So, a friend of mine sent me this column yesterday from the Times, a love story with my neighborhood in Jersey City.
Let me start out by saying I think this is a lovely piece on finding where one belongs, and it's especially nice that it's the place I happen to live too. Not enough good things are ever said about New Jersey, especially Jersey City, so it's refreshing to see someone openly admit to their hesitation to moving there and then embracing it. The fact that she doesn't take the easy way out by leaning on "Jersey" cliches alone scores points. As a personal essay, I completely appreciated it.
That said, I have to take issue with some things, because it did strike my Sensitive New Jersey Accuracy Nerve:
Jersey City is not a place that people come to from distant parts of the country with great intention and purpose. It is a place that people come to from distant parts of New Jersey.
Now, you know I am from New Jersey, right? So full-disclosure on that count: She's right about me. However, out of my circle of friends who live/have lived in Jersey City, I am one of maybe two or three native Jerseyites. The rest? Are from Iowa (3 people), Pittsburgh, Texas, California, Maryland and Virginia. I'm not saying the city isn't made up of many lifelong state locals - just that it's had its fair share of transplants in recent years and is not merely a refuge for those of us who grew up in the Garden State and are New York allergic or whatever.
Also: I highly doubt that Brooklyn, where the writer moved to originally, is made up entirely of transplants and that it is devoid of people who grew up there (or even on Long Island). I hear too many Brooklyn accents in my day to know this cannot be the case.
They like the proximity to the city, the almost New Yorkness...
This is where I had to just sigh deeply. The reason I live in Jersey City isn't because it is almost New York. It's because it's not New York. Nothing against The Big City where I spend my working days and many nights, but I value quietness and semi-calm more than I do Being In The Center of It All (like the Milford Plaza... If you understand that reference, you probably grew up around here). My neighborhood may be considered "urban" but in the evenings, it's as quiet as my parents' suburban home. The buildings are all pretty much four-stories or smaller in my section, so you can see the sky here. Cabs may not really come here, but then neither do tourists (unless they're staying near Exchange Place, but even then they are mostly in the city all day). There's a legit mall and Target within walking distance of my place. It has an absolutely gorgeous waterfront. It's far less populated than where most of my friends and family live in Manhattan, and the price tag for my rent is decidedly not New Yorkish. I don't think the want of peace and quiet is an exclusively Jerseyite trait, either, which is perhaps why my out-of-town friends moved here, too.
80s New York-themed commercials WERE THE BEST
In short: The only bearing New York has on my living in Jersey City is that it's where I work and hangout with friends and I want a short-ass ride to get there. And to the Yankees.
...combined with the convenience and comfort of still being in New Jersey.
This I found slightly condescending. To say that I, as a native New Jerseyite, live in Jersey City because it is comfortable is pretty much saying I have not cut the apron strings from this state (fact check: I went to college in Delaware and lived in Astoria at the turn of the century. The only reason I left is because my elderly landlord, who lived upstairs, wanted his son to take over my apartment and I didn't have enough money to move elsewhere. I'd still probably be there if not for that) or that somehow every part of the state is covered in familiarness if you grew up here. I can tell you right now, with as many suburbanish qualities as Jersey City possesses it is in NO WAY like my hometown. Nor is it like Cape May. Nor Princeton. Nor the Pine Barrens. The state is varied as all get out. And if someone were to offer me my choice of a free apartment in New York or New Jersey, I wouldn't be like "The Jersey one, of course. Because it's what I know. JERSEY PRIDE, BITCHEZ."
But the author is only one of many I've heard who has had or still carries a similar view of "New York or Bust", and the stress some transplants put on being from New York, and therefore, Death Before Jersey, has always puzzled me. Because while my friends who are legit born-and-raised New York Cityites have a great sense of pride in where they're from - like most people have in their hometowns - it's not something they flash around like a badge or gnash their teeth over if they end up moving to, god forbid, the other side of the Hudson. One native Manhattanite didn't even bat an eye about moving to Hoboken - Jesus, he WANTED to move there. Another was surprised how adorable Hoboken was and thought of moving there herself before an almost unheard of deal on the Upper West Side came through. They don't view New Jersey as a leper colony or whatever the hip thing is.
Also: Brooklyn and Manhattan are amazing and I'd consider living in Brooklyn myself... but I've never been bowled-over impressed if someone says they live in either place or possess a license from there. Am I supposed to be? Is that a side effect of growing up around here - deadened to the glamorousness of laminated New York addresses?
Anyway, just because you don't live in the five boroughs, doesn't mean you can't enjoy all their perks and conveniences (especially with a ten minute train ride to Manhattan). And unless borders go up and the states declare war on each other, there's no stopping us Jerseyites from doing so at any given moment. So, no, I don't have any inferiority complex or penis envy or whatever it is I, as a Garden Stater, am assumed by many to have because I didn't grow up in/or live in The Big City.
It also means the city has never let me down because I didn't come to it with crazy high expectations (all those New York newscasts I watched as a kid - you don't have to live in NYC to have had Ernie Anastos, Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons in your homes nightly - kind of helped with that. Preppy Murders and Zodiac Killers and I still wanted to hang out there as an adult? What?) and I've never blamed it for when I've been unhappy. I've always let it be what it is, it lets me enjoy its myriad things to do and we've always been friends for it.
And when I go back to the Jersey Side at night, we wave at each other and say, "Go Yankees" or "See you tomorrow" or whatever.
Because it's New Jersey. Not Mars.
