Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
LOL<puzzled look> you mean he was kiddin?
come on. mine was typed with the same amount of sarcasm.
Phewwwww
I was getting worried for a minute
We can only be rude to 1 guest at a time on the NJ forum
so i was going to tell you to come back in a few years when the other guest finally gets tired
I was getting worried for a minute
We can only be rude to 1 guest at a time on the NJ forum
so i was going to tell you to come back in a few years when the other guest finally gets tired
You know we have some sort of Master of Words here when a former Jerseyan took it seriously............( I swear, I was seeing those mountains plowed down, with malls cropping up and the farmers heading West)
Badfish needs a job working for some Newspaper immediately
Why some political hopeful hasn't scooped him up for their speech writer I don't know.
And that Brian G with the "guest", cracks me up every single time!!
I just read his Cities of New Jersey and
The heck with the newspapers , We got to find a publisher for him so he can write a book . Maybe he will share his fortune with the rest of us low lifes so we can all move south and have our own window washer from Westfield
Newton can beat that. We have a Dunkin Donuts on Route 206 just north of the town. Another one opened up inside the Walmart down the road. A recent newspaper article mentioned that the town approved some type of development near the Home Depot for Kohls, Wachovia and, guess what, a Dunkin Donuts. Just what we need, 3 of them within a couple hundred yards. I'm surprised that a town of 8,000 people has managed to get by this long with only 3 supermarkets, 7 banks, 10 car dealerships, 2 hardware chains, 8 pizzarias, 4 pharmacies (2 of them Rite Aid) and just about anything else you would find in the yellow pages (except a bookstore for some reason).
The OP made a good point about the skylands region. Developers up here are fuming that the lake at Swartswood state park has not been drained yet to make room for 500 mansions to be crammed into lots the size of a baseball diamond. If they ever fly in an airplane and see an aerial view, it's a constant reminder that there are still trees to be eliminated in favor of that next diner that will get NJ into the record books.
All kidding aside for a minute
You have some beautiful scenery out there in Newton
I was in Newton Memorial hospital last weekend and will be back this saturday , And the surrounding town I think the name was Ferdon or something like that .This time i am going to stop at one of those markets on the side of the road with the home made pies and sweet corn (dz for 3.00)
Every house on the outskirts of town had to have a few acres of land and they were all very nice looking from the outside
Wow-sure didn't expect all of the accolades. Thanks all! To answer JerZ's questions, yes, I wrote it on my lunch break. I do quite a bit of writing for my job and I'm an avid reader. My fiancee is an English teacher and is pursuing a Master's in writing, so I guess that doesn't hurt either. The post I engaged in about Trenton inspired me to write, which in case you couldn't tell, I feel passionately about. It really burns me when folks literally turn their backs on the cities that spawned the communities they live in and in many cases, their ancestors! The same people who now live in the outlying suburbs of the city (myself included) more often than not have ties to it.
I have the same perspective on cities as ScrantonWilkesBarre (thanks for the kind words by the way) which I gained from having a very "split" upbringing. My mother is from a working class neighborhood in Trenton and my father grew up on a small farm in Hamilton. I got my street smarts and appreciation of urban life from my mother and my common sense rural know how from my father.
My whole outlook is that cities need to be made livable again, not forgotten about and left to rot. IF and only if we make them safe, clean, healthy places for children to grow, and people to live in general, we can stem growth of the ever expanding suburbs. New Jersey has done a lot of bad things in the past with regards to sprawl, but its done a lot of great things too, like preserving the Pinelands and turning the failed Tocks Island Dam project into the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area. However, we need to do more before ALL of our family farms and otherwise unprotected open space disappears. Case in point-here in Washington Township (one of the 7 or so in NJ ) there exists the "Washington Town Center." WTC is a planned community of mostly townhomes, some "loft" (they're new construction, not NYC style converted factory lofts) condominiums, and light retail all mashed into about 350 acres of what USED to be rowcrops. Someone please tell me how forced urbanization of what was clearly rural works. The developers touted the fact that people wouldn't have to use their cars as much because they could walk to the store. Big deal. WTC isn't near any rail, light rail, bus, etc...so people will still be leaving en masse in the morning to go to work in their cars and doing the reverse at night, bringing untold amounts of congestion to the area.
Meanwhile we let beautiful 1850s era housing stock rot in the city of Trenton. Mom and pop businesses close because people refuse to go into the city, and the sidewalks roll up at night when the state workers go home. People in Hamilton and elsewhere either lament the changes or simply "don't go there" anymore. What Hamiltonians are quickly finding out though is that gang members realize that relatively few folks in Trenton are worth robbing, but the safe suburbs of the outlying municipalities are ripe for the picking. One can only hope that soon many residents will shake off the notion that they can simply ignore the problem and instead will join the fight to do something about it.
Anyway, before I get too carried away with myself I'll stop, because the point of this thread was to defuse the growing anger in the original thread with humor. I like to think I'm the kind of guy who knows when to be serious and when not to be. So call me a hippie, call me a bleeding heart, call me a member of the P.C. police trying to lure unsuspecting suburbanites to certain doom in New Jersey's cities...but don't you dare move next door to me and complain about the noise when I shoot the raccoon that's been getting in my garbage, the deer that's hanging from my tree, or the sound of my Powerstroke diesel firing up at 6:30 in the morning. I sound like the typical pinko commie liberal right?
Oops, I'm obviously a day late & a dollar short! I finally read the whole thread and saw that NJ's favorite visitor did indeed make an appearance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianG
Yes our visitor was here and will be back
Am I missing something here? Are you referencing me? Diane Giam? JimmyLane? The Jersey Devil? Adolf Hitler? Rosie O'Donnell?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
