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NEW JERSEY
The long, skinny state of NEW JERSEY has been
at the heart of US history since the Revolution,
when a battle was fought at Princeton, and George
Washington spent two bleak winters at Morristown.
As the Civil War came, the state's commitment
to an industrial future ensured that, despite
its border location along the Mason–Dixon line,
it fought with the Union.
That commitment to industry has doomed New Jersey
in modern times. Most travelers only see "the
Garden State" (so called for the rich market garden
territory at the state's heart) from the stupendously
ugly New Jersey Turnpike toll road which, heavy
with truck traffic, cuts through a landscape of
gray smokestacks and industrial estates. Even
the songs of Bruce Springsteen, Asbury Park's
golden boy, paint his home state as a gritty urban
wasteland of empty lots, gray highways, lost dreams
and blue-collar tragedy.
The majority of the refineries and factories hug
only a mere fifteen-mile-wide swath along the
turnpike, but bleak cities like Newark, home to
the major airport, and Trenton, the capital, do
little to improve the look of the place and the
state suffers from a major image problem. But
there is more to New Jersey than factories and
pollution. Alongside its revolutionary history,
Thomas Paine and Walt Whitman both wrote nostalgically
of the happy years they spent there; while the
northwest corner near the Delaware Water Gap is
traced with picturesque lakes, streams and woodlands.
Best of all, the Atlantic shore offers many bustling
resorts, from the tattered glitz of Atlantic City
to the glorious kitsch of Wildwoods and the old-world
charm of Cape May.
Inland New Jersey
Traveling west on the interstates from the
shore or from New York City, visitors see the
New Jersey of popular imagination: heavily industrialized,
a cultural desert, peppered with run-down cities
like Trenton and Paterson. Newark, the state's
largest city, is perhaps the nation's drabbest,
redeemed only by its efficient airport, new performing
arts center, and views over the Hudson to the
Statue of Liberty (which is, incidentally, in
New Jersey waters). The one place that holds interest
in inland New Jersey is Princeton, an Ivy League
town that makes a pretty if limited stopoff.
New Jersey shore
New Jersey's Atlantic coast, a 130-mile stretch
of almost uninterrupted resorts – some rowdy,
many pitifully run-down and faded, a few undeveloped
and peaceful – has long been reliant on farming
and tourism. No profitable ports were established,
nor did short-lived attempts at whaling come to
anything. In the late 1980s the whole coastline
suffered severe and well-publicized pollution
from ocean dumping, but today the beaches, if
occasionally somewhat crowded, are safe and clean:
sandy, broad and lined by characteristic wooden
boardwalks, some of which, in an attempt to maintain
their condition, charge admission during the summer.
The rundown glitz of Atlantic City is perhaps
the shore's best known attraction, but there are
also quieter resorts like Spring Lake and historic
Victorian Cape May, plus local gems like Wildwood
that are worth the journey further down the coast.
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view Vacation Rental Homes in NEW JERSEY click
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