although White flight hit the city hard, the White community remains sizeable (although a substantial number of those technically live in Hamilton Township even though they have Trenton addresses--Mercer County political geography is confusing even by New Jersey standards). It is also a prime example of the rise and fall of New Jersey industry; its position between NYC and Philly originally made it a prime location for manufacturing (the city's motto is still "Trenton Makes, the World Takes"), industry has declined substantially. State government is now the main industry, and keeps the city limping on life support. Unfortunately, towards the middle of the new tens the city suffered major urban decay and turned into one of the heroin capitals of the east coast (along with the Newark/Elizabeth city), giving the motto (Trenton makes, the World Takes) a whole new meaning with open air drug markets being disturbingly common. Drug addicts living in south or central Jersey venture here for their fix, resulting in an unfortunate bit of profiling on behalf of the police and locals where they assume any white teenager/young adult driving in the city (specifically Trenton, Ewing, the parts of Hamilton directly bordering them, and the highways coming into the city) is there to buy drugs, and as such are pulled over as a matter of course. A fun fact Trentonians like to talk about: Trenton was also capital of the US in November-December 1784.

* '''Central Jersey:''' To hear it from someone from the area, Central Jersey is a distinct region of the state consisting of the area drained by the Raritan River plus the area immediately around Trenton, covering area in Hunterdon, Mercer, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties, and occasionally Union and Ocean counties. To hear it from someone from North or South Jersey, Central Jersey is a nonexistent entity that is really an extension of whichever side of Jersey the speaker isn't from (e.g. North Jersey residents consider it part of South Jersey, while South Jersey residents consider it part of North Jersey and NEITHER side wants to take credit for Trenton), and its residents all have an inferiority complex. (A good rule of thumb is when someone from Jersey City tells you you're in South Jersey, and someone from Cherry Hill tells you you're in North Jersey, despite both times being in the same place, then you're in Central) The site of the state capital, Trenton, as well as suburban sprawl ballooning out from both New York and Philly. If a story requires that the characters consult a brainy professor, this scene will often either take place at [[UsefulNotes/IvyLeague Princeton]], or elsewhere with a professor who teaches there. If not Princeton, then the main campus of Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, will do in a pinch. (Never Rutgers Newark,[[note]]Unless it's a law professor; then your only options are Rutgers Law School--which has a campus in Newark and a campus in Camden but nothing in New Brunswick--and Seton Hall, which despite being private doesn't have as strong a reputation as Rutgers Law. Princeton famously has no law school.[[/note]] or Montclair State University, and for good reason.) Also, much of the old Bell System, and then AT&T (the ''old'' AT&T, that is; the current AT&T is really SBC/Southwestern Bell using the AT&T name, and is even based in Dallas) was based in Central Jersey; Bell Labs (the inventor of the transistor and the laser) was headquartered in Murray Hill (still occupied by Nokia, which bought Alcatel-Lucent; Lucent was the original Bell Labs, spun off by AT&T in 1996) with a major complex in Holmdel. Their long-distance operations were based in Basking Ridge for many years before moving to Bedminster (still in use by the modern AT&T), and various other facilities were scattered throughout this area. The reason was they needed to move away from the congested, chaotic environment of New York, and the state next door had plenty of land to use (one area in Chester was utilized as testing for outdoor telephone equipment, for instance).\\

** [=MetLife=] Stadium (formerly New Meadowlands Stadium), home of the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball New York Giants and Jets]][[note]]Even though neither team actually plays in New York. This led to Chris Christie pointedly and purposely referring to the Jets as the "Jersey Jets" as a bit of a TakeThat at the franchise owners for keeping "New York" in the name[[/note]], which replaced nearby Giants Stadium in 2010. The UsefulNotes/SuperBowl was held here in 2014, the first time the event was held in cold weather (all past Bowls were held in warm-weather cities or in domed stadiums); by good fortune, it was merely chilly on Super Sunday, although a major winter storm hit more or less the day after.

** WWOR-TV 9, one of the NYC area'a major television stations. Prior to 1983, when it was WOR-TV, it was based in and licensed to New York City (also serving as a national superstation like [[Creator/{{TBS}} WTBS]] and [[Creator/WGNAmerica WGN]] at the time). But their owners, [[Creator/RKORadioPictures RKO General]], were [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RKO_General#The_licensing_saga in a whole heap of trouble]] thanks to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive being as corrupt as (if not more than)]] than your average NJ politician. The state's then-Senator Bill Bradley had Congress pass a law that stated any TV station that relocated to a state without a VHF station would have its' license automatically renewed. Therefore RKO changed WOR's city of license to Secaucus on April 20, 1983. The station was required to move to NJ (though they didn't actually start broadcasting from there until three years later) and cover more of the state's events and politics. This didn't end up helping RKO, which put WOR up for sale in 1986, as the FCC prepared to strip it of its' remaining broadcasting licenses. MCA/Creator/{{Universal}} wound up the winner and renamed it to ''W''WOR-TV in early 1987, and proceeded to pour money into the station, ramping up news coverage and turning it into a hotbed of production, being the home base for ''Series/TheMortonDowneyJrShow'', the first TV version of ''Radio/TheHowardSternShow'', and other shows. (They also used footage of then-WWOR anchor Rolland Smith -- the "[[Film/TheStarWarsHolidaySpecial Fighting the Frizzies]]" guy -- to anchor news coverage of King Kong's rampage for their ''Ride/{{Kongfrontation}}'' theme park ride.) MCA/Uni was forced to spin WWOR off into its' own company in 1991 after Panasonic bought MCA (as FCC regulations say a foreign company can't own more than 25% of a TV station); WWOR was then acquired by United Television, a division of boat-maker Chris-Craft, the next year. A couple of years later it became a charter affiliate of the fledgling Creator/{{UPN}} (though they had lost their superstation feed around this time-- as an aftereffect of not being able to carry UPN programming). A few years after that Creator/{{Fox}} bought the United stations and after Creator/TheCW was announced, started their own replacement network, the infamous Creator/MyNetworkTV. After the death of NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg (who was vigilant about enforcing WWOR's coverage of NJ news, and was critical of Fox's continual budget cuts and shrinking of local programming at WWOR) in 2013, [[DownerEnding Fox cut the station's remaining newscast]] and created a [[[SerialNumbersFiledOff cheap knockoff of]] ''TMZ'' called ''Chasing New Jersey'' to fill the void. WWOR is pretty much an empty shell that carries all syndicated programming now.

** '''Long Beach Island:''' Often called "LBI", this is a land of vacation homes commonly seen as one of the more family-friendly places on the Shore. The value of beachfront property can run in the millions of dollars on the northern part of the island, though the southern part is more middle-class, commercialized, and diverse; a common saying, popularized in TheSeventies, is that "the haves turn right (south) and the have mores turn left (north)". At various points, most recently 1962, severe storms have cut the island into two or more pieces, making one think that building levees and sea walls would be an idea with unanimous support; however, opposition from homeowners fearful that the sea walls would devalue their property meant that LBI had an incomplete sea wall system when Sandy hit, leaving it one of the most devastated areas on the Shore. Locals here call tourists "bennies" and/or "shoobies".

Each half of the state has their own funnily-named 7-Eleven equivalent. As a general rule, the north has [=QuickChek=] and the south has Wawa. The former is Jersey-born (with its first store in Dunellen and current HQ in Whitehouse Station); the latter began in Philadelphia's southwestern suburbs in Delaware County, PA, but quickly crossed the river and became deeply entrenched in South Jersey. One popular definition of Central Jersey is that it's the part of the state where the two stores compete, with the southernmost [=QuickCheks=] being in Toms River and Trenton and Wawas commonly found as far north as Woodbridge and Bridgewater (though isolated Wawas can be spotted all the way in Lodi and Parsippany). And if you can't find either of them, you'll go to a Krauszer's (a Middlesex County-based chain, but with stores from Trenton up through to Paterson), a Heritage's (a Gloucester County chain, with some stores in Camden, Salem, and Cumberland), a 7-Eleven (although compared to other places, they're somewhat uncommon), a local store/deli/bodega (particularly common in the cities; Newark and Jersey City particularly have a lot of them), or a gas station mini-mart (and again, depending on where you are, it might be an Amoco-turned-BP, or a Texaco-turned-Shell). Also, the Maryland-based Royal Farms has begun invading South Jersey, encroaching on Wawa's turf (attracting the fascination of NJ.com).

** '''Education''': As noted, Central Jersey is home to New Jersey's major educational institutions, Princeton University and Rutgers University. The two are just down Route 27 from each other and are only two stops apart on New Jersey Transit (from New Brunswick, you take the train to Princeton Junction and then the Dinky to Princeton proper), and there's something of a quiet rivalry between the two (with [[SnobsVsSlobs Princeton treating Rutgers as uncouth proles not to be given the time of day, and Rutgers treating Princeton as a bunch of rich snobbish assholes]]); they played the first-ever game of UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball in 1869, using rules that looked more like the bastard child of [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball soccer]] and rugby than the modern game. (Rutgers won, by the way.) We would be remiss if we didn't note the nigh-universal consensus that Princeton, which has taken extensive steps to isolate itself in an effort to make it "nicer" is generally considered to only technically be part of New Jersey--and never mind that the Governor's official mansion, Drumthwacket, is in Princeton Borough. Also present, but usually ignored, is The College of New Jersey right outside Trenton, a public university that took Princeton's old name and is mainly focused on giving New Jersey's best and brightest a top-notch education at a reasonable price. The region's other universities are all local institutions, like Rider University, Monmouth University,[[note]]An otherwise unremarkable private institution in West Long Branch that has a pretty good political science program with a heavy emphasis on political statistics and polling; Monmouth polls are included in most major national polling averages.[[/note]] and Thomas Edison State University.

** The funniest part of this is that Christie had made his name prosecuting high-profile corruption cases, supposedly trying to clean out NJ government. To some degree, he even succeeded. Of course, then his staff turns around and does this... which to be fair, ''isn't'' exactly the kind of "corruption" he was fighting (kickbacks and sweetheart deals) but rather simple abuse of power for purely political gain. The reason Christie wanted endorsements from Democrats was to get a ''massive'' LandslideElection win in a solidly "blue" state in order to bolster his prospects to become the GOP nominee for President in 2016. It backfired, of course -- [[{{Scandalgate}} "Bridgegate"]] pretty much torpedoed Christie's chances of winning the election for President (though he still tried but dropped out of the race after the New Hampshire primaries), and also set up the whole N.J. GOP for massive defeat in the 2017 state elections even before the Donald Trump presidency made the Republican brand difficult to defend in the heavily Democratic state.

** The Amboys: Sitting on either side of the Raritan at its mouth, Perth Amboy and South Amboy are the old centers of colonial Middlesex County. Perth Amboy in particular was the colonial capital for 90 years (from 1686 to 1776), although it had to share the dignity with Burlington from 1702 on. It was later overshadowed by other cities, but today the Amboys are home to a thriving Hispanic community: 78% of residents of Perth Amboy identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2010 Census, and immigration keeps the population rising. The Amboys are a particularly strong center of the Puerto Rican community in New Jersey, with a large Puerto Rican population and a large stock of Puerto Rican businesses and politicians.

** '''Koreatown:''' Southern Bergen County (specifically Fort Lee[[note]]Or, as some jokers love to call it, "[[AsianSpeekeeEngrish Fort Rhee]]"[[/note]], Leonia, and Palisades Park, at the New Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge) is home to the largest Korean enclave in the world outside UsefulNotes/LosAngeles and Korea itself. Much of the area is thoroughly bilingual, with road signs and even ballots offered in both English and Korean.[[note]]Under New Jersey law, if enough of the population in a county has a language other than English as a first language, ballots and other government information must be provided in that language. For the most part, this means that heavily-Hispanic counties (e.g. Hudson, Essex, Union, Middlesex, Mercer, and Camden) have ballots and information in Spanish, but the Korean areas mean Bergen gets Korean ballots, and the below-mentioned Little India means Middlesex gets ballots in Gujarati. Actually, Middlesex ballots are in English, Spanish, and Gujarati, as the Amboys plus New Brunswick (and enough of Woodbridge between them) create a critical mass of Spanish-speakers as well.[[/note]] It's telling that, when Music/GirlsGeneration and other [[KoreanPopMusic K-pop]] groups [[http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/korean-invasion-new-yorkers-screaming-new-wave-pop-stars-article-1.965706 arrived to tour in America]], their first New York area stop was in Overpeck County Park, not in New York itself. It helps that the climate of the area is similar to that of [[UsefulNotes/SouthKorea Seoul]].

** '''Koreatown:''' Southern Bergen County (specifically Fort Lee[[note]]Or, as some jokers love to call it, "[[AsianSpeekeeEngrish Fort Rhee]]"[[/note]], Leonia, and Palisades Park, at the New Jersey end of the George Washington Bridge) is home to the largest Korean enclave in the world outside UsefulNotes/LosAngeles and Korea itself. Much of the area is thoroughly bilingual, with road signs and even ballots offered in both English and Korean.[[note]]Under New Jersey law, if enough of the population in a county has a language other than English as a first language, ballots and other government information must be provided in that language. For the most part, this means that heavily-Hispanic counties (e.g. Hudson, Essex, Union, and Camden) have ballots and information in Spanish, but the Korean areas mean Bergen gets Korean ballots, and the below-mentioned Little India means Middlesex gets ballots in Gujarati. Actually, Middlesex ballots are in English, Spanish, and Gujarati, as the Amboys plus New Brunswick (and enough of Woodbridge between them) create a critical mass of Spanish-speakers as well.[[/note]] It's telling that, when Music/GirlsGeneration and other [[KoreanPopMusic K-pop]] groups [[http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/korean-invasion-new-yorkers-screaming-new-wave-pop-stars-article-1.965706 arrived to tour in America]], their first New York area stop was in Overpeck County Park, not in New York itself. It helps that the climate of the area is similar to that of [[UsefulNotes/SouthKorea Seoul]].

** The American Dream Meadowlands mega-mall, the largest [[TheMall shopping mall]] in the United States (edging out the Mall of America in Minnesota) and the third-largest outside of Asia, with attractions including a Ferris wheel, an indoor ski slope, ''two'' indoor amusement parks (one a waterpark based on Creator/DreamWorksAnimation films, the other a [[Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} Nickelodeon Universe]] park), a 26-screen movie theater, and a concert hall. It is notorious in New Jersey for the depths of the DevelopmentHell that it experienced, with construction having started in 2004 only to be beset by the Great Recession, the bankruptcies of two successive developers, snow damage, and complaints from the New York Giants about the possibility of traffic jams from the mall hurting attendance on game days before it [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell finally opened]] in late 2019. And then just as things seemed like they would turn around for this place, [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic Coronavirus]] struck. Some residents say that this mall must have been built on an ancient Jimmy Hoffa [[IndianBurialGround burial ground]] to be cursed with such setbacks.