Joisey/Trivia

Because a lot of the information and New Jersey trivia on the main page was making it rather unwieldy to read, we've given it its own separate page.

Geography


Geographically, New Jersey can be divided into the following regions, only some of which are recognized by Hollywood:


 * Newark: The largest city in New Jersey, and its most famous ghetto. Took over New York's role as Gangsterland after New York became cleaner -- something that is Truth in Television. Time magazine did a cover story on it, calling it the most dangerous city in America. Also the site of the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, the largest seaport on the East Coast (and, as recently as 1985, the largest in the world), and Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the New York area's three airports. Sometimes, Camden or Asbury Park is used in this role. Often cited as the home of Lauryn Hill, even though she is actually from middle-class South Orange. The closer you live to Newark, the more likely you are to pronounce it "Nork", not "New-werk". If you are utterly lost, you will pronounce it "New-ark", which is in Delaware, not New Jersey.
 * The New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway: The state's main north-south highways, both of which are toll roads. With regards to the Turnpike, this trope and stereotype refers specifically to the "Chemical Coast," the industrial areas cluttered around the northern part of the Turnpike, centered on the cities of Newark and Elizabeth. This area is highly polluted, giving the whole stretch a distinctive smell (the phrase "15 Miles of Universal Fart" has been used to describe it). Stereotypes of this region often overlap with those of Newark. The Interstate Highway System took many of its design cues from the Turnpike.

The Garden State Parkway extends much further south, serving as the main artery to the Shore extending all the way down to Cape May, as well as cutting through much of the heart of New Jersey's Suburbia. In the summer, it often turns into the Garden State Parking Lot thanks to the dreaded phenomenon known as "Shore traffic".

A run-into-the-ground joke aimed at New Jerseyans is the "You're from Jersey? What exit?" line. Neither the Turnpike nor the Parkway, but using this line to a real New Jerseyan just might earn you a boot up the ass.
 * Unless it's Exit 63 on the Parkway, which is synonymous with Long Beach Island.
 * Hudson County: Located across the Hudson River from New York City and dubbed the "sixth borough", this is probably the most New York-like place in the state. Major cities include Jersey City, Hoboken, and Bayonne. One of the most culturally diverse counties in the USA.
 * 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 2010 census are in). The city is very, very 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 a chunk of Newark that broke off.

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are geographically located just off the coast of Jersey City in the Hudson River, causing many New Jerseyans to express the view that they are (or should be) property of Jersey City, and thus the State of New Jersey, not New York. However, most New Yorkers will angrily dismiss this idea if you mention it in their presence. The city government uses images of the Statue of Liberty on official documents and the "Welcome to Jersey City" signs.
 * Hoboken: The yuppie and hipster capital of New Jersey. Home of Stevens Institute of Technology, otherwise known as New Jersey's MIT.
 * Bergen County: New Jersey's most populous county. The part that most New Yorkers see coming over the George Washington Bridge. Often stereotyped largely as a land of rich Republicans (or, as that map to the right puts it, "Christie Country" ), though central and southeastern Bergen are more moderate, and the county has voted Democratic during Presidential elections since 1996. It's typically ranked in the top five counties in the nation with the highest property taxes; the fact that two other New Jersey counties are in front of it for the top spot says something about the state. Despite being about 9% Jewish and having a sizable Muslim minority, it is the last county in New Jersey, and one of the last counties in the nation, that still has blue laws on the books closing shops on Sundays. Most people have opted to keep it not due to religion, but in order to protest commercialization and in order to have one day of peace and quiet per week.
 * Koreatown: Southern Bergen County (specifically Fort Lee, Leonia and Palisades Park, just over the George Washington Bridge) is home to the largest Korean enclave in the world outside Los Angeles and Korea itself. Much of the area is thoroughly bilingual, with road signs and even ballots offered in both English and Korean. It's telling that, when Girls' Generation and other K-pop groups 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 Seoul.
 * The Meadowlands: A swampy area in northern Hudson, southern Bergen and eastern Essex Counties, at the terminus of the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers as they enter Newark Bay. Thanks to those two rivers, both of which are polluted to an ungodly level (some areas along the lower Passaic are still closed off due to dioxin pollution), as well as having been used as a landfill in the past (including rubble from London Town after World War II), the swamps of the Meadowlands are one of the main areas that gives New Jersey its reputation as a Literal Metaphor dump. It is the site of:
 * Metlife Stadium (formerly New Meadowlands Stadium), home of the New York Giants and Jets, which replaced nearby Giants Stadium in 2010. The Super Bowl will be held here in 2014, the first time the event will be held in cold weather (all past Bowls were held in warm-weather cities or in domed stadiums).
 * The Izod Center, former home of the New Jersey Nets and New Jersey Devils, who have since moved to the Prudential Center in Newark. It is also used as a major concert arena.
 * The under-construction American Dream Meadowlands mega-mall, which will be by far the largest mall in North America and the largest outside of Asia... if it ever gets finished.
 * A large number of dead Mob hits. One of the (many) locations proposed to be Jimmy Hoffa's final resting place was under the stands of the old Giants Stadium.
 * The Skylands: A region that consists roughly of Somerset, Hunterdon, Warren, Sussex, and Morris Counties, and the West Milford region of Passaic County. Overlaps with North and Central Jersey. Most of these areas are essentially farmland and wilderness (suburban development is limited mainly to eastern Morris and Somerset thanks to New Jersey's strong environmental laws ), which is why they are conspicuously absent from most media portrayals of the state. If referenced at all, it will usually be the site of Summer Campy, the Horrible Camping Trip, or a ski resort. Oh, and speaking of camp, don't work as a counselor if you value your life. Action Park used to be located out here (and as of 2014, will be again).
 * Central Jersey: To hear it from someone from the area, Central Jersey is a distinct region of the state consisting of the area covered by the Raritan Valley, in Hunterdon, Mercer, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties. To hear it from someone from North or South Jersey, Central Jersey is a nonexistent entity that is really an extension of North Jersey, and its residents all have an inferiority complex. 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 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, or Montclair State University, and for good reason.)

In addition to the above counties, many people in Central Jersey count the northernmost part of Ocean County as part of Central Jersey. This is mainly because this sliver of land includes the community of Jackson Township, home of Six Flags Great Adventure, as well as the beach town of Point Pleasant. South Jerseyans, naturally, consider it to be in South Jersey. A few people split the difference and say South Central New Jersey, but in their hearts, they know that they'll have to wait for the Cubs to win the Series before most of New Jersey accepts such a thing.
 * The Jersey Shore: New Jersey's coastline, and a major summer destination for New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, and New Jerseyans alike. It used to have a reputation for being dirty due to the infamous "syringe tide" in the late '80s, when used syringes and other medical waste started washing up on the shore from the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island (in short, it wasn't even New Jersey's fault!). Now, thanks to MTV, it's has a reputation for being covered in another kind of trash, once again imported from out of state. Towns and destinations along the Shore include Asbury Park (the Shore's gay mecca and a hub of rock music), Point Pleasant, Toms River, Seaside Heights (yes, that Seaside Heights), Long Beach Island (or LBI in local parlance), Atlantic City (which has legal gambling, and often shares tropes with Las Vegas), Wildwood, and Cape May.
 * South Jersey: With the exception of the Shore, this area, like the Highlands, is rarely seen in the media, due to the fact that it's more closely associated with Philadelphia than New York City. Often shown as being poorer than the rest of the state, with the suburbs being more working-class. This is partially Truth in Television, but not exactly -- a visit to Cherry Hill, Moorestown, or Medford would quickly discredit this assumption. Home to two towns named Haddonfield and Voorhees, which are served (along with Gibbsboro) by the same freeway exit. If producers need a Gangsterland, then Camden (in terms of crime rate, imagine a Fun Size Detroit) is often used in place of Newark.

Residents are known to react even worse to the standard New Jersey jokes. The Turnpike has very few exits to the southern half of the state (and the Parkway has none outside of the Shore), and the near-absence of chemical and industrial plants results in little pollution. Plus, there are still many, many thriving farms in the area, as it is relatively undeveloped outside of the Shore and the Delaware Valley, lending some credence to the state nickname that so many seem to think is ironic -- "The Garden State."

Definitions of South Jersey will vary depending on who you ask. Some will define the region as everything south of Interstate 195. Others will draw a line starting just south of Trenton and ending just north of Atlantic City, and classify South Jersey as everything south of that line. Many in Monmouth County will make the cutoff for South Jersey anything south of Toms River in Ocean County, while many people in South Jersey will make the cutoff at Howell Township in Monmouth County instead, a definition that follows county lines more neatly. A few people go so far as to count everything south of Newark as South Jersey, a definition that includes New Brunswick and even Elizabeth. Needless to say, the distinction causes a lot of arguments within the state.
 * The Pine Barrens: Firmly straddling the blurry dividing line between Central and South Jersey is a region composed of hundreds of square miles of primeval pine forest, growing from a white sandy soil. Home to ghost towns, cranberry bogs, blueberry farms, and uncounted miles of dirt roads, the Barrens are a zone of complete wilderness that is unusual in any Eastern state, let alone the most densely populated state in America. In fact, at night from orbit, the Barrens are a black hole in the center of the golden light of the Washington-Philadelphia-New York conurbation -- in this photo from the ISS, the Barrens are the black spot below the middle "glow" of the three that stand out in the center of the right side of the image.)

A great majority of the state's stories of ghosts and pirates are set in or have ties to the Pine Barrens, and the Jersey Devil calls them its home, making it an out-of-New England branch of Lovecraft Country. (Mysterious Real Life phenomena such the unidentified booming noises which have rattled the area on a regular basis for decades just add to the mystique.) For someone whose only exposure to New Jersey is Chemical Alley and Newark, discovering that there is a part of the state where you can drive for an hour and see virtually nothing but pine trees can be somewhat disconcerting.

New Jersey facts
Some random facts about life in New Jersey.

Jersey Girls Don't Pump Gas
New Jersey is one of only two states (the other being 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 Friday the 13 th remake) portray characters from New Jersey pumping their own gas.

Contrary to popular belief, this barely affects the price of gasoline in the state. New Jersey has some of the cheapest gas in the nation, though much of that has to do with it being home to several major oil refineries, which reduces the distance gasoline has to take to get from the boats to the pumps. (That smell is good for sumthin', huh?) New Jersey also has some of the lowest gasoline taxes in the nation, which also helps. People entering New York are often told to fill up at one of the many gas stations on the New Jersey side of the border before they cross.

The White Picket Fence State
Very large tracts of New Jersey consist of suburban development. For a state of nearly nine million people, the fact that no one city holds more than 300,000 people, and only one city has more than 250,000, 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. 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, possessing good schools (or at least, good-looking schools with impressive athletics departments), covered in shopping malls, and being inhabited by mobsters (there's a reason The Sopranos took place here). Also, there is an under-reported problem with gangs and drug dealing in schools, particularly in Bergen County. Make no mistake -- Gang-Bangers and drug dealers are not to be scoffed at even if they're White Gang-Bangers.

In recent decades, suburban sprawl has grown to the point where the state government considers it a threat to New Jersey's environmental integrity. Whereas the smokestacks of the Chemical Coast only stink up the Chemical Coast, out-of-control sprawl can lead to soil erosion and, with it, flooding and landslides, and is now starting to push into the state's water supply in the Skylands. Consequently, in 2004 the state passed the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act in order to contain the growth of New York's exurbs.

That Smell
The (in)famous "Jersey stench" has been 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. 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 "Jersey Doesn't Stink" campaign dedicated to combating negative stereotypes of the state.

Famous New Jerseyans
For some reason, New Jersey has a very high output of famous people.

Okay, seriously, it probably has something to do with the fact that the state sits right across the Hudson from New York City, the second-largest film production center on the continent and the capital of the American TV industry, as well as a major center of the music, fashion, art and advertising worlds. It's a very large and accessible pool of talent to draw from, not to mention that many people who work in New York have homes in the suburbs to commute from.

Actors

 * Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
 * Jason Alexander
 * John Amos
 * Emma Bell
 * Jason Biggs
 * Katrina Bowden
 * Bobby Cannavale
 * Vincent Curatola
 * Hope Davis
 * Danny DeVito
 * Taye Diggs
 * Peter Dinklage
 * Michael Douglas
 * Kirsten Dunst
 * Linda Fiorentino
 * James Gandolfini
 * Janeane Garofalo
 * Liz Gillies
 * Ed Harris
 * Anne Hathaway
 * Monica Keena (although she was raised in Brooklyn)
 * Jane Krakowski
 * Frank Langella
 * Ali Larter
 * Queen Latifah
 * Robert Sean Leonard
 * Jerry Lewis
 * Ray Liotta
 * Quincy Magoo
 * Jason Mewes
 * Lea Michele
 * Frankie Muniz
 * Brittany Murphy
 * Jack Nicholson
 * Joe Pantoliano
 * Kal Penn
 * Joe Pesci
 * Michael Pitt
 * Laura Prepon
 * Tara Reid
 * Christina Ricci
 * Zoe Saldana
 * Elisabeth Shue
 * Kevin Smith
 * Kevin Spacey
 * Jon Stewart
 * Meryl Streep
 * Ashley Tisdale
 * John Travolta
 * James Urbaniak
 * Frank Vincent
 * Bruce Willis
 * Pia Zadora

Comedians

 * Chelsea Handler
 * Bill Maher
 * Mike Marino
 * Jon Stewart

Internet Personalities

 * James Rolfe
 * Online film critic James Berardinelli

Musicians and Bands

 * Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys
 * Akon
 * Bon Jovi
 * The Bouncing Souls
 * Bill Evans
 * Fountains of Wayne
 * The Four Seasons
 * The Gaslight Anthem
 * Lauryn Hill
 * Whitney Houston
 * The Jonas Brothers
 * Christina Milian
 * The Misfits
 * My Chemical Romance
 * Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
 * Overkill
 * Redman
 * Frank Sinatra
 * Bruce Springsteen
 * Voltaire
 * Zakk Wylde

Politicians

 * Grover Cleveland (although he was raised in upstate New York)
 * Jim McGreevey
 * Woodrow Wilson (he was born in Virginia and first moved to New Jersey as a transfer student to Princeton)

Other

 * Tyler Clementi
 * George "geohot" Hotz (aka "the man who unlocked the iPhone and PlayStation 3")
 * Andrew Schlafly
 * Hal Turner

As you can see, We Are Everywhere.

So there you have it. The All The Tropes tour of the Garden State. Hopefully your gas tank isn't too far in the red from not trusting Jersey pump jockeys, you should be able to make it to the Sloatsburg rest stop on the New York Thruway on that...Now to send those Bennies back where they came from...